"Yes," confirmed the girl, "he promised very faithfully that he'd come
as soon as he could. But he was to see a case tonight in which he's
very much interested, and if he gets to thinking and reading about
that, you know, Mr. Brand, that he is just as likely as not to forget
all about us."

"Oh, yes, that case!" said her mother. "It's most curious and
interesting--one of the sort that makes you feel creepy."

"Do tell us about it then," exclaimed Ardeen Andrews, farther down the
table.

"It's a man possessed by the illusion that his dreams are the real
thing and his waking hours are imaginary. Just think what a
topsy-turvy state that must keep his family in!"

Felix Brand looked up with sudden interest, but before he could speak
a man's voice called out from the other end of the table, "The doctor
doesn't consider faith in one's dreams evidence of a pathological
state, does he, Mrs. Annister?" It was Robert Moreton, a young author,
whose name was of frequent occurrence in magazine tables of contents.

"If he does," Mrs. Moreton broke in, "how crazy he would think you,
Rob! You see, when he is writing a story," and she glanced up and down
the table, "Robert imagines it's being acted out around him, and I
have to be the heroine and the villainess and the parlor maid and the
cook and answer to all their names."

"That must give some variety to existence, Mrs. Moreton," said Brand.
"And variety is the best spice for life that I know of."

"Do you know that story of Colonel Higginson's," Moreton went on,
"called 'A Monarch of Dreams,' about a man who developed the power of
controlling his dreams and became so delighted and absorbed in them
that he gave himself up to the life he lived while asleep and allowed
his real existence to wither away until it was of no consequence at
all to him or any one else? It has always seemed to me a wonderful bit
of eerie imagination. And there are such alluring suggestions for
experiment in it!"

Felix Brand's brown eyes were fixed in a speculative stare upon the
mass of roses that glowed at the center of the table. Miss Marne,
glancing at him, knew that, whether or not he was thinking of them, he
was conscious of their beauty in every fibre of his being. "I wonder,"
he said slowly, and she saw Mildred Annister's gaze turn quickly upon
him as the girl bent forward with parted lips. "I wonder very, very
much," he repeated, "just how much one could do toward making one's
dream-people