Since I
came into this room you have done nothing to destroy my conviction
of your unreality apart from myself. You haven't offered me your
hand to touch. Is it because you suspect that apart from me you
are but a mere phantom, and that you fear to put it to the test?"
One of her hands was under the fur and the other under her cheek.
She made no sound. She didn't offer to stir. She didn't move her
eyes, not even after I had added after waiting for a while,
"Just what I expected. You are a cold illusion."
She smiled mysteriously, right away from me, straight at the fire,
and that was all.
CHAPTER VI
I had a momentary suspicion that I had said something stupid. Her
smile amongst many other things seemed to have meant that, too.
And I answered it with a certain resignation:
"Well, I don't know that you are so much mist. I remember once
hanging on to you like a drowning man . . . But perhaps I had
better not speak of this. It wasn't so very long ago, and you may
. . . "
"I don't mind. Well . . ."
"Well, I have kept an impression of great solidity. I'll admit
that. A woman of granite."
"A doctor once told me that I was made to last for ever," she said.
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