"Perhaps," replied her father. "All your life you have dreamed of
running water."
And Sylvia nodded her head.
"Yes, yes," she said, with a peculiar intentness.
"The dream is part of you, part of your life. For all you know, it may
have modified your character."
"Yes," said Sylvia.
"It is a part of you of which you could not rid yourself if you tried.
When you are asleep, this dream comes to you. It is as much a part of you
as a limb."
And again Sylvia answered: "Yes."
"Well, you are not responsible for it," and Sylvia leaned forward.
"Ah!" she said. She had been wondering whether it was to this point that
he was coming.
"You know now why you hear it, why it's part of you. You were born to the
sound of running water in that old house in Dorsetshire. Before you were
born, in the daytime and in the stillness of the night your mother heard
it week after week. Perhaps even when she was asleep the sound rippled
through her dreams. Thus you came by it. It was born in you."
"Yes," she answered, following his argument step by step very carefully,
but without a sign of the perplexity which was evident in Hilary Chayne.
Chayne stood a little aloof, looking from Sylvia's face to the face of
her father, in doubt whither the talk was leading. Sylvia, on the other
hand, recognized each sentence which her father spoke as the embodiment
of a thought with which she was herself familiar.
Pages:
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346