He never answered, and never moved.
Ariel bent her slow mind to meet the difficulty of attracting his attention. I saw it in her frowning brows, in her colorless eyes looking at me vacantly. On a sudden, she joyfully struck the open palm of one of her hands with the fist of the other. She had triumphed. She had got an idea.
“Master!” she cried. “Master! You haven’t told me a story for ever so long. Puzzle my thick head. Make my flesh creep. Come on. A good long story. All blood and crimes.”
Had she accidentally hit on the right suggestion to strike his wayward fancy? I knew his high opinion of his own skill in “dramatic narrative.” I knew that one of his favorite amusements was to puzzle Ariel by telling her stories that she could not understand. Would he wander away into the regions of
