m
dream dreams.

Laura gave an inarticulate murmur of compassion. She knelt by him, and
held his hands in hers and stroked them.

"What is it, Papa dear, have you had a little dream? Poor darling," she
said, "he has such horrid ones."

Mr. Gunning looked about him, still alarmed, still surrounded as in his
dream, by appalling presences. He was a little man, with a weak,
handsome face, worn and dragged by emotion.

"What's all this? What's all this?" he reiterated, until out of the
throng of presences he distinguished dimly a woman's form. He smiled at
it. He was almost wide awake now.

"Is it Rose?" he said.

"No, Papa. It's Nina."

Mr. Gunning became dejected. If it had been Rose she would have sat
beside him and talked to him a little while.

He was perfectly wide awake now; he had seen Prothero; and the sight of
Prothero revived in him his one idea. His idea was that every man who
saw Laura would want to pick the little thing up and carry her away from
him. He was haunted by the fear of losing Laura. He had lost everything
he had and had forgotten it; but a faint memory of disaster persisted in
his idea.

"What are you going to do with my little girl?" he said. "You're not
going to take her away? I won't have that. I won't have that."

"Isn't he funny?" said Laura, unabashed. And from where she knelt, there
on the verge of her terror, she looked up at the young man and laughed.
She laughed lest Prothero should feel uncomfortable.

Nina had risen for departure, and with a slow, reluctant movement of his
long body, Prothero rose too. Nina could have sworn that almost he bowed
his head over Laura's hand.

"May I come and see you again some day?" he said. And she said she would
be very glad.

That was all.

Outside in the little dull street he turned to Nina.

"It wasn't fair, Nina; you didn't tell me I was going to have my heart
wrung."

"How could I know," she said fiercely, "what would wring your heart?"

He looked away lest he should seem to see what was in her.

But she knew he saw.

XXV

Three weeks passed. Prothero had been four times to see Miss Gunning. He
had been once because she said he might come again; once because of a
book he had promised to lend her; once because he happened to be
passing; and once for no reason whatsoever. It was then borne in on him
that what he required was a pretext. Calling late one evening he caught
Miss Gunning in the incredible double act of fl