She didn't open her eyes, but to my embarrassment laid her cheek on it
affectionately and murmured something that sounded astonishingly like
Siegfried.
I know about Siegfried, because of going to the opera. He was a German.
He still is, in the form of Siegfried Wagner, and I daresay of others;
and once somebody told me that when Germans wished to indulge their
disrespect for the Kaiser freely--he was not at that time yet an
ex-Kaiser---without being run in for _lèse majesté_, they loudly and
openly abused him under the name of Siegfried Meyer, whose initials,
S.M., also represent _Seine Majestät_; by which simple methods everybody
was able to be pleased and nobody was able to be hurt. So that when my
sleeping guest murmured Siegfried, I couldn't but conclude she was
dreaming of a German; and when at the same time she laid her cheek on my
hand, I was forced to realise that she was dreaming of him
affectionately. Which astonished me.
Imbued with patriotism--the accumulated patriotism of weeks spent out of
England--I felt that this English lady should instantly be roused from a
dream that did her no credit. She herself, I felt sure, would be the
first to deplore such a dream. So I drew my hand away from beneath her
cheek--even by mistake I didn't like it to be thought the hand of
somebody called Siegfried and, stooping down, said quite loud and
distinctly in her ear, 'Won't you come to tea?'
This, at last, did wake her. She sat up with a start, and looked at me
for a moment in surprise.
'Oh,' she said, confused, 'have I been asleep?'
'I'm very glad you have,' I said, smiling at her, for she was already
again smiling at me. 'Your climb this morning was enough to kill you.'
'Oh, but,' she murmured, getting up quickly and straightening her hair,
'how dreadful to come to your house and go to sleep--'
And she turned to the elder one, and again astonished me by, with one
swift movement, twitching the handkerchief off her face and saying
exactly as one says when playing the face-and-handkerchief game with
one's baby, 'Peep bo.' Then she turned back to me and smiled and said
nothing more, for I suppose she knew the elder one, roused thus
competently, would now do all the talking; as indeed she did, being as I
feared greatly upset and horrified when she found she had not only been
asleep but been it for two hours.
We had tea; and all the while, while the elder one talked of the trouble
she was afraid she had given, and the shame she felt that they should
have slept, and their gratitude for what she called my prolonged and
patient hospitality, I was wondering about the other. Whenever she
caught my pensive and inquiring eye she smiled at me. She had very
sweet eyes, grey ones, gentle and intelligent, and when she smiled an
agreeable dimple appeared. Bringing my Paley's _Evidences_ and Sherlock
Holmes' side to bear on her, I reasoned that my younger guest was, or
had been, a mother,--this because of the practised way she had twitched
the handkerchief off and said Peep bo; that she was either a widow, or
hadn't seen her husband for some time,--this because of the real
affection with which, in her sleep she had laid her cheek on my hand;
and that she liked music and often went to the opera.
After tea the elder got up stiffly--she had walked much too far already,
and was clearly unfit to go all that long way more--and said, if I would
direct them, they must now set out for the valley.
The younger one put on her toque obediently at this, and helped the
elder one to pin hers on straight. It was now five o'clock, and if they
didn't once lose their way they would be at their hotel by half-past
seven; in time, said the elder, for the end of _table-d'hôte,_ a meal
much interfered with by the very numerous flies. But if they did go
wrong at any point it would be much later, probably dark.