Then he followed Ilse Dumont into the adjoining room, which was lined with filled bookcases and where the lounges and deep chairs were covered with leather.
Halting by the library table, Ilse Dumont turned to him—turned on him a look such as he never before had encountered in any living woman’s eyes—a dead gaze, dreadful, glazed, as impersonal as the fixed regard of a corpse.
She said:
“I came.... They sent for me.... I did not believe they had the right man.... I could not believe it, Neeland.”
A trifle shaken, he said in tones which sounded steady enough:
“What frightens you so, Scheherazade?”
“Why did you come? Are you absolutely mad?”
“Mad? No, I don’t think so,” he replied with a forced smile. “What threatens me here, Scheherazade?”—regarding her pallid face attentively.
“Death.... You must have known it when you came.”
“Death? No, I didn’t know it.”