I had reached just so far in my dream when the oysters came, and that is why I wished I had ordered 'Anglos' and no roll.
When I looked again, Siss had stopped writing, and was sitting with her head in her hands dreaming. I looked into her eyes, felt ashamed for a moment, and then stepped into her dream. I felt I was not worthy to walk there, but I took off my hat and told myself that I was reverent.
It was a pretty flat, full of dainty rooms, and I followed her from one to another, and one there was just like that in which I had seen her writing, with the old escritoire, and the books, and the burning candles, and the silver photograph shrine. She walked about very wistfully, and her eyes were full. So were mine, and I wanted to sob, but feared lest she should hear. Presently Jim joined her, and they walked together, and said to each other, 'Think, this is our home at last'--'Think, this is our home at last. O love, our home--together for evermore!'
This they said many times, and at length they came to a room that had a door white as ivory, and I caught a breath of freshest flowers as they opened and passed in.
Then I closed my eyes, and when I looked again I thought an angel stood on the threshold, as I had seen it somewhere in Victor Hugo--a happy angel with finger upon his lip.
And when the dream had gone, and I was once more alone, I said 'Jim is working, Siss is waiting, and I--am eating borrowed oysters.'
Then I took out the sovereign and looked at it, for it was now symbolic. Outside, above the street, a star was shining. I had filched a beam of Siss's star. Was it less bright tonight? Had she missed this sovereign?
It had been symbolic before--a sovereign's-worth of the world, the flesh, and the devil; now it was a sovereign's-worth of holy love and home. Every penny I spent of it dimmed that star, delayed that home. In my pocket it meant a sovereign's-worth more working and waiting. Pay it back again into that star, and it was a sovereign nearer home. Yes, it was a sovereign's-worth of that flat, of that escritoire, those books, those burning candles, that photograph, that ivory-white door, those sweet-smelling flowers, a sovereign's-worth of that angel, I was keeping in my pocket.