“Oh, that is a mere ... surface. I have not gone into you, sir. I am not sure that I care to.”
“Mrs. Landsdowne, you must!”
Her eyes began to focus far behind my own, so that their traversing mine took on an imperturbable coldness.
“Why have I come here? Surely it was not chance: this zigzag route.”
“You know there is no chance. I have no name for it: I see your mind tracing a design out of a swarm of myriad living gray things. Strange! They are like cells of our flesh, but they have space about them. They swing like stars! You are the sort who knows ... why have you come here?”
I clasped my hands together. I was very tired. Yet as I looked on this woman life seemed more bearable to me, than it had been for long. My clasped hands cupped my falling head. I was very sleepy, and there were tears in my eyes.
I looked up at last from my sweet indulgence, and a horror in the face of the woman dried my tears.
“Will you speak, Mrs. Landsdowne, will you speak to me?”
She shook her head.
“Coward!” I cried. “Coward!”