“And your cousin? Did he call you so, also?”
“Rarely. Usually he addressed me simply as Danton, and at times with the familiarity of some of my club friends he called me Dan. But I discouraged such familiarities on his part, for I never liked him. In fact, I always hated him—despised him, hated him and feared him as well; but that is part of the story I shall tell you from the second beginning. You know I asked you to give me two beginnings.”
“Well; you started wide-awake with the feeling that somebody had called you, and that your middle name had been used. Go on.”
“Not wide-awake. I was dazed. There was an instant when I did not know where I was.”
“Naturally.”
“Then there were several moments when I could not remember how I got there, although I could tell that I was in my own room.”
“But it all came back to you as you thought it over?”
“Not all; and what did come back to my recollection came very slowly. Let me tell you things chronologically.”
“Certainly.”
“I rubbed my eyes and saw that I was in my own room. Then I looked around to see who had called me, and discovered Orizaba seated in the big chair by the window; but for the life of me I could not remember how he got there. I leaned back again among the pillows of the couch to think it over, and then I remembered that somebody had called to me, and I sung out to Orizaba to know if he had done it.