DISAPPOINTMENT
57
of the ceiling, a cry from the bed halted him. He turned—and he was aghast when he saw the prince's face. The man had suddenly turned a grayish yellow—"yellow as a dead man's bones," the doctor described it afterward—and his whole body was trembling with a terrible palsy.
"No, no!" he cried. "Leave the lamps burn—all of them!"
Then, in a sort of whine which was both ridiculous and pathetic, given the size of the man: "I will not have a dark room—by myself! The thing will come!"
"What thing?" asked the doctor, and he added jestingly: "You aren t afraid of the dark, are you?"
He was utterly amazed when he heard the prince's reply.
"Yes, doctor," in a hushed voice, but absolutely matter-of-fact, like stating a tiresome sort of truth, "I am afraid."
And when the doctor, who had no respect for titles, made a succinct allusion to "cowards," Narodkine told him.
Dr. Marc Henri never found out if it was because of a sudden liking Narodkine had taken to