Page:The cream of the jest; a comedy of evasions (IA creamofjestcomed00caberich).pdf/79

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parsimony, don't you think, thus to make one nightmare serve for two people? Or perhaps it is the bit of metal I found this afternoon—"

And the girl nodded. "Yes, it is on account of the sigil of Scoteia. I have the other half, you know."

"What does this mean, Ettarre—?" he began; and reaching forward, was about to touch her, when the universe seemed to fold about him, just as a hand closes. . . .

And Felix Kennaston was sitting at the writing-table in the library, with a gleaming scrap of metal before him; and, as the clock showed, it was bedtime.

"Well, it is undoubtedly quaint how dreams draw sustenance from half-forgotten happenings," he reflected; "to think of my recollecting that weird daub which used to deface my room in Fairhaven! I had forgotten Beatricê entirely. And I certainly never spoke of her to any human being, except of course to Muriel Allardyce. . . . But I would not be at all surprised if I had involun-