"Yes," went on Dion, "the only thing is that a man should not be deceived by these shows, but should be able to look through and behind them. This room seems bright and solid enough to us; the laughter is loud; it is all very real and true to us; but I think that you have the power to see further; look in my eyes for a moment and tell me what you see."
Linus looked at Dion's eyes, and all at once he seemed to stand in a lonely and misty place; it seemed like a hill swept with clouds; it was but for a moment, and then the bright room and the table came back; but it swam before his eyes.
"This is very strange," said Linus. "I do not think that I ever felt this before."
Then Dion said, "Look at the wall there opposite to us, between the arches, and tell me what you see."
The wall between the arches was a plain wall of stone that gave, Linus knew, upon the street; he looked for a moment at the wall and the joints of the masonry. "I see nothing," he said, "but the wall and the jointed stones."
"Look again," said Dion.
Linus looked again, and suddenly the wall became blurred, as though a smoke passed over it; then the stones seemed to him to melt into a kind of mist, which moved this way and that; all at once the mists drew up, rolling off in ragged fringes, and showed him a dark room within, plainly furnished with tall presses; in the centre of the room was a table at which a man sat writing in a book, a large volume, writing busily, his hand moving swiftly and noiselessly over the paper. At the far end of the room was an archway which seemed to lead into a corridor; but the man never raised his head. He was an old man with grey hair, clad in a cloudy kind of gown; his face seemed stern and sad; over his head played a curious radiance, as though from some unseen source, which brightened into two clear centres or points of light over his brows.
While he still wrote, some one whom Linus could not see very distinctly came quietly into the room through the archway, carrying in his arms another volume like the one in which the man was writing; the writer never raised his head, but Linus saw that he was finishing the last page of the book; as he finished he pushed it aside with something of impatience in his gesture; the other laid the new volume before him, and the man began at once to write, as though eager to make up for the moment's interruption; the other took up the finished book, clasped it, and went silently out.