"I always am," put in Lucia.
"But they were more tremendous than usual that night. You discovered that you didn't like men, and that you didn't want to marry, but that you wouldn't mind having some nice old man to be kind to you and kiss you. Immediately after which you fell head over ears in love with Edgar. My gracious! how you have changed since then, and how I have!"
Lucia at that moment did not want to talk exclusively about herself. Maud's remark that immediately afterwards she had fallen in love with Edgar was one that had better be let go by.
"I don't think you have changed in the least," she said. " You are just what you always were—kind and quiet and wise."
Maud gave a little sigh, half closing her eyes a moment as the head-lights of a motor coming up the road outside flared into them.
"But I feel absolutely different," she said. "I should not know myself for the same person. I look back on myself then as—as a girl lying fast asleep, not even dreaming."
"Ah, that may be," said Lucia; "all girls are asleep, I think. Then somebody comes and pinches them, and they awake. But they are the same girls. I was asleep, too, but I used to dream a good deal. And when I woke up my dream came true."
Lucia paused a moment; she felt a certain undertone going on in her mind, some submerged current of regret, of disappointment. This was very unusual to her; she had not generally either leisure or inclination for such thoughts.
"But I'm not sure that the dreams were not even more vivid than the reality," she said, "and they certainly had that fiery, absorbing quality which is characteristic of dreams. Dreaming, you have no before or after; it is a series of burning moments. But reality—there is so much repetition about it. The burning moment burns itself out, and you have to clear up the ashes. In dreams there are no ashes. Dear me, I seldom think of disagreeable things! I wonder if I have eaten anything that has disagreed with me."
"I don't think so," said Maud. "Do go on. I'm disagreeing with every word you say."
"That's a comfort. Whenever people agree with me it is probably because I have said something hopelessly commonplace. Indeed, what I'm saying now is. Surely the anticipation of a pleasant thing is keener than its fulfilment. One enjoys the moment the lights go down at 'Tristan' before the overture
