John Martin whispered in Gladys' ear, as the trio
passed through the entrance of the railway station on to the platform,
"not a bit of good to me. Don't encourage him, whatever you do!" "Encourage him!" Gladys retorted indignantly, seeing that Shiel, who
had his ticket to get, was out of hearing. "Do I encourage any one? All the same," she added defiantly, "I rather like him. It isn't every
one's good fortune to be as smart as you, John Martin. Quick--hurry
up! That's your train--and the guard's about to blow his whistle." With a vigorous push she hustled her father into the first compartment
they came to, and Shiel sprang in after him as the train moved out of
the station. An hour later Gladys, looking extremely demure and proper, was rapping
with a daintily gloved hand at the inquiry office in the great stone
lobby of the Modern Sorcery Company's building in Cockspur Street. "Have you an appointment, madam?" the commissionaire, in a bright blue
uniform, asked. "No," Gladys replied. "Is it necessary? "The firm are unusually busy," the man explained, "and unless you have
made an appointment with them some days beforehand, it is doubtful
whether they will be able to see you. However, if you will step into
the waiting room and fill in one of the forms you see on the table, I
will take it to them. Which member of the firm have you come to
consult?" "I haven't the slightest idea," Gladys said. "I want to have a dream
interpreted." "Then, that will be Mr. Kelson," the man observed "he does all that
kind of thing--tells dreams, characters, pasts, and reads thoughts. Mr. Curtis solves all manner of puzzles and tricks; and Mr. Hamar
divines the presence of metals and water. There is a lady in the
waiting-room now, come to have a dream interpreted. She's been there
nearly an hour. This way, madam!" --and he escorted, rather than
ushered, Gladys into a large, elaborately furnished room, in which a
dozen or so well dressed people--of both sexes--were waiting, looking
over the leaves of magazines and journals, and trying in vain to hide
their only too obvious excitement. Having filled in the necessary form, and given it to the
commissionaire, Gladys looked round for a seat, and espying one, next
to a strikingly handsome girl, she at once appropriated it. There was something about this showy girl that had attracted Gladys. She was one of those rare people that have a personality, and although
this was a personality that Gladys was not at all sure she liked,
nevertheless she felt anxious to become more closely acquainted with
it. Both girls suddenly realized that they were staring hard at one
another. The girl with the personality was the first to speak. With a
smile that, while revealing a perfect set of white teeth, at the some
time revealed exceedingly thin lips, she remarked, "It's most
wearisome work waiting. I've been here nearly an hour. I shouldn't
stay any longer, only I've come from a distance. London is so hot and
stuffy, I detest it." "Do you?" Gladys observed. "I don't. I find it so full of human
interest--indeed, of every kind of interest. Not that I should care to
live in it, but I like being near enough to come up several times a
week. I live at Kew." "Then you're lucky!" the girl said, "I'd live at Kew if I could. But I
can't--I'm one of those unfortunate creatures who have to earn their
living." "I sometimes wish I had to," Gladys remarked. "Do you! Then you don't know much about it. It isn't all jam by a long
way. I loathe work. I've been spending my holiday at Kew. I've just
come from there." "Are you by any chance Miss Rosenberg?" Gladys asked. "That's my name," the girl replied with a look of astonishment. "How
do you know?" Gladys explained. "I've just been to the Vicarage," she said, "and
Mrs. Sprat has told me about the verses. Did you really dream them?" "Of course! I shouldn't have said so if I hadn't," Miss Rosenberg
replied angrily. "I don't tell crams. Besides, I've never composed a
line of poetry in my life. The verses were repeated to me in my sleep
by some occult agency--of that I am quite certain. They were so
vividly impressed on my mind that I had no difficulty at all in
remembering them--every one of them, and I got up and wrote them down. Of course they must mean something." Gladys was about to make some observation, when the commissionaire,
opening the door of the room, called out, "Miss Rosenberg;" whereupon,
with a sigh of relief, Miss Rosenberg took her departure. CHAPTER X

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!"