She rose, now, and tossed her head back, with that shake I had noticed before. The gesture seemed to be the only link between her two moods, and, for a moment, she seemed to be again the melancholy princess. But the phase passed instantly, and she grew petulant.
"I don't know how to play well enough. It bores me."
I refused to let her off, however. "Then how about playing chess?"
She shrugged her shoulders and said: "Oh, I haven't got the kind of brain for chess."
My mind leaped over the remark, obviously untrue, to get to the other side of the perversity, where I might see more clearly.
"But it's incredible!" I cried. "How do you get along? How do you account for things? Do you mean to tell me that you can't remember yesterday, for instance? Not even what you did?"
She was growing more and more impatient. "No—sometimes I don't know how much time I've lost at all. You see, it's like being asleep, that's all. That's what Doctor Copin comes down here for."
"Oh, I see!" I exclaimed.
"That, and other things—" she hinted coquettishly.
"Ah?" I raised my eyebrows. "Among the other things, I suppose, is the fact that you're perfectly charming."