Her seriousness enchanted him—her youthful grace as she bent slightly above him, one warning finger uplifted as when a nurse speaks of mysteries to a child in the quiet of twilight. "Join hands with me in spirit, and I’ll try to lead you," she said.... "Now, follow me, while we make our way through the throng of strange faces, treading a path silently, discreetly, avoiding this pretty girl with her bright brown eyes." "Christine," he thought, and started to speak. "Hush!" she cautioned him; "for we mustn’t speak yet—not until we’re in the land of yesterday.... And we are passing over the minutes and hours and days and weeks—and it’s like treading on formless mist; so hold tightly to my hand, and follow me—through a golden ballroom, around a great gilded piano, then out into the June rain, Jim.... Have you let go my hand?" "No." "Then we are very near the land of yesterday.... I thought I heard a starling whistle. Surely! and there is the sunset over the river—and now we are in the house, Jim. And it is not sunset, after all; it is sunrise—the sunburst of Japan! And there, against it——" "You!" he said in a voice not very firm. "Hush! Those two figures we see are only phantoms. Let us stand here by the door and listen to what they might have said." "They _did_ say things!" "Ah! but it is to what they might have said that we must try to listen. Be very silent, now. Look at that girl in her silk and sandals and the flowers in her hair! Look at that young fellow, rooted to the floor, amazed at the apparition! Can you hear what he _might_ have said to her in his astonishment?" "He might have said: ’Your loveliness confounds me. You are the most beautiful vision I have ever dreamed.’ ... What does _she_ say, Japonette?" "She says: ’For a moment I was afraid you’d filled your suit cases with our silver; but you are so obviously nice that I am not alarmed any more. I’m merely ashamed to be caught here in this theatrical dress.’ What might he have said to that, Jim?" "He might have said: ’Is it a heavenly possibility that you are real, and not a vision? Allah is merciful to the believer in dreams. Your name is Youth and Beauty; I will call you Japonette, but the high white gods have named you Diana.’ ... And what does _she_ say, Japonette?" "She _might_ have answered: ’O youth with the engaging smile, out of my breast you have charmed the winged heart, and it is fluttering there above you, restless, uncertain—just beyond your reach.’ ... And what does—_might_ he have answered, Jim?" "He might have said: ’I love you, but my outward self does not know it yet—will not know it, even on the roof garden—even when the sun hangs low and the starlings pipe, and all the west is a glory of gold and rose; and I shall never know it until you lead me back from to-morrow, through the magic path of days and hours, to the true world of yesterday.’ ... What answer does she make Diana?"