Guy Strangways was talking to Beatrix, and the Baronet heard him say, smiling—
"But you don't, I'm sure, believe in the elixir of life; you only mean to mystify us." He was looking more than ever—identical with that other person, whom it was not pleasant to Sir Jekyl to be reminded of—horribly like, in this white waxlight splendour.
"But there's another process, my uncle, Monsieur Varbarriere, says, by slow refrigeration: you are first put to sleep, and in that state frozen; and once frozen, without having suffered death, you may be kept in a state of suspended life for twenty or thirty years, neither conscious, nor growing old; arrested precisely at the point of your existence at which the process was applied, and at the same point restored again whenever for any purpose it may be expedient to recall you to consciousness and activity."
One of those restless, searching glances which the solemn, portly old gentleman in black directed, from time to time, as he indulged his taciturn gulosity, lighted on the Baronet at this moment, and Sir Jekyl felt that they exchanged an unintentional glance of significance. Each averted his quickly; and Sir Jekyl, with one of his chuckles, for the sake merely of saying something, remarked—
"I don't see how you can restore people to life by freezing them."
"He did not speak, I think, of restoring life—did you, Guy?" said the bell-toned diapason of the old gentleman, speaking his nasal French.
"Oh, no—suspending merely," answered the young man.
"To restore life, you must have recourse, I fancy, to a higher process," continued the sage, with an ironical gravity, and his eye this time fixed steadily on Sir Jekyl's; "and I could conceive none more embarrassing to the human race, under certain circumstances," and he shrugged slowly and shook his head.
"How delightful!—no more death!" exclaimed enthusiastic Miss Blunket.
"Embarrassing, of course, I mean, to certain of the survivors."