No dizziness remained; he tried both feet on the floor, straightened himself, cast a gaily malicious glance at her, and slowly rose to his feet.
“Scheherazade,” he said, “isn’t it funny? I ask you, did you ever hear of a would-be murderess and her escaped victim being on such cordial terms? Did you?”
He was going through a few calisthenics, gingerly but with increasing abandon, while he spoke.
“I feel fine, thank you. I am enjoying the situation extremely, too. It’s a delightful paradox, this situation. It’s absurd, it’s enchanting, it’s incredible! There is only one more thing that could make it perfectly impossible. And I’m going to do it!” And he deliberately encircled her waist and kissed her.
She turned white at that, and, as he released her, laughing, took a step or two blindly, toward the door; stood there with one hand against it as though supporting herself.
After a few moments, and very slowly, she turned and looked at him; and that young man was scared for the first time since their encounter in the locked house in Brookhollow.
Yet in her face there was no anger, no menace, 214 nothing he had ever before seen in any woman’s face, nothing that he now comprehended. Only, for the moment, it seemed to him that something terrible was gazing at him out of this girl’s fixed eyes—something that he did not recognise as part of her—another being hidden within her, staring out through her eyes at him.
“For heaven’s sake, Scheherazade––” he faltered.
She opened the door, still watching him over her shoulder, shrank through it, and was gone.
He stood for a full five minutes as though stupefied, then walked to the door and flung it open. And met a ship’s officer face to face, already lifting his hand to knock for admittance.