She had not yet had time to speak to Owen of a dream which she had
dreamed a few nights before, and in which she was much interested. She
had seen him borne on the top of a huge wave, clinging to a piece of
wreckage, alone in the solitary circle of the sea. But Owen, when he
came downstairs dressed for the concert, looked no longer like a
seafarer. He wore an embroidered waistcoat, his necktie was tied in a
butterfly bow, and the three pearl studs, which she remembered, fastened
the perfectly-fitting shirt. She was a little disappointed, and thought
that she liked him better in the rough grey suit, with his hair tossed,
just come out of his travelling cap. Now it was brushed about his ears,
and it glistened as if from some application of brilliantine or other
toilet essence. Now he was more prosaic, but he had been extraordinarily
romantic when he ran in to see her, his grey travelling cap just
snatched from his head. It was then she should have told him her dream.
All this was a very faint impression, half humorous, half regretful, it
passed, almost without her being aware of it, in the background of her
mind. But she was keenly disappointed that he was not impressed by her
dream, and was inclined to consider it in the light of a mere
coincidence. In the first place, he hadn't been shipwrecked, and that
she should dream of shipwreck was most natural since she knew that he
had gone a-seafaring, and any gust of wind in the street was enough to
excite the idea of a castaway in the unclosed cellular tissues of her
brain. She did not answer, and he stood trying to force an answer from
her, but she could not, nor did she wish to think that her dream was no
more than a merely physiological phenomenon. But just at that moment Mr.
Innes was waiting to speak to Sir Owen.
He had a great deal to say on the subject of the disgraceful neglect of
the present Royal Family in not publishing the works of their single
artistic ancestor, Henry VIII. Up to the present time none of his
numerous writings, except one anthem played in the Chapel at Windsor,
was known; the pieces that were going to be played that evening lay in
MS. in the British Museum, and had probably not been heard for two,
maybe three hundred years. Encouraged by Sir Owen's sympathy, he
referred again, in his speech to his audience, to the indifference of
the present Royal Family to art, and he added that it was strange that
he should be doing at Dowlands what the Queen or the Prince of Wales
should have done long ago, namely, the publication of their ancestor's
work with all the prestige that their editorship or their patronage
could give it.
"I must go," she said; "they are waiting for me."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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