Part 13 (1/2)

”Wasn't she called by her real name?”

”Well--er--not always.”

Desire's eyebrows became very slanting. ”Any name will do,” she said coldly.

The professor gathered himself together. ”Her name,” he said triumphantly, ”Was--is Mary.”

He had done well for himself this time! His questioner was plainly satisfied with the name Mary. Perhaps lying gets easier as you go on.

He hoped so.

”My mother's name was Mary,” said Desire. ”It is a lovely name.”

Spence felt very proud of himself. Not only had he produced a lovely name in the s.p.a.ce of three seconds and a half, but he had also provided a not-to-be-missed opportunity of changing the subject.

”I suppose you do not remember your mother,” he said tentatively.

”Oh yes, I do, although I was quite small when she died. Father says I fancy some of the things I remember. Perhaps I do. I always dream very vividly. And fact and dream are easily confused in a child's mind. My most distinct memories are detached, like pictures, without any before or after to explain them. There is one, for instance, about waking up in the woods at night, wrapped in my mother's shawl and seeing her face, all frightened and white, with the moon, like a great, silver eye, s.h.i.+ning through the trees. But I can't imagine why my mother would be hiding in the woods at night.”

”Why hiding?”

”There is a sense of hiding that comes with the memory--without anything to account for it But, although I do not remember connected incidents very well, I remember her--the feeling of having her with me.

And the terrible emptiness afterwards. If she had gone quite away, all at once, I couldn't have borne it.”

”Do you mean that she had a long illness?” asked Spence, greatly interested.

”No. She died suddenly. It was just--you will call it silly imagination--” she broke off uncertainly.

”I might call it imagination without the adjective.”

”Yes. But it wasn't. It was real. The sense, I mean, that she hadn't gone away. Nothing that wasn't real would have been of the slightest use.”

”It all depends on how we define reality. What seems real at one time may seem unreal at another.”

She nodded.

”That is just what has happened. I am not sure, now. The sense of nearness left me as I grew up. But at that time, I lived by it. Do you find the idea absurd?”

”Why should I? Our knowledge of our own consciousness is the absurdity.

All we know is that our normal waking consciousness is only one special type. Around it lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different, and quite as real. Sometimes we, or it, or they, break through. I am paraphrasing James. Do you know James?”

”I have read 'Daisy Miller.'”

”This James was the Daisy Miller man's brother.”

”Did he believe in the possibility of the dead helping the living?”

”He believed in all kinds of possibilities. But I don't think he considered that possibility proven.”

”It couldn't be proved, could it?” asked Desire thoughtfully.