break with them, and would soon have lost touch with him altogether, she felt that she need no longer take serious notice of his threat. Besides, she was thoroughly enjoying Barney's reactions to the dangers she had courted and was tempted by the urge to see him becoming more wrought up on her account.
'Well,' she said, 'if I do tell you I must ask you to keep it to yourself. You see, I'm not supposed to speak about these people's doings to anyone, and if it leaked out that I had they might make trouble for me.'
'I fully appreciate that,' he nodded. 'So the last thing you need be afraid of is that I'd let you down.'
'All right then. He took me up to a gallery where without being seen we could look down on the interior of the temple. There were about thirty men and women in it, all masked and wearing only gossamer-thin cloaks, through which one could see absolutely everything.'
Barney's face had become grim, and he muttered, 'That's more or less the kind of form I expected. But, damn it all, Margot! You mustn't let yourself get involved further in this sort of thing. You really mustn't!'
'I don't know.' She gave a shrug that implied sophisticated detachment. 'I haven't yet quite made up my mind. I wouldn't have missed this show last night for anything. By comparison, the sort of things one sees at Mrs. Wardeel's are child's play. Ratnadatta and his friends really can call down power, and I'm awfully tempted to go with him again next Saturday. It depends on whether I can screw up my courage to go through the initiation ceremony.'
'What form does it take? Something pretty beastly, I bet.'
'Not necessarily. But once in, I might be expected to take part in the, er - social activities of the Brotherhood.'
'I don't quite get you?'
'Well, Ratnadatta let me watch them do their serious stuff, but then he said that I'd seen quite enough for a first visit. Just as we were leaving they were about to sit down to a feast, and I've rather uneasy suspicions about the kind of fun and games they may have got up to afterwards.'
'Suspicions! Be your age, Margot! You'd get yourself raped for a certainty.'
She turned her big blue eyes on him with an innocent look. 'D'you really think so??
'Of course I do! You mustn't even think of going to this place again. You've got nothing to offer them except your body, and that's what they're after. They might even dope and white-slave you. Let's hear now about what you did see - their serious stuff?'
With secret amusement at his agitation, Mary replied: 'First of all they made their reports to the High Priest about what they had been up to since last attending a meeting. He looked a charming old man; the sort of priest that no woman would mind confessing anything to. Then, after a long period of silence, came the manifestations of genuine occult power. Somehow, I didn't see exactly how it happened, but the Arch-Priest of the Brotherhood appeared from some curtains that hung behind the altar.
'They all seemed a bit scared of him, and so was I. Apparently he is the big-shot of a world-wide organization, and only in London on a visit. The greater part of his face was hidden under a horned headdress, he was dressed in black tights - just as one sees pictures of the Devil - and he was wearing a fortune in jewels. He listened to the requests made by the congregation, and granted nearly all of them what they asked for - beauty, ways to make money, restoration of sight and all sorts of other favours and cures.'
Barney stopped eating and a slow smile spread over his face as he said, 'Oh, come on; you're pulling my leg?'
'No, really! And after that there came the most extraordinary and terrifying thing of all. A small cloud of smoke formed down at his feet and from it there materialized a hideous black imp.' While she was speaking, Barney had picked up from in front of him the wicker cradle in which lay the bottle of Burgundy they were drinking with their goulash. With his other hand he took her glass and refilled it. As she was about to take it from him, somehow, they fumbled it. At the moment she said the word 'imp', the glass slipped from between their hands and precipitated the whole of its contents into her lap.
With exclamations of dismay, both of them stood up. A passing waiter quickly pulled out the table and muttered expressions of sympathy while Mary hurried off to the ladies' room. The splashed table cloth was replaced, the remains of the goulash taken away and fresh places laid.
Mary was furious. As an aid to her designs to ensnare Barney she had put on her best semi-evening frock. It was brand new, and of a yellow material which she had chosen because, now that she was a brunette, she knew that the colour would set off her dark beauty to perfection.
In the cloakroom she quickly wriggled out of it and the attendant did her best to remove the stain by sponging with hot water. But when they had rough-dried it in front of an electric fire, the edge of the great circular splodge, where the wine had soaked in, was still plainly visible, and to their dismay they found that some of the wine having trickled through between Mary's legs, there was a smaller stain on the back of the skirt. As the wine there had had longer to penetrate the material, sponging the place had less effect and the woman glumly declared that she doubted if even proper cleaning would get it out.
Conscious of the many pairs of eyes taking stock of her misfortune as she recrossed the restaurant twenty minutes later, and still seething with rage, Mary rejoined Barney. He accepted the blame, and apologized profusely. She, out of good manners, did her best to make light of the matter and said that it had been her fault; but she was unable, altogether, to conceal her annoyance, and when new portions of goulash were served to them she petulantly told the waiter to take hers away as she had had enough.
Barney ate some of his in an uncomfortable silence; then in an endeavour to take her mind off her misfortune, he said: 'I didn't really mean it when I said I thought you were pulling my leg. Do go on and tell me more about the extraordinary things you saw last night. You'd got as far as the appearance of the black imp.'
As though she had received a mild electric shock, Mary stiffened slightly. It had flashed into her mind that the spilling of the wine might not have been an ordinary accident. In defiance of Ratnadatta's warning, she had been giving away the secrets of the Brotherhood. Was it possible that she was being overlooked and some occult force had been set in motion to check her? Thinking about it again she knew that the mishap had been more her fault than Barney's, because it was through her hand that the glass had actually slipped. Momentarily it had seemed as if her fingertips had lost their sense of touch, and next second the wine had cascaded into her lap. Suddenly she felt convinced that the temporary paralysis, although it had come and gone in less time than it takes to draw breath, could have been caused only by supernatural means.
Striving to conceal the fear with which the thought filled her, she stammered: The ... the imp! Yes, I... I. But, of course, I was pulling your leg. There was no imp or priest who used it to perform an abortion. . . .'
