However, it was not my purpose to touch upon this matter. My interest was beginning to flag, and I was paying more attention to Elizabeth than to the lesson. I was trying to trace in her features some elusive resemblance to Esther. I was wondering whether I could ever become a normal citizen of this strange world. Suddenly the telephone funnel shouted Elizabeth’s name. She sprang from her chair and rushed into her bedroom, which was next to the external elevator shaft. Her expression and gestures alarmed me so greatly that I ran after her. When I reached her door I saw her standing in the middle of the room, deathly white, and clenched in her hand was a knife, which she was aiming at her heart. I ran into the room and wrested the weapon from her grasp. She fell upon the floor unconscious. All the while this was happening the funnel was shouting stridently, “Elizabeth!” “Elizabeth!” together with the string of letters and figures that completed her nomenclature. I went to the funnel and lied to the voice. “She is not here,” I said. “Then tell her, when she returns, that the price of the dress will be five units more, on account of the new wool schedule,” the voice responded. Such was the half-comic ending of what had nearly been a tragedy. I revived the girl and explained the matter to her, but for some time she remained in a condition approaching collapse. When she began to regain consciousness she wept hysterically. It was only the fear of causing David anxiety that enabled her to resume her accustomed demeanor by the time he returned. She begged me to make no mention of the matter to him, and I agreed on condition that she would never use the knife except in the last extremity. But I was working in the dark, for, though she consented to the bargain, when I begged her to tell me what it was she feared, she remained mute, shaking her head and closing her mouth obstinately. “Will you not trust me, Elizabeth?” I pleaded. Then, to my surprise, she looked accusingly at me. “Will you trust me?” she asked. “Will you not trust my father and me? Haven’t you news of Paul?” Her expression was indescribably beseeching. “We don’t know who you are,” she went on rapidly. “My father trusts everybody. But I know your assumed ignorance is impossible. You don’t trust us, Arnold, and you are playing with us. You have been here three weeks and the Council has not sent for you. If you were what you claim to be you would know your danger. Trust us, and, if you are what we hoped you were, tell me about Paul. Is he safe? Is he well?” “I never heard of him,” I stammered. “I—” She looked at me with reproach and glided quietly away. I heard her sigh mournfully. And still I groped in a fog of mystery and could learn nothing. CHAPTER VIII HOW THE WORLD WAS MADE OVER