Had Miss Pride been able at that moment to read my mind, she would have been convinced that my mother’s idiosyncrasies were already cropping up in me, for as I listened to her, I lost my identity. I was invaded by the strange feeling that I was not myself, or rather, that this was a phantom of myself, projected into Boston by my real being, still in Chichester. I had had this sort of experience before: in the winter just past when the days were at their shortest, I had waked once at four o’clock but had had no way of knowing whether it was four in the morning or four in the afternoon. Even though my mother was still asleep beside me and though no sounds of life came from outdoors, I concluded that it was afternoon, that we had slept through the whole day, and I rose in haste, ashamed of my sloth. As I shook down the stove, live coals fell into the ash box and I knew that it was morning or no fire would be left. Although I was wide awake, I had the sudden feeling that I was still in bed and that the person or the thing that held the cold stove shaker was not a dreamed-up aspect of myself but was a clever imitation. It was not so much Miss Pride’s wounding, though perhaps sensible, counsel that made me take refuge in this fantasy—for I suppose the psychologists would say that my lapse was in effect an “escape from reality”—as it was that it did not seem to be the first time she had spoken thus. On one level, that of my conscious memory, I knew that this scene had not been played before, but on a secondary plane, her speech, down to the very syntax of her sentences, was so familiar that I knew, or thought I knew, exactly what was coming next. And for that short space, I believed that I was in my bed at home, enacting a daydream. The fact that restored me—in itself absurd, far from conclusive, but nevertheless as quick-acting as the cock’s crow that hurtles ghosts and goblins back to hell—was the chiming of the clock on the mantelpiece marking ten. Or rather, I heard only the tenth stroke but knew that I had heard all the others as well and that Miss Pride’s “Times change” had been uttered just as the first note sounded.

“I’m so glad to be here!” I cried.

“That’s a non sequitur,” smiled Miss Pride. “But I take it as a compliment, and also as a sly hint that you’ve had enough of my sermonizing. Very well, you win. I shan’t mention it again. Let your conscience be your guide.”