What is it?"
"I am not going to the dance because I am afraid, yes, horribly afraid."
"Afraid! Afraid of what?"
"I don't quite know, but, Mr. Seymour, I feel as though we were all
of us upon the edge of some dreadful catastrophe--as though there were
about to be a mighty change, and beyond it another life, something
new and unfamiliar. It came over me at dinner--that was why I left the
table. Quite suddenly I looked, and all the people were different, yes,
all except a few."
"Was I different?" he asked curiously.
"No, you were not," and he thought he heard her add "Thank God!" beneath
her breath.
"And were you different?"
"I don't know. I never looked at myself; I was the seer, not the seen. I
have always been like that."
"Indigestion," he said reflectively. "We eat too much on board ship,
and the dinner was very long and heavy. I told you so, that's why I'm
taking--I mean why I wanted to take exercise."
"And to go to sleep afterwards."
"Yes, first the exercise, then the sleep. Miss Clifford, that is the
rule of life--and death. With sleep thought ends, therefore for some of
us your catastrophe is much to be desired, for it would mean long sleep
and no thought."
"I said that they were changed, not that they had ceased to think.
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