She was quite ready to face her companion after the first shock of his unexpected appearance. His small blue eyes sparkled angrily.
“I am not versed in the law concerning real estate in human kind in the Kingdom of Bohemia,” he answered. “You may have property in a couple of hundredweight, more or less, of old bones rather the worse for the wear and tear of a century, but I certainly have some ownership in the life. Without me, you would have been the possessor of a remarkably fine skeleton by this time—and of nothing more.”
As he spoke, his extraordinary voice ran over half a dozen notes of portentous depth, like the opening of a fugue on the pedals of an organ. Unorna laughed scornfully.
“He is mine, Keyork Arabian, alive or dead. If the experiment fails, and he dies, the loss is mine, not yours. Moreover, what I have done is done, and I will neither submit to your reproaches nor listen to your upbraidings. Is that enough?”
“Of its kind, quite. I will build an altar to Ingratitude, we will bury our friend beneath the shrine, and you shall serve in the temple. You could deify all the cardinal sins if you would only give your attention to the subject, merely by the monstrously imposing proportions you would know how to give them.”
“Does it ease you to make such an amazing noise?” inquired Unorna, raising her eyebrows.
“Immensely. Our friend cannot hear it, and you can. You dare to tell me that if he dies you are the only loser. Do fifty years of study count for nothing? Look at me. I am an old man, and unless I find the secret of life here, in this very room, before many years are over, I must die—die, do you understand? Do you know what it means to die? How can you comprehend that word—you girl, you child, you thing of five and twenty summers!”
“It was to be supposed that your own fears were at the root of your anger,” observed Unorna, sitting down upon her chair and calmly folding her hands as though to wait until the storm should pass over.
“Is there anything at the root of anything except Self? You moth, you butterfly, you thread of floating gossamer! How can you understand the incalculable value of Self—of that which is all to me and nothing to you, or which, being yours, is everything to you and to me nothing? You are so young—you still believe in things, and interests, and good and evil, and love and hate, truth and falsehood, and a hundred notions which are not facts, but only contrasts between one self and another! What were you doing here when I found you playing with life and death, perhaps with my life, for a gipsy trick, in the crazy delusion that this old parcel of humanity can see the shadows of things which are not yet? I saw, I heard. How could he answer anything save that which was in your own mind, when you were forcing him with your words and your eyes to make a reply of some sort, or perish? Ah! You see now. You understand now. I have opened your eyes a little. Why did he hesitate, and suffer? Because you asked that to which he knew there was no answer. And you tortured him with your will until his individuality fell into yours, and spoke your words.”
Unorna’s head sank a little and she covered her eyes. The truth of what he said flashed upon her suddenly and unexpectedly, bringing with it the doubt which had left her at the moment when the sleeper had spoken. She could not hide her discomfiture and Keyork Arabian saw his advantage.