"When you're of age, of course. Your grandmother left you everything."
"I was of age yesterday—twenty-one, legal age in all countries. As I own the ship, I shall decide what to do with her."
"What do you want to do?"
"Go back to the middle of the Indian Ocean. There is a man there who needs help."
"Daughter, Zaza, my poor girl! Your mind has left you. Don't be so absurd. He is dead. He could not have lived. You know I'm sorry. I'll never forgive myself. But this will do no good."
"He is not dead. He is calling me all the time. I hear it strongest as I waken from sleep. I hear it as I have heard it all my life. He calls me the name I called myself when little, before I knew my own name. I called myself Zenie. I would say Zenie will do this, or that. And ever since I can remember I have heard this voice calling to me, 'Zenie, come back!' I heard it in the fog that night on the steamship, and I went to him. I could not help it. He was the man on lookout, and I seemed to know him. You came after me. Do you recall it? He told me later that he had loved a little girl named Zenie, who died. I am that girl. I know it. I know it!"
"Great God, girl! What nonsense is this? Are you crazy?"
"I fear I may be unless this stops," she answered, pausing in her restless pacing of the floor, and looking at him with dilated eyes. "I dreamed of him this morning. He was on land, and it was raining. His clothing was in tatters, he was bearded, and his hair was long and matted. He was thin with starvation and suffering; but he called to me, so beseechingly, 'Zenie, come back!'"
"You had such ravings when you were delirious, Zaza. It is part of your fever, nothing more."
"It is more! It is truth! He is alive, or I should not hear. Were he dead, I should not be alive; for he called me back from the unknown to meet him and help him. He needs me now. I am going to him!"