"Didn't you say," Adrian asked, "that the old lady told all about her past quite quietly, just as if she had been speaking of somebody else? Your very expression, ma'am! You see, she was to all intents and purposes somebody else then, or has become somebody else now. I always wonder, whether, if one had left oneself—one of one's selves—behind in the past, like old Mrs. Picture, and some strange navigation on the sea of life were to land one in a long-forgotten port, where the memory still hung on, in a mind or two, of the self one had left behind—would the self one had grown to be bring conviction to the mind or two? Wouldn't the chance survivors who admitted that you were Jack or Jim or Polly be discouraged if they found that Jack or Jim or Polly had forgotten the old pier that was swept away, or the old pub which the new hotel was, once. Wouldn't they discredit you? Wouldn't they decide that, for all your bald, uninteresting identity—mere mechanical sameness—you wouldn't wash?"
"Rip van Winkle washed," said Gwen.
"Because Washington Irving chose. I sometimes imagine Rip isn't really true. Anyhow, his case doesn't apply. He remembered everything as if it was yesterday. For him, it was yesterday. So he was the same man, both in theory and practice. Jack and Jim and Polly were to forget, by hypothesis."
"Does old Mrs. Picture?" asked Irene.
"I should say—very little," said Gwen. "Less now than when I took her first to Cavendish Square. She'll get very communicative, I've no doubt, if she's fed up, in the country air. I shall see to that myself. So Mrs. Masham had better look out."
"There's mamma!" said Irene suddenly. "I'll go and see that she gets her writing things.... No—don't you move! She won't come in here. She wants to write important letters. You sit still." And Irene went off to intercept the Miss Abercrombie her father had married all those years ago instead of Gwen's mother. She does not come much into this story, but its reader may be interested to know that she was an enthusiastic Abolitionist, and a friend of the Duchess of Sutherland. There was only one thing in those days that called for abolition—negro slavery in America; so everyone who recollects the fifties will know what an Abolitionist was. Nevertheless, though Lady Torrens happens to keep outside the story, it would have been quite another story without her.
Adrian was a good son, and loved his mother duly. She returned his affection, but could not stand his poetical effusions, which she thought showed an irreverent spirit. We are not quite sure they did not.
CHAPTER III
HOW AN OLD LADY WAS TAKEN FOR A DRIVE, AND SAW JONES'S BULL, ALL IN A DREAM. STRIDES COTTAGE AND A STRANGE CONTIGUITY. AFTER SIXTY YEARS! HOW TOBY SMASHED A PANE OF GLASS WITH A HORSE-CHESTNUT, AND NEARLY HAD NO SUGAR IN HIS BREAD-AND-MILK. HOW THE OLD BODY CURTSIED AND THE OLD SOUL DIDN'T GO TO SLEEP. HOW GWEN NEARLY FORGOT TO INTRODUCE THEM. HOW MRS. PICTURE KNOCKED UP AND RAN DOWN,—BUT WOULD NOT HAVE MUTTON BROTH. BUT NEITHER KNEW! HOW MRS. PICTURE THOUGHT MRS. MARRABLE A NICE PERSON. HOW GWEN LUNCHED WITH HER PARENTS. "REALLY, OUR DAUGHTER!" HOW LOOKING AMUSED DOES NO GOOD. WAS GWEN JONES'S BULL, OR HOW? NORBURY AS AN ORACLE. HOW THE EARL WENT ROUND TO SEE THE FAIRY GODMOTHER