"He might have said: 'Your loveliness confounds me. You are the most beautiful vision I have ever dreamed.' ... What does she say, Japonette?"
"She says: 'For a moment I was afraid you'd filled your suit cases with our silver; but you are so obviously nice that I am not alarmed any more. I'm merely ashamed to be caught here in this theatrical dress.' What might he have said to that, Jim?"
"He might have said: 'Is it a heavenly possibility that you are real, and not a vision? Allah is merciful to the believer in dreams. Your name is Youth and Beauty; I will call you Japonette, but the high white gods have named you Diana.' ... And what does she say, Japonette?"
"She might have answered: 'O youth with the engaging smile, out of my breast you have charmed the winged heart, and it is fluttering there above you, restless, uncertain—just beyond your reach.' ... And what does—might he have answered, Jim?"
"He might have said: 'I love you, but my outward self does not know it yet—will not know it, even on the roof garden—even when the sun hangs low and the starlings pipe, and all the west is a glory of gold and rose; and I shall never know it until you lead me back from to-morrow, through the magic path of days and hours, to the true world of yesterday.' ... What answer does she make Diana?"
His voice had grown very unsteady; he lay there looking at her, the smile stamped on his lips. And her faint smile had become fixed, too.
"She made no answer," said Diana.
"She might have.... Remember, all this is what they might have said."
"And did not.... I don't know what she might have said." ... Suddenly she flung the green sash of leaves from her body, tore the scarlet wood lilies from her hair, and flung them away with a gay, little laugh.
"What an idle, silly pair we are," she said. "I've had my nap. I'm awake, now."