Oh, this Geraldine! I must have seen her all askew last night, for now she seemed eight times lovelier than she was then. Who had taught this being the art of putting on dress? Surely not James Wilder or the old butler. This dress she wore was made from a fabric intended to represent the skin of some tropical lizard, scales of golden satin on a body-ground of dull emerald-coloured silk. She rose from her chair like a snake from a blanket. James Wilder, when he rose from a chair, always reminded me of a flail in a fit. Yet she was his son. We said "Good morning," but we did not kiss. Something seemed to have come between us; we seemed instinctively to hold aloof from each other. The Geraldine who came up to me last night to be kissed, just as a tame fawn might have done, was not exactly the Geraldine of this morning. And yet I liked this something that had come between us. Kisses are just like apples; if you can get as many as you want they grow tasteless, and the more you pay for them the sweeter they seem, and they are never so sweet as when you steal them. I never heard of a farmer robbing his own orchard, have you? Then this fine lady sank back into the chair from which she had arisen--it was not sitting down, it was sinking down--and with a ghostly smile resumed her work. And guess the work--tapestry. Tapestry; and she had done yards of it, when she ought to have been playing at marbles and learning to swear. As for me, I sat down plump on a chair close by, crossed my legs, and nursed my knee with my hands. I felt inclined to whistle. Remember, I was thinking of her now as a boy in petticoats, and as long as I thought of her as that I was in my right senses, that is, my everyday senses. I felt perverse, just as I always feel, and would have liked to tease--only I wouldn't have dared--this half-absurd, wholly delightful production of old James Wilder. But when I thought of her as a girl I felt--I felt the dim remembrance of a past life, and an infinite sadness. I looked round at the room; it looked like the inside of a shell. Fairies seemed to have furnished it. I never saw such exquisite things before. There were cabinets inlaid with copper on ebony, and Venice glass that seemed coloured with tints of the sea. A wood fire was burning on the tiled hearth, and a great bowl of violets stood on a table supported by carved dragons with jewels for eyes. The smell of the violets made me feel faint every now and then, but the faintness went away when I remembered this Geraldine was a boy. "Remember that," I kept repeating to myself. And in the middle of the room sat Geraldine.