passengers in the train. There was no confusion there. But this gentle
married woman, who sang to her own accompaniment at her father's
request, was not the mischievous, wilful creature who had teased and
tortured his heart in years gone by, and had helped him construct the
sprites and train and star-trips. It was, surely, the other daughter
who had played that delicious role. Yet, either his memory was at
fault, or the Vicar had mixed the names up. The years had played this
little unimportant trick upon him anyhow. And that was clear.

But if with so-called real people such an error was possible, how
could he be sure of anything? Which after all, he asked himself, was
real? It was the Vicar's mistake, he learned later, for May was now a
teacher in London; but the trivial incident served to point this
confusion in his mind between an outer and an inner world--to the
disadvantage, if anything, of the former.

And over the glass of port together, while they talked pleasantly of
vanished days, Rogers was conscious that a queer, secret amusement
sheltered in his heart, due to some faint, superior knowledge that
this Past they spoke of had not moved away at all, but listened with
fun and laughter just behind his shoulder, watching them. The old
gentleman seemed never tired of remembering his escapades. He told
them one after another, like some affectionate nurse or mother, Rogers
thought, whose children were--to her--unique and wonderful. For he had
really loved this good-for-nothing pupil, loved him the more, as
mothers and nurses do, because of the trouble he had given, and
because of his busy and fertile imagination. It made Rogers feel
ridiculously young again as he listened. He could almost have played a
trick upon him then and there, merely to justify the tales. And once
or twice he actually called him 'Sir.' So that even the conversation