“It sounds absurd.”
“It is.”
“Why can't they get away? What is there to keep them together? It's ridiculous. I—”
“Quite.”
“He would tell it to me.”
“It's his way.”
“He interrupted me. And there's no point in it. Is he—” he hesitated, “mad?”
“There's a whole world of people mad with him,” I answered after a pause.
The perplexed expression of the blond-haired man intensified. It is vain to deny that he enlarged the scope of his inquiry, visibly if not verbally. “Dear me!” he said, and took up something he had nearly forgotten. “And you found yourselves suddenly on a mountain side?... I thought you were joking.”
I turned round upon him with a sudden access of earnestness. At least I meant my manner to be earnest, but to him it may have seemed wild.