Julius quietly held my hand in his own firm grasp a second.
“Life came to you in sleep,” he said. “I told you--I warned you, the channels here were open and easily accessible. All power--all powers--everywhere are natural. Our object is to hold them, isn’t it?”
“You mean control them?” I said, still watching the door behind him.
“They visit the least among us; they touch us, and are gone. The essential is to harness them--in this case before they harness us--again.”
I made no reply. The other excitement was too urgent in me.
Linking his arm in mine, he led me towards a corner of the main room, half hall, half kitchen, where a white tablecloth promised breakfast. The “man” was already busying himself to and fro with plates and a gleaming metal pot that steamed. I smelt coffee and the fragrance of baked bread. But I listened half-heartedly to my host’s curious words because every minute I expected the door to open. There was a nervousness in me what I should find to say to such a woman when she came.
Was there, as well, among my bolder feelings, a faint suspicion of something else--something so slight and vague it hardly left a trace, while yet I was aware that it had been there? I could not honestly say. I only knew that, again, there stirred about my heart unconsciously a delicate spider-web of resentment, envy, disapproval--call it what one may, since it was too slight to own a definite name--that seemed to wake some ghost of injustice, of a grievance almost, in the hidden depths of me. It passed, unexplained, untraceable. Perhaps I smothered it, perhaps I left it unacknowledged. I know not. So elusive an emotion I could not retain a second, far less label. “Julius has found her; she is his,” was the clear thought that followed it. No more than that. And yet--like the shadow of a leaf, it floated down upon me, darkening, though almost imperceptibly, some unknown corner of my heart.
And, remembering my manners, I asked after her indisposition, while he laughed and insisted upon our beginning breakfast; she would presently join us; I should see her for myself. He looked so happy that I yielded to the momentary temptation.
“Julius,” I said, by way of compliment and somewhat late congratulation, “she must be wonderful. I’m so--so very pleased--for you.”