She shook her finger at me with spirit. "If you dare!"
"Oh, I'll not be the first. Man though I am, I can restrain my curiosity."
How quickly her face changed! An almost infantile look came into it, as she said:
"There are so many more curious things than curiosity, if you know what I mean. Curiosity is such a destructive process, don't you think?"
"And this is creative? The not satisfying it, I mean."
"Yes, wonder is—and mystery. It ramifies so. It splits the ray." She made a queer, mystical gesture, all her own.
"Oh, it quite blossoms!" I said. "I breathe all sorts of perfumes never smelt."
Her eager look came back, and she smiled joyously. "How quick you are! I wish we could keep it up a while! I should have liked to marry Bluebeard! What a splendid dowry he gave! Oh, I would never have opened the door! There was so much more outside than in, wasn't there? But now the role is yours; you must be Bluebeard's wife—or Robinson Crusoe. Oh, you must stay on the island—this island with me, and not try to get off. There are a few little places we can explore without danger—will you be satisfied with them?"
Somehow I got the spirit of it, as at hearing some words of a strange language eloquently spoken. She was warning me off—but from what? I would find out soon enough, should the meaning need to be made more definite. It was like a game of jackstraws; if I did not play gingerly I should bring down the commonplace upon us. My situation was delicate—it almost seemed that I had arrived, in some way, inopportunely.
But she had gone on. "Did you read my books?" she asked, taking up one of them.