Dreams, said Mrs. Makebelieve, did not come for nothing. There was more in dreams than was generally understood. Many and many were the dreams which she herself had been visited by, and they had come true so often that she could no longer disregard their promises, admonishments, or threats. Of course many people had dreams which were of no consequence, and these could usually be traced to gluttony or a flighty, inconstant imagination. Drunken people, for instance, often dreamed strange and terrible things, but, even while they were awake, these people were liable to imaginary enemies whom their clouded eyes and intellects magnified beyond any thoughtful proportions, and when they were asleep their dreams would also be subject to this haze and whirl of unreality and hallucination.
Mary said that sometimes she did not dream at all, and at other times she dreamed very vividly, but usually could not remember what the dream had been about when she awakened; and once she had dreamed that some one gave her a shilling which she placed carefully under her pillow, and this dream was so real that in the morning she put her hand under the pillow to see if the shilling was there, but it was not. The very next night she dreamed the same dream, and as she put the phantom money under her pillow she said out loudly to herself, "I am dreaming this, and I dreamt it last night also." Her mother said if she had dreamt it for the third time some one would have given her a shilling surely. To this Mary agreed, and admitted that she had tried very hard to dream it on the third night, but somehow could not do it.
"When my brother comes home from America," said Mrs. Makebelieve, "we'll go away from this part of the city at once. I suppose he'd want a rather big house on the south side--Rathfarnham or Terenure way, or, maybe, Donnybrook. Of course he'll ask me to mind the house for him, and keep the servants in order, and provide a different dinner every day, and all that; while you could go out to the neighbours' places to play lawn-tennis or cricket, and have lunch. It will be a very great responsibility."
"What kind of dinners would you have?" said Mary.
Mrs. Makebelieve's eyes glistened, and she leaned forward in the bed; but just as she was about to reply the labouring man in the next room slammed his door, and went thundering down the stairs. In an instant Mrs. Makebelieve bounded from her bed; three wide twists put up her hair; eight strange, billow-like movements put on her clothes; as each article of clothing reached a definite point on her person Mary stabbed it swiftly with a pin--four ordinary pins in this place, two safety-pins in that: then Mrs. Makebelieve kissed her daughter sixteen times, and fled down the stairs and away to her work.
XXI
In a few minutes Mrs. Cafferty came into the room. She was, as every woman is in the morning, primed with conversation about husbands; for in the morning husbands are unwieldy, morose creatures without joy, without lightness, lacking even the common, elemental interest in their own children, and capable of detestably misinterpreting the conversation of their wives. It is only by mixing amongst other men that this malignant humour may be dispelled. To them the company of men is like a great bath into which a husband will plunge wildly, renouncing as he dives wife and children, all anchors and securities of hearth and roof, and from which he again emerges singularly refreshed and capable of being interested by a wife, a family, and a home until the next morning. To many women this is a grievance amounting often to an affront, and although they endeavour, even by cooking, to heal the singular breach, they are utterly unable to do so, and perpetually seek the counsel of each other on the subject. Mrs. Cafferty had merely asked her husband would he hold the baby while she poured out his stirabout, and he had incredibly threatened to pour the stirabout down the back of her neck if she didn't leave him alone.
It was upon this morning madness she had desired to consult her friend, and when she saw that Mrs. Makebelieve had gone away her disappointment was quite evident. But this was only for a moment. Almost all women are possessed of a fine social sense in relation to other women. They are always on their best behaviour towards one another. Indeed, it often seems as if they feared and must by all possible means placate each other by flattery, humour, or a serious tactfulness. There is very little freedom between them, because there is no real freedom or acquaintance but between things polar. There is nothing but a superficial resemblance between like and like, but between like and unlike there is space wherein both curiosity and spirit may go adventuring. Extremes must meet, it is their urgent necessity, the reason for their distance, and the greater the distance between them the swifter will be their return and the warmer their impact: they may shatter each other to fragments, or they may fuse and become indissoluble and new and wonderful, but there is no other fertility. Between the sexes there is a really extraordinary freedom of intercourse. They meet each other something more than half-way. A man and a woman may become quite intimate in a quarter of an hour. Almost certainly they will endeavour to explain themselves to each other before many minutes have elapsed; but a man and a man will not do this,
