I refrained from disputing with him, in fear of what might follow. We waited again. Benjamin, sullenly submitting to my caprices, had taken down the questions and answers that had passed between Dexter and myself. He still mechanically kept his page open, and still held his pencil in readiness to go on. Ariel, quietly submitting to the drowsy influence of the wine while Dexter’s voice was in her ears, felt uneasily the change to silence. She glanced round her restlessly; she lifted her eyes to “the Master.”
There he sat, silent, with his hand to his head, still struggling to marshal his wandering thoughts, still trying to see light through the darkness that was closing round him.
“Master!” cried Ariel, piteously. “What’s become of the story?”
He started as if she had awakened him out of a sleep; he shook his head impatiently, as though he wanted to throw off some oppression that weighed upon it.
“Patience, patience,” he said. “The story is going on again.”
He dashed at it desperately; he picked up the first lost thread that fell in his way, reckless whether it were the right thread or the wrong one:
“Damoride fell on her knees. She burst into tears. She said—”
He stopped, and looked about him with vacant eyes.
“What name did I give the other woman?” he asked, not putting the question to me, or to either of my companions: asking it of himself, or asking it of the empty air.
“You called the other woman Cunegonda,” I said.