He had neither the time nor the coolness to realize his emotions, but he accepted for the moment the assumption of the individuality of Jenny. "You are nothing to me," he said. "I am engaged to Alice." "Oh, that's all right. I know that. I know all about her; lots more than you do. But I tell you, you'd a great deal better take me. I'm just as much the girl you're engaged to as she is." He looked at her darkly and with trouble in his eyes. "Where is Alice?" he asked. "Oh, she's all right. She's somewhere. Asleep, I think likely. I don't want to talk about her. I never liked her." "Talk about yourself, then. Where are you when Alice is here?" "Oh, that's stupid. I'd rather talk about what we'll do when we are married. Shall we go abroad right off?" "It will be time enough to talk about that when there's any prospect of our being married." "You would n't kiss me the other day," Jenny said, looping the necklace about his throat and bending forward so that her face was close to his. A feeling of anger so strong that it was almost brutal came over him. He tore the necklace out of her hands and threw it across the room. Then, as on the previous occasion, he caught the girl by the wrists. "Go away!" he commanded. "Let Alice come back!" "Oh, you hurt me!" she cried. "I can't bear to be hurt! Let me go!" He tightened his grasp. "If you don't go, I'll really hurt. I won't have you fooling with Alice like this." Her glance wavered on his; then the eyelids drooped; and he loosened his hold with the consciousness that Alice had come back. "Why, George," she said, in her natural voice; "I did n't know you were here." He took her in his arms with a feeling as near to the hysterical as he was capable of, and then instantly devoted himself to dissipating the anxiety which his obvious agitation aroused in her. As time went on, the appearances of Jenny became more frequent. The fact that this secondary personality had once been in control of the body which it shared with Alice seemed to make its reappearance more easy. Alice evidently became more susceptible to whatever conditions produced this strange possession. It was clear to Carroll that each time the elfish Jenny succeeded in gaining possession of consciousness,--for so he put it to himself, entirely realizing what a confusing paradox the phrase implied,--she became stronger and better able to assert herself. He grew more and more disturbed, but he was also more and more completely baffled. Sometimes the matter presented itself to his professional mind as a medical case of absorbing interest; sometimes it appealed to him as a freak of gigantic irony on the part of fate; and yet again he was swept away by love or by passionate pity and sorrow for Alice. He felt that, all unconscious of her peril,--for she knew nothing of her mysterious double,--she was being robbed of her very personality.