Of course I know what it all came
from. Michael had wanted me to read Hans Andersen's fairy
stories--don't you think they're pretty? I do; but sometimes they
are about rather silly things, skewers and lucifer matches ... and I
had spent the afternoon at the Zoo. Michael's a fellow, of course,
and I use his ticket and always feel quite at home there ... and at
the Zoo that day I had seen one of the sea-lions trying to walk on
his tail.... Oh, _how_ I laughed! But what made me associate the
sea-lion with you and mermaids, I cannot say, but then as poor papa
used to say, 'Dreams are funny things'..."
David's replies were hardly audible, and to his hostess's pressing
entreaties that he would try this dish or not pass that, he did not
answer at all. He felt, indeed, as though the muscles of his throat
would not let him swallow and if he opened his mouth wide enough to
utter a consecutive speech he would burst out crying. A great
desire--almost unknown to Vivie hitherto--seized him to get away
to some lonely spot and cry and cry, give full vent to some
unprecedented fit of hysteria. He could not look at Rossiter though
he knew that Michael's eyes were resting on his face, because if he
attempted to reply to the earnest gaze by a reassuring smile, the
lips would tremble and the tears would fall.
At last when the dessert was reached and the servants--_do_ they
never feel telepathically at such moments that some one person
seated at the table, crumbling bread, wishes them miles away and
loathes their quiet ministrations?--the servants had withdrawn for a
brief respite till they reappeared with coffee, David rose to his
feet and stammered out something about not being well--would they
order the motor and let him go? And as he spoke, and tried to speak
in a level, "society" voice, his aching eyes saw the electric lamps,
the glinting silver, Mrs.
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