"Yes—but I want you not to draw inferences from them, but to say what you would feel ... of yourself ... out of your own head."
The General wanted time to think. The question required thought, and he was taking it seriously. The Earl, seeing him thinking, and Gwen waiting for the outcome, came round from his end of the table, and took the seat the Countess had vacated. He ought to have been there before, but it seemed as though Gwen's escapade had thrown all formalities out of gear. He was just in time for the General's conclusion:—"Give it up! Heaven only knows what I should do! Or anyone else!"
Gwen restated the problem, for her father's benefit. "I am with you, General," said he. "I cannot speculate on what I should do. I am inclined to think that the twinship has had something to do with the comparative rapidity of the ... recohesion...."
"Very good word, papa! Quite suits the case."
"... recohesion of these two old ladies. When we consider how very early in life they took their meals together...." The General murmured sotto voce:—"Before they were born." "... we must admit that their case is absolutely exceptional—absolutely!"
"You mean," said Gwen, "that if they had not been twins they would not have swallowed each other down, as they have done."
"Exactly," said the Earl.
"And yet," Gwen continued, "they never remember things as they happened. In fact, they are still in a sort of fog about what has happened. But they are quite sure they are Maisie and Phoebe. I do think, though, there is only one thing about Maisie's Australian life that Granny Marrable believes, and that is the devil that got possession of the convict husband.... Why does she? Because devils are in the Bible, of course." Here the devil story was retold for the benefit of the General, who did not know it.
The Earl did, so he did not listen. He employed himself thinking over practicable answers to the question before the house, and was just in time to avert a polemic about the authenticity of the Bible, a subject on which the General held strong views. "What helps me to an idea of a possible attitude of mind before a resurrection of this sort," he said, "is what sometimes happens when you wake up from a dream years long, a dream as long as a lifetime. Just the first moment of all, you can hardly believe yourself free of the horrid entanglement you had got involved in...."
"I know," said Gwen. "The other night I dreamed I was going to be married to a young gentleman I had known from childhood. Only he was a kettle-holder with a parrot on it."