"Oh, you are very bitter!" I said.
"Not at all. I like accuracy. 'Princess' to the ingenuous mind suggests
a fairy tale. I have not an ingenuous mind. I know that the princesses
of the fairy tales do not exist,--unless you are one."
"Me!" I exclaimed, in amazement--"I'm very far from that--"
"Well, you are a dreamer!" he said, and resting his arms on the deck
rail he looked away from me down into the sunlit sea--"You do not live
here in this world with us--you think you do,--and yet in your own mind
you know you do not. You dream--and your life is that of vision simply.
I'm not sure that I should like to see you wake. For as long as you can
dream you will believe in the fairy tale;--the 'princess' of Hans
Andersen and the Brothers Grimm holds good--and that is why you should
have pretty things about you,--music, roses and the like trifles,--to
keep up the delicate delusion."
I was surprised and just a little vexed at his way of talking. Why,
even with the underlying flattery of his words, should he call me a
dreamer? I had worked for my own living as practically as himself in
the world, and if not with such financially successful results, only
because my aims had never been mere money-spinning. He had attained
enormous wealth,--I a modest competence,--he was old and I was
young,--he was ill and miserable,--I was well and happy,--which of us
was the 'dreamer'? My thoughts were busy with this question, and he saw
it.
"Don't perplex yourself,"--he said,--"and don't be offended with me for
my frankness. My view of life is not yours,--nor are we ever likely to
see things from the same standpoint. Yours is the more enviable
condition. You are looking well,--you feel well--you are well! Health
is the best of all things." He paused, and lifting his eyes from the
contemplation of the water, regarded me fixedly. "That's a lovely bit
of bell-heather you're wearing! It glows like fiery topaz."