There appeared a fourth person in the room.
XXII. — THE ROUSING OF A MIND
It was a girl. Not the Nervina. No; this girl was quite another person.
Even now I find it curiously hard to describe her. For me to say that she was the picture of innocence, of purity, and of youth, is still to leave unsaid the secret of her loveliness.
For this stranger, coming out of the thin air into our midst, held me with a glorious fascination. From the first I felt no misgivings, such as Harry confesses he experienced when he fell under the Nervina's charm. I knew as I watched the stranger's wondering, puzzled features, that I had never before seen anyone so lovely, so attractive, and so utterly beyond suspicion.
It was only later that I noted her amazingly delicate complexion, fair as her hair was golden; her deep blue eyes, round face, and the girlish supple figure; or her robe-like garments of very soft, white material. For she commenced almost instantly to talk.
But we understood only with the greatest of difficulty. She spoke as might one who, after living in perfect solitude for a score of years, is suddenly called upon to use language. And I remembered that Rhamda Avec had told Jerome that he had only BEGUN the use of language.
“Who are you?” was her first remark, in the sweetest voice conceivable. But there was both fear and anxiety in her manner. “How—did I—get—here?”