“Yian.”
“You lived there?”
“Yes.”
He moistened his dry lips and stole another glance at this very commonplace Florida river. Sky and water were blank and still, and the ghostly trees stood tall, reflected palely in the translucent tide.
“You merely made me visualise what you were thinking about,” he concluded in a voice which still remained unsteady.
“Did you hear nothing?”
He was silent, remembering the bells and the enormous murmur of a living multitude.
“And—there were the birds, too.” She added, with an uncertain smile: “I do not mean to worry you.... And you did ask me to amuse you.”
“I don’t know how you did it,” he said harshly. “And the details—those thousands and thousands of people on the bridge!... And there was one, quite near this end of the bridge, who looked back.... A young girl who turned and laughed at us—”
“That was Yulun.”