She got up and left the room, leaving Paul alone. His appetite had
quite departed, so he turned his chair around and looked out of the
window at the boxwood bushes and the trees beyond. Not a human figure
was in sight, nor was there a sound to indicate that there were
living creatures about the premises. Where was the family? Surely
such a large house could not be occupied solely by the few
individuals he had already met. If there were other members, where
had they kept themselves? He would have given the world to have asked
a few straightforward questions, but there seemed no opportunity to
do so. Where was Ah Ben? Even he had not shown his face at the
breakfast table. A painful sense of mystery was growing more
oppressive each hour, which the bright morning sunlight had not
dispelled, as he had hoped it would. If this feeling had confined
itself to Ah Ben and the house, Paul thought he might have shaken off
the gloom while in the company of the girl, but even she was subject
to such extraordinary flights of eccentricity, such sudden fits of
nervous depression, that he felt she was not surely to be depended on
as a solace to his troubled soul. While he was meditating, the door
opened, and Dorothy returned. She was full of smiles; and the color
had come back to her cheeks.
"I can't imagine how I could have given you such a turn," said Paul
apologetically, as he resumed his place at the table.
"It was altogether my fault," she answered. Then looking at him very
earnestly, added: "I hope, Mr. Henley, that you may never become an outcast, as I am.
I hope your people will never disown you. But let us talk of
something else."
As upon the previous evening, she was solicitous about his food, that
it should be of the best, and that he should enjoy it, although
apparently indifferent about her own.
"Of course, you will find us quite different from other people, Mr.
Henley," she continued, sipping her coffee (she never seemed to drink
or eat anything heartily); "our ideas and manner of living being
quite at variance with theirs."
"Yes," Paul replied, as if he understood it perfectly. She was toying
with her cup as though not knowing exactly how to continue. Presently
she looked up at him appealingly, possessed of a sudden idea, and
added: "And what do you think about the brain?"
Paul was astonished at the irrelevancy of the question.