HOW THE DREAMS WERE INTERPRETED
"Tell Miss Rosenberg I'll see her now," Matt Kelson said; and as he
leaned back in his luxurious chair with that dignity of self-assurance
only the man who is rich can maintain, it was hard to realise that he
and the Matt Kelson of a year ago were the same. A year ago he had
been a poor, underpaid, ill nourished pen-driver, with all the odious
marks of a pen-driver's servility thick upon him. It was true he had
been fastidious as to his appearance--that is to say, as fastidious as
any one can be, who has to buy clothes ready made and can only afford
to pay a few dollars for them; that he had sacrificed meals to wear
white shirts--boiled shirts as one called them in San Francisco--and
to get his things got up decently at a respectable laundry; but his
teeth in those days did not receive the attention they ought to have
received (he could not afford a dentist), the tobacco he smoked was
often offensive; and there were to be found in him sundry other
details that one usually finds in clerks, and in most other people who
literally have to fight for a living.
But now, all that was changed. Kelson was rich. He bought his suits at
Poole's, his hats at Christie's, his boots in Regent Street. He
patronized a dentist in Cavendish Square, and a manicurist in Bond
Street. He belonged to a crack club in Pall Mall, and never smoked
anything but the most expensive cigars. His ambition had been speedily
realized. He had passionately longed to be a fop--he was one. The only
thing that troubled him, was that he could not be an aristocrat at the
same time. But, after all, what did that matter? The girls looked at
him all the same, and that was all he wanted. He worshipped, he
adored, pretty girls; and he was most anxious that they should adore
him.
Consequently, his first thought, when he saw Lilian Rosenberg's name
on the form the commissionaire presented him, was "Is she pretty?" And
the first thing he said to himself directly the door opened to admit
her was, "By Jove! she is."
Then he assumed an air more suited to a partner in a big London firm,
and flourishing a richly bejewelled hand, said "Pray take a seat,
madam. What can I do for you?"
"I want you to tell me the meaning of these verses," Lilian Rosenberg
said, handing him two sheets of foolscap and then sitting down. "They
were suggested to me in my sleep--in other words, I dreamed them."
"You dreamed them, did you!" Kelson said, noticing with approval that
the girl had well-kept white hands, and that her clothes, though not
particularly expensive, were _chic_, and up-to-date. "Do you want me
only to interpret this poem, or shall I tell you something about
yourself first?"
"By all means tell me something about myself first--if you can,"
Lilian Rosenberg said. "I want to get as much as I can out of you.
Your fees are exorbitant."
"Very well, then," Kelson rejoined with a smile. "Don't blame me if I
tell you too much. You were born at sea. Being a troublesome girl at
home, you were sent to a boarding-school, where you distinguished
yourself in various ways, and last but not least, by making the
headmistress--a married woman--desperately jealous. This led to your
being removed. Removed is a more delicate term than 'expelled.' Am I
right?"
"Yes! I believe you are inspired by the devil."
"Shall I go on?"
"Yes--I think so. Yes, go on, please."
"You came home. Your mother died. Your father married again. You
disliked your stepmother--you considered she ill treated you."
"She did!"
"I won't dispute it. At all events you had your revenge. You pretended
to commit suicide, and wrote several letters--to the police amongst
others--declaring that you were about to drown yourself owing to the
cruelty of your stepmother. And so cleverly did you manage it, that
every one believed you were drowned, and blamed your stepmother
accordingly. Changing your name to Lilian Rosenberg you came direct to
London. For some time you worked in a milliner's shop in Beauchamp
Gardens, and then you set up as a manicurist in Woodstock Street.
Among your clients was the wife of the Vicar of St. Katherine's, Kew,
who took a great liking to you--you have extraordinary personal
magnetism. Unable, however, to do more than pay your way at legitimate
manicuring you--"
"That will do," Lilian Rosenberg cried, a faint flow of colour
pervading her cheeks. "That will do! Explain the verses."
"As you will!" Kelson said, "but mind, I don't insist on the necessity
of your paying the slightest heed to my explanation. According to the
usual method of interpreting dreams, the valley of flowers is
symbolical of innocence and self-restraint--of that path in life with
which the goody-goodies say every young lady should be satisfied.
"The hunter is representative of the love of change and excitement;
the horse--of self-indulgence. The misty moon means ruin, the
metamorphosis into the crawling phantasm--death. Leave the path of
virtue, and give way to self-indulgence and a craving for everlasting
change and excitement, and a miserable ending will be your mead--and
has been the mead of all others who have done the same thing."
"Then the dream is a warning?"
Kelson was about to reply, when the door opened, and Hamar, with an
apology for intruding, beckoned to him.
He spoke with him for several moments relative to a matter of some
consequence, and then, glancing at Miss Rosenberg, and drawing Kelson
still further aside, whispered, "Let me caution you again, Matt. On no
account let your soft feelings with regard to the other sex get the
better of you. Remember it is imperative for us to do evil not
good--to lead our clients into temptation, not out of it. I am doing
my best to follow the injunctions of the Unknown, but we must all work
in harmony--that is the most vital point in our compact, and you know
if we do not keep the compact something frightful will happen to us. I
can't impress this fact on you too much. Only yesterday I had to pull
you up for giving good advice to a lady. Damn your good advice, give
bad--bad advice, I say; anything that will do people harm--no matter
whether they are ugly or pretty--and if you are not jolly well
careful, pretty girls will be your--and our--undoing. I see you have a
pretty girl here now--and from what I can read in her face, she is not
a saint. Rub it in to her--rub it into her well--persuade her to be a
bigger sinner still. Now I can't wait to say more, I must go."
"I asked you," Lilian Rosenberg said, as Kelson resumed his seat, "if
the dream was a warning?"
"No," Kelson said, "I shouldn't take it as such. Despite the rather
peculiar form it took, I am inclined to think it isn't a dream with
any real significance--but merely a chance dream--a dream compounded
of sayings and actions of the past that have come back to you all
higgledy-piggledy, as they so often do in dreams. You learned a lot of
poetry I suppose when you were at school?"
"Yes, but none like this."
"No, I didn't suppose so, but the mere fact that your mind was at one
time used to verses--acquainted with metre and rhythm, would account
for the form adopted by your dream. I assure you it was purely
chance--and that there is no significance in it! You are on the look
out for work, is it not so?"
"I am," Lilian Rosenberg said. "Can you tell me where to go to get
it?"
"I am just thinking," Kelson replied, "I believe my partner, Mr.
Hamar, wants a secretary. I can't, of course, say whether you would
suit him. Do you type?"
"I can type and do shorthand," Lilian Rosenberg replied eagerly, "and
I can correspond in German and French."
"And the salary? Would two hundred a year do?"
"Yes," after a slight pause, "I could make it do. I should want one
half-day holiday--from one o'clock--every week; and Sundays--and three
weeks' holiday in the summer, and one at Christmas, and of course, the
usual Bank Holidays."
"I see!" Kelson said thoughtfully; "you want plenty of time for
amusement. Well! I will speak about it to Mr. Hamar, and if you leave
me your address I will give it him. How nicely you keep your hands."
"I manicure them every day," Lilian Rosenberg said; then looking up at
him from under the long lashes which swept her cheeks, she added, "You
won't forget to tell Mr. Hamar about me, will you? I am very anxious
to get a post. You don't know what it is to be hard up, do you?"
The earnest, pleading expression in her long, dark eyes appealed to
Kelson as nothing else had ever appealed to him. Since his arrival in
London, he had seen many pretty faces, many beautiful eyes, but
assuredly none so lovely as these. And what features! what teeth! what
lips! what a chin! what a figure! It seemed to him that she was not
like an ordinary girl, that she was not of the same composition as any
of the girls he had ever met; that she was something hardly
human--something elfish, something generated by the beautiful English
woods and glades, filled with the soft glamour of the moon and stars.
And all the while he was thinking thus, his heart rising in rebellion
against the words of Hamar, the girl continued gazing up at him, and
toying with the rings on her slender, milk-white fingers.
At last he dare look at her no longer, but stammering out his promise
to do all he could to get her the vacant post, he pressed her hand
gently, and bade her good morning.
Then he returned to his chair, and, leaning back in it, was seeing
once again in his mind's eye the fair face of the girl who had just
left him, when there was a rap at the door, and the commissionaire
announced Miss Martin.
"Another of them," Kelson said to himself. "And about as pretty in her
way as the last. Now I wonder what she wants." He looked closely at
her, but no past rose up before him--as far as this client was
concerned his power of divination in that direction was nil--she was a
blank.
"I've come to ask you the meaning of a dream I had last night," she
began, inwardly shuddering at the sight of so much pomade and
jewellery.
"Yes," he said with an encouraging smile, "what was it?"
Of course she did not tell him all, but merely that she had dreamed of
certain flowers and trees as, curiously enough, so had her father.
Kelson looked at her thoughtfully. Once he opened his mouth to speak
and then checked himself; and it was some seconds before he actually
broke silence.
"Taken separately," he said at last, "the ash tree portends an
unexpected visit; a poppy, a visit from a man; red roses, falling in
love; lilac, a present; a willow, kisses--heaps of them; bluebells, a
proposal; brambles, difficulties in the way--for example, tiresome
relatives; buttercups, a marriage; an ash tree, a son and heir--a dear
little----"
"Thank you!" Gladys remarked, rising frigidly. Thank you! I will go
now. What is your fee?"
"I trust, madam, you are pleased," Kelson said in great distress.
"Will you kindly take your fee and let me out," Gladys demanded, as he
nervously placed himself in her way. "Thank you. Good morning!"
And as she swept regally past him and down the stone passage, Hamar
came out of his room and passed by her on his way to Kelson's office.
"Ye gods!" he exclaimed, eyeing the discomfited Kelson wrathfully.
"What in the world have you done to offend the lady? I never saw any
one look so angry in my life. D--n it all! I hope you didn't insult
her!"
"It was all your fault!" Kelson wailed. "She asked me to tell her the
meaning of a dream which was brimful of warnings against us."
"Against us!"
"Yes, against us! I have never listened to such admonitions in a dream
before. She must have some very friendly spirits watching over her.
Well! what was I to do? I did my best. Mindful of what you said to me
a short time ago, I put her entirely off the track; gave her an
entirely misleading--and as I thought very pleasant--interpretation of
the dream."
"What did you say?"
Kelson told him.
"Jackass!" Hamar exclaimed. "Jackass! You were far too broad. What
pleases a San Francisco girl shocks a London lady. For goodness sake
have more tact another time, we don't want to get into hot water. I
feel quite convinced that if any harm befalls us--if that compact is
in any way broken--it will be through you. I wish to heaven the
Unknown had given you some other power."
"So do I," Kelson groaned.
"At all events," Hamar went on, "the first three months is nearly at
an end. Who was she?"
"Miss Gladys Martin!"
"Where does she live?"
"I don't know. I could divine nothing about her. She can't have any
vices."
"I don't suppose she has," Hamar remarked dryly, "Not from the look of
her anyway. But there is time yet. Matt! I've taken a fancy to that
girl and I mean to get hold of her somehow. I wonder if she is related
to Martin--Davenport's partner! Jerusalem! What sport if she is!"
"Why? Why sport?" Kelson asked.
"Dolt! Don't you see! Martin is at our mercy. We are more than his
rivals. We can drive him out of London any moment we like. His tricks
indeed! Pshaw! Curtis can do them all right off the reel! And Curtis
shall--we will show Martin up--make a laughing stock of him--ruin him!
Unless--unless--"
"Unless what?"
"Great Scott! Don't look so alarmed! Unless--supposing that girl is
his daughter--unless he gives me permission to pay my addresses to
her!"--and Hamar laughed coarsely.