CHAPTER 8
Mr Reeder was conscious of a headache and that the light shining in his eyes was painful. It was a tiny globe which burned in the roof of the cabin. Somebody was talking very distressedly; the falsetto voices Mr Reeder loathed. His senses came back gradually.
He was shocked to find himself one of the figures in a most fantastical scene; something which did not belong to the great world of reality in which he lived and had his being. He was part of an episode, torn bodily from a most imaginative and impossible work of fiction.
The man who sat in one corner of the lounge, clasping his knees, was . . . Mr Reeder puzzled for a word. Theatrical, of course. That red silk robe, that Mephistophelian cap, and the long black mask with the lace fringe that even hid the speaker’s chin. Hi
