"You refer, of course, though I hardly follow you quite—to our big friends?" O'Malley helped him.
The adjective slipped out before he was aware of it. His companion's expression admitted the accuracy of the remark. "You also see them—big, then?" he said, quickly taking him up. He was not cross-questioning; out of keen sympathetic interest he asked it.
"Sometimes, yes," the Irishman answered, more astonished. "Sometimes only—"
"Exactly. Bigger than they really are; as though at times they gave out—emanated—something that extended their appearance. Is that it?"
O'Malley, his confidence wholly won, more surprised, too, than he quite understood, seized Stahl by the arm and drew him toward the rails. They leaned over, watching the sea. A passenger, pacing the decks before dinner, passed close behind them.
"But, doctor," he said in a hushed tone as soon as the steps had died away, "you are saying things that I thought were half in my imagination only, not true in the ordinary sense quite—your sense, I mean?"
For some moments the doctor made no reply. In his eyes a curious steady gaze replaced the usual twinkle. When at length he spoke it was evidently following a train of thought of his own, playing round a subject he seemed half ashamed of and yet desired to state with direct language.
"A being akin to yourself," he said in low tones, "only developed, enormously developed; a Master in your own peculiar region, and a man whose influence acting upon you at close quarters could not fail to arouse the latent mind-storms"—he chose the word hesitatingly, as though seeking for a better he could not find on the moment,—"always brewing in you just below the horizon."
He turned and watched his companion's face keenly. O'Malley was too impressed to feel annoyance.
"Well—?" he asked, feeling the adventure closing round him with quite a new sense of reality. "Well?" he repeated louder. "Please go on. I'm not offended, only uncommonly interested. You leave me in a fog, so far. I think you owe me more than hints."