"Stand there, and look and listen," whispered John Lax, grinning.
The open planks commanded a view of a semicircular lawn, where the neglected grass had grown thick and rank. Almost under my eyes there was sitting upon a fallen trunk a woman, fantastically dressed--against the Rules--and at her feet lay none other than the Arch Physician himself! Then, indeed, I pricked up my ears and listened with all my might.
"Are we dreaming, Mildred?" he murmured. "Are we dreaming?"
"No, Harry; we have all been dreaming for a long, long time--never mind how long. Just now we are not dreaming, we are truly awake. You are my old playfellow, and I am your old sweetheart," she said, with a little blush. "Tell me what you are doing--always in your laboratory. I suppose, always finding some new secrets. Does it make you any happier, Harry, to be always finding something new?"
"It is the only thing that makes life endurable--to discover the secrets of Nature. For what other purpose do we live?"
"Then, Harry, for what purpose do the rest of us live, who do not investigate those secrets? Can women be happy in no other way? We do not prosecute any kind of research, you know."
"Happy? Are we in the Present or the Past, Mildred?"
He looked about him, as if expecting to see the figures of the Pictures in the Gallery walking about upon the grass.
"Just now, Harry, we are in the Past. We are back--we two together--in the glorious and beautiful Past, where everything was delightful. Outside this place there is the horrible Present. You have made the Present for us, and therefore you ought to know what it is. Let me look at you, Harry. Why, the old look is coming back to your eyes. Take off that black gown, Harry, and throw it away, while you are with me. So. You are now my old friend again, and we can talk. You are no longer the President of the Holy College, the terrible and venerable Arch Physician, the Guardian of the House of Life. You are plain Harry Linister again. Tell me, then, Harry, are you happy in this beautiful Present that you have made?"
"Then why not unmake the Present? Why not return to the Past?"
"It is impossible. We might go back to the Past for a little; but it would become intolerable again, as it did before. Formerly there was no time for any of the fleeting things of life to lose their rapture. All things were enjoyed for a moment, and then vanished. Now"--he sighed wearily--"they last--they last. So that there is nothing left for us but the finding of new secrets. And for you, Mildred?"