I nodded.

"I can't see his face, but he does look fat and soft. Someway or other,"
she continued, turning to look at me, "he reminds me of a dream,--an
awful dream I once had. Or," she mused, looking down at her shapely
shoes, "was it a dream after all?"

"How should I know?" I smiled.

Tessie smiled in reply.

"You were in it," she said, "so perhaps you might know something about
it."

"Tessie! Tessie!" I protested, "don't you dare flatter by saying that you
dream about me!"

"But I did," she insisted; "shall I tell you about it?"

"Go ahead," I replied, lighting a cigarette.

Tessie leaned back on the open window-sill and began very seriously.

"One night last winter I was lying in bed thinking about nothing at all
in particular. I had been posing for you and I was tired out, yet it
seemed impossible for me to sleep. I heard the bells in the city ring
ten, eleven, and midnight. I must have fallen asleep about midnight
because I don't remember hearing the bells after that. It seemed to me
that I had scarcely closed my eyes when I dreamed that something impelled