“I don't want her.” “You said you were in love with her.” “So I am.” She handed me back the photograph, and I replaced it in my pocket. “I don't understand that sort of love,” she said. “If I loved anybody I should want to have them with me always. “She is with me always,” I answered, “in my thoughts.” She looked at me with her clear grey eyes. I found myself blinking. Something seemed to be slipping from me, something I did not want to lose. I remember a similar sensation once at the moment of waking from a strange, delicious dream to find the sunlight pouring in upon me through an open window. “That isn't being in love,” she said. “That's being in love with the idea of being in love. That's the way I used to go to balls”--she laughed--“in front of the glass. You caught me once, do you remember?” “And was it not sweeter,” I argued, “the imagination? You were the belle of the evening; you danced divinely every dance, were taken in to supper by the Lion. In reality you trod upon your partner's toes, bumped and were bumped, were left a wallflower more than half the time, had a headache the next day. Were not the dream balls the more delightful?” “No, they weren't,” she answered without the slightest hesitation. “One real dance, when at last it came, was worth the whole of them. Oh, I know, I've heard you talking, all of you--of the faces that you see in dreams and that are ever so much more beautiful than the faces that you see when you're awake; of the wonderful songs that nobody ever sings, the wonderful pictures that nobody ever paints, and all the rest of it. I don't believe a word of it. It's tommyrot!” “I wish you wouldn't use slang.” “Well, you know what I mean. What is the proper word? Give it me.” “I suppose you mean cant,” I suggested. “No, I don't. Cant is something that you don't believe in yourself. It's tommyrot: there isn't any other word. When I'm in love it will be with something that is real.” I was feeling angry with her. “I know just what he will be like. He will be a good-natured, commonplace--” “Whatever he is,” she interrupted, “he'll be alive, and he'll want me and I shall want him. Dreams are silly. I prefer being up.” She clapped her hands. “That's it.” Then, silent, she looked at me with an expression of new interest. “I've been wondering and wondering what it was: you are not really awake yet. You've never got up.”