“Maybe he thinks there is something outside,” said Jacob Henderson, opening the door for him.
And Michael did so think. As a matter of course, through that open door, he was prepared to have the South-Pacific Ocean flow in, bearing on its bosom schooners and ships, islands and reefs, and all men and animals and things he once had known and still remembered.
But no past flowed in through the door. Outside was the usual present. He came back dejectedly to the woman, who still called him Michael as she petted him. She, at any rate, was real. Next he carefully smelled and identified the man with the beach of Tulagi and the deck of the Ariel, and again his excitement began to mount.
“Oh, Harley, I know it is he!” Villa cried. “Can’t you test him? Can’t you prove him?”
“But how?” Harley pondered. “He seems to recognize his name. It excites him. And though he never knew us very well, he seems to remember us and to be excited by us, too. If only he could talk . . . ”
“Oh, talk! Talk!” Villa pleaded with Michael, catching both sides of his head and jaws in her hands and swaying him back and forth.
“Be careful, madam,” Jacob Henderson warned. “He is a very sour dog; and he don’t let people take such liberties.”
“He does me,” she laughed, half-hysterically. “Because he knows me. . . . Harley!” She broke off as the great idea dawned on her. “I have a test. Listen! Remember, Jerry was a nigger-chaser before we got him. And Michael was a nigger-chaser. You talk in bêche-de-mer. Appear angry with some black boy, and see how it will affect him.”
“I’ll have to remember hard to resurrect any bêche-de-mer,” Harley said, nodding approval of the suggestion.
“At the same time I’ll distract him,” she rushed on.