sewing-machine in the breakfast-room recalled with the utmost
vividness the gilt line that ran about the seat in the alcove where
I had talked with the messenger from my deserted party. Have you
ever heard of a dream that had a quality like that?"

"Like--?"

"So that afterwards you remembered little details you had
forgotten."

I thought. I had never noticed the point before, but he was
right.

"Never," I said. "That is what you never seem to do with
dreams."

"No," he answered. "But that is just what I did. I am a solicitor,
you must understand, in Liverpool, and I could not help wondering
what the clients and business people I found myself talking to in my
office would think if I told them suddenly I was in love with a girl
who would be born a couple of hundred years or so hence, and worried
about the politics of my great-great-great-grandchildren. I was
chiefly busy that day negotiating a ninety-nine-year building lease.
It was a private builder in a hurry, and we wanted to tie him in
every possible way. I had an interview with him, and he showed a
certain want of temper that sent me to bed still irritated. That
night I had no dream. Nor did I dream the next night, at least,
to remember.

"Something of that intense reality of conviction vanished. I