“‘The world is so dear to me because of you. I am so freshly conscious of its roundness, of the profile of its coasts as seen from above; of its light and darkness, the sharpness of sun in the retreating gray, of its skies and its peaks, the last to darken and the first to answer the morn.... I put the candle away just now, and in the darkness I saw the Earth from above—not from afar, but from some space nearer than the moon. I saw it all at once. The moon shining upon one side, the sun shining upon the other—a golden side, a silver side.... And I saw you afterward—not as you are in the studio, but as a shadowed, quiet figure among moonlit ruins. You were calm, and moved silently here and there. Ruins were about you, yet you seemed to know the things to do.’ What does it mean?”
“What does it mean, Helen?” Betty repeated.
The other’s eyes filled with tears. The question might have come from a little old lady of eighty, whose house of life was locked, all but the sitting-room.
“It’s just a dream, dear,” she whispered.
“There are no ruins about me—when you are here,” Betty said.
“Ruins, dearest?... No, gardens and living temples——”
Betty arose, and moved slowly up and down the studio, then stood by her chair. The impulse even to lift her hand was unusual. She moved now with difficulty, but was not conscious of it. The room was dark, except for the one wall-light. Helen went to her side, helped her at last to the chair. Betty’s face was deathly, but there was a mournful reasonableness in her eyes, a faint grasp of actuality, that the other had not seen for weeks. The old enemies, memory and hope, were in feeble conflict.
“Do you think he means that I am not well?”
“He was only expressing a dream-picture.... I’m sure he hasn’t interpreted it——”
“But he will. That comes afterward——”