He began chanting. "B, a, ba; B, e, be--babe! B, i, bi--babebi! B, o, bo--babebibo! B, u, bu--babebibobu!" Then he went on to the letter C, "C, a, ca! C, e, ce--cace! C, i, ci--caceci!" and to D, and so on, one after the other, through all the consonants in the alphabet. "The queerest rigmarole you ever heard!" Aurora called that simple Italian spelling-exercise for little beginners. It might have been funny to hear him, only it was disquieting, he did it so earnestly and so obstinately kept it up. When he had finished, Aurora held a sedative powder all nicely wrapped in a wet wafer ready for him. He knew what it was and gratefully gulped it, composing himself after it to wait in patience and self-control for its operation. Aurora, reposing on the magic of drugs like a witch on the power of incantations, watched for the drooping of his eyelids and relaxing of his frown. He had lain still for so long that she was congratulating herself upon the result thus easily obtained, when he opened his eyes, twice as wide-awake as before, and began to talk, as if really the object of an opiate were not to stupefy a man, but to rouse him fully. Under its influence he was almost garrulous. His vivacity partook of delirium. All that passed through his mind pressed forward indiscriminately into utterance, as if the sentinels placed on guard over his thoughts had been taking an hour off. Aurora heard him in wonder and perplexity. He was not incoherent, he was not extravagant. He was merely talkative, expansive, and this in his case was obviously pathological. She wondered also to see how handsome he could look, with his eyes alight; his cheek-bones burning, pink as paint; his hair, grown long, lying in dark locks over a luminous forehead. She tried to think of something that would abate all this. She was searching her nurse's memory for some further sedative by which to counteract a first one gone wrong, when the thread of her medical meditation snapped, her attention fastened upon what Gerald was saying. Because she had a suspicion that it was about Violet he was talking. And she had from the first been curious about Violet and his feelings with regard to her. As curious as if she had been jealous.