that Kate had never any time for her books nor Minnie
for her music. He would change all that now.

As he walked on he dreamed a dream.

In the foreground of his dream (rich parqueterie) three figures went
to and fro, one adorable in plum color and point lace; one, the one
with the red hair, still beautiful in green; and one, not beautiful,
but--well--elegant in pink. Now he saw a dining-room sumptuously
furnished, a table white with silver and fine linen, and the same
figures sitting at it, drinking champagne and eating the fool messes
that women love to eat, queer things cooked in cream, and
ice-puddings, and so on. And now it was a lofty music room, and
Minnie taking the roof off with one of her So-nahters on the
Steinway Grand; and now a library (the Hundred Best Books had grown
into a library), and Kate, studious, virgin, inviolate in leisure.
Then slap through it all went the little mother driving in her own
carriage, a victoria for fine weather, a brougham for wet. (It was
before the days of motor-cars.) Somewhere on the outskirts of his
dream (moorland for choice) there hovered a gentleman in shooting
clothes, carrying a gun, or on the uttermost dim verge, the sky-line
of it, the same vague form (equestrian) shot gloriously by. But he
took very little interest in him.

Ah, there were the cross-roads and the Bald-faced Stag at the
corner. Not a scrap changed since the last time he visited it--day
when he rode the Major's roan mare slap through the saloon bar into
the bowling-alley. Did it for a bet, and won it, too, and bought his
mother a stuffed badger in a glass case with the money, as a
propitiatory offering. Only another mile.

His road ran into the lighted High Street, through a black avenue of
elms as through a tunnel. Reality assailed him with a thousand
smells. No need to ask his way to the North End.

He turned off through an alley into a dark lane, bordered with
limes. The thick, sweet scent dropped from the trees, a scent dewy
with the childhood of the night. It felt palpable as a touch. It was
as if he felt his mother's fingers on his face, and the kisses of
his innocent girl-sisters.

He went slowly up the lane toward a low light at the end of it. At
the corner, where it turned, was a small house black with ivy and
fenced with a row of espalier limes. The light he made for came from
the farthest window of the ground floor. Through a gap in the lime
fence he could see into the room.

The h