Part 166

Warner did not speak or stir; presently she turned toward him, perplexed, still searching in her memory.

"It's odd," she said, "that I seem to remember a cloak like this.... Or perhaps as a very little child I dreamed about such a pretty cloak.... It was long ago.... Where did you get it, Jim?"

"Do you seem to remember it?"

"Somehow, I seem to."

"Is there anything else there which appears at all familiar to you?"

She sorted over the toys and garments, shook her head, picked up a picture book and stood idly turning the pages----

And suddenly uttered a little cry.

Instantly he was beside her; the page lay open at a golden scene where the Sleeping Beauty had just awakened, and the glittering Prince had fallen on one knee beside her couch.

"Jim! I--I remember that! It was all gold--all--all golden--everything--her hair and his--and the couch and her gown and his clothes--all gold, everything golden!

"I know that picture. Where in the world did you find it? I was a child--they showed it to me; I always asked for it----" She looked up at him, bewildered.

"Turn the pages!" he said.

She turned; another soft little cry escaped her; she recognized the picture, and the next one also, and the next, and every succeeding one, excitedly calling his attention to details which had impressed her as a child.

Of the other books she seemed to retain no recollection; remembered none of the toys, nothing of the clothing except the faded silken cloak with its border of swansdown. But this book she remembered vividly; and when he showed her her name written in it she grew a little pale with surprise and excitement.

Then, seated there on the table's edge beside her, he told her what Asticot had told him and showed her the photographs.

She seemed a little dazed at first, but, as he continued, the color returned to her cheeks and the excitement died out in her grey eyes.

"I cannot remember these events," she said very quietly.

"Is it possible he could have taken you to Bulgaria without your recollecting anything about it?"

"I must have been very, very young." She sat on the table's edge, staring at the sunny window for a while in silence, then, still gazing into space:

"Jim.... I have sometimes imagined that I could remember something--that I am conscious of having been somewhere else before my first recollections of Wildresse begin. Of course, that is not possible, if he found me, a baby, at his door----"

"He may have lied."

She turned slowly toward him:

"I wonder."

"I wonder, too."

After a silence she said, speaking with a deliberation almost colorless:

"Whether they were dreams, I am not quite certain, now. Always I have supposed them to have been dreams--dreamed long ago.... When I was very, very little.... About a lady with red hair--near me when I was sleepy.... Also there comes a voice as though somebody were singing something about me--my name--Philippa."

"Is that all?"

"I think so.... She had red hair, and her cheeks were warm and soft.... I was sleepy. I think she sang to me.... Something about 'Philippa,' and 'dreamland.' ... The golden picture in that book makes me think of her voice. The cloak with the swans-down reminds me.... Do you think it could have been a dream?"

"God knows," he muttered, staring at the floor.