There was a small pause, and then the lady spoke, with apparent reluctance:
Varney smiled into the great darkness. "Well, when I first heard your voice--ha, ha!--I made up my mind that you could not possibly be less than fifty-two."
He was rewarded with a faint laugh: this time there could be no doubt of it.
"You remember that mythological tunnel where everybody went in old and came out young. This conversation has been like that. Since we have talked," said Varney, "I have knocked thirty years off your age. But much remains to be told--and that is the game. Are you dark?"
"This is no punning matter," he said; and began his third exploration of himself for a match. And above them the water continued to thud upon the roof like a torrent broken out of a dam.
"This is _too_ bad!" breathed the lady impatiently, and plainly she was not speaking to Varney. "I believe it's coming down harder and harder every minute!"
"Yes," he answered cheerfully, "the good old rain is at it in earnest. We're probably fixed for hours and hours. I might argue, you know," he added, "that I have a right to know these things. The box of matches I just gave away like a madman would have told me, and no questions asked. Matches and lamps you have none, but such as you have--"
"Could you not talk of something else, please?"
Varney laughed. "Certainly, if I must. Only I've been rather generous about this, I think, showing you my hand and giving you the chance to laugh at me. You see, for all I know you may be fifty-two, after all. Or even sixty-two--Oh, glory! Hallelujah!"
"Oh, nothing! Nothing at all! Just I have found a match. That's all!"
"A _match_! Splendid!" she cried, and her voice suddenly seemed to come from a higher point in the darkness, as though she had risen. "Just one! Oh, we--you must be extremely careful with it."
"The trouble is," he said with exaggerated dejection, "it's pretty wet. I don't know whether it will strike or not."
"You must _make_ it strike. Oh, it will be--unpardonable--if you don't make it strike!"
"Then I'll throw my soul into the work. I'll concentrate my whole will-power upon it. On the back of this chair here--shall I?"
"All right. I'll concentrate too. Are--you ready?"