‘I won’t,’ answered Eugen doggedly. ‘I’m waiting here for her. You didn’t think anyone had kept me here, did you, against my will? I tell you I’m waiting for her. She said she’d come.’
‘Who is she?’ Aribert asked, humouring him.
‘She! Why, you know! I forgot, of course, you don’t know. You mustn’t ask.
Don’t pry, Uncle Aribert. She was wearing a red hat.’
‘I’ll take you to her, my dear Eugen.’ Prince Aribert put his hands on the other’s shoulder, but Eugen shook him off violently, stood up, and then sat down again.
Aribert looked at Racksole, and they both looked at Prince Eugen. The latter’s face was flushed, and Racksole observed that the left pupil was more dilated than the right. The man started, muttered odd, fragmentary scraps of sentences, now grumbling, now whining.
‘His mind is unhinged,’ Racksole whispered in English.
‘Hush!’ said Prince Aribert. ‘He understands English.’ But Prince Eugen took no notice of the brief colloquy.
‘We had better get him upstairs, somehow,’ said Racksole.
‘Yes,’ Aribert assented. ‘Eugen, the lady with the red hat, the lady you are waiting for, is upstairs. She has sent us down to ask you to come up. Won’t you come?’