Whereupon my resolution
nearly deserted me. How warm and soft, and altogether adorable
they were. I drew a long breath and began:
"My dear--By the way, what is your name?"
"I"--regretfully, after a moment's thought--"I don't know,
Hobart."
"Quite so," as though the fact was commonplace. "We will have to
provide you with a name. Any suggestions?"
Charlotte hesitated only a second. "Let's call her Ariadne; it was
Harry's mother's name."
"That's so; fine! Do you like the name--Ariadne?"
"Yes," both pleased and relieved. At the same time she looked
oddly puzzled, and I could see her lips moving silently as she
repeated the name to herself.
Not for an instant did I let go of those wonderful fingers. "What
I want you to know, Ariadne, is that you have come into a world
that is, perhaps, more or less like the one that you have just
left. For all I know it is one and the same world, only, in some
fashion not yet understood, you may have transported yourself to
this place. Perhaps not.
"Now, we call this a room, a part of the house. Outside is a
street. That street is one of hundreds in a vast city, which
consists of a multitude of such houses together with other and
vastly larger structures. And these structures all rest upon a
solid material which we call the ground or earth.
"The fact that you understand our language indicates that either
you have fallen heir to a body and a brain which are thoroughly in
tune with ours, or else--and please understand that we know very
little of this mystery--or else your own body has somehow become
translated into a condition which answers the same purpose.
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