“That is to be expected,” was Chris’s comment. His gaze went back to the man and woman who had been father and mother to the girl beside him. “Do you know,” he said, “it came to me with a shock yesterday when you told me that they had turned against me and that I was scarcely tolerated. I met them afterwards, last evening, guiltily, in fear and trembling—and to-day, too. And yet I could see no difference from of old.”
“Dear man,” Lute sighed. “Hospitality is as natural to them as the act of breathing. But it isn’t that, after all. It is all genuine in their dear hearts. No matter how severe the censure they put upon you when you are absent, the moment they are with you they soften and are all kindness and warmth. As soon as their eyes rest on you, affection and love come bubbling up. You are so made. Every animal likes you. All people like you. They can’t help it. You can’t help it. You are universally lovable, and the best of it is that you don’t know it. You don’t know it now. Even as I tell it to you, you don’t realize it, you won’t realize it—and that very incapacity to realize it is one of the reasons why you are so loved. You are incredulous now, and you shake your head; but I know, who am your slave, as all people know, for they likewise are your slaves.
“Why, in a minute we shall go in and join them. Mark the affection, almost maternal, that will well up in Aunt Mildred’s eyes. Listen to the tones of Uncle Robert’s voice when he says, ‘Well, Chris, my boy?’ Watch Mrs. Grantly melt, literally melt, like a dewdrop in the sun.
“Take Mr. Barton, there. You have never seen him before. Why, you will invite him out to smoke a cigar with you when the rest of us have gone to bed—you, a mere nobody, and he a man of many millions, a man of power, a man obtuse and stupid like the ox; and he will follow you about, smoking; the cigar, like a little dog, your little dog, trotting at your back. He will not know he is doing it, but he will be doing it just the same. Don’t I know, Chris? Oh, I have watched you, watched you, so often, and loved you for it, and loved you again for it, because you were so delightfully and blindly unaware of what you were doing.”
“I’m almost bursting with vanity from listening to you,” he laughed, passing his arm around her and drawing her against him.
“Yes,” she whispered, “and in this very moment, when you are laughing at all that I have said, you, the feel of you, your soul,—call it what you will, it is you,—is calling for all the love that is in me.”
She leaned more closely against him, and sighed as with fatigue. He breathed a kiss into her hair and held her with firm tenderness.
Aunt Mildred stirred briskly and looked up from the Planchette board.
“Come, let us begin,” she said. “It will soon grow chilly. Robert, where are those children?”
“Here we are,” Lute called out, disengaging herself.
“Now for a bundle of creeps,” Chris whispered, as they started in.
Lute’s prophecy of the manner in which her lover would be received was realized. Mrs. Grantly, unreal, unhealthy, scintillant with frigid magnetism, warmed and melted as though of truth she were dew and he sun. Mr. Barton beamed broadly upon him, and was colossally gracious. Aunt Mildred greeted him with a glow of fondness and motherly kindness, while Uncle Robert genially and heartily demanded, “Well, Chris, my boy, and what of the riding?”
But Aunt Mildred drew her shawl more closely around her and hastened them to the business in hand. On the table was a sheet of paper. On the paper, rifling on three supports, was a small triangular board. Two of the supports were easily moving casters. The third support, placed at the apex of the triangle, was a lead pencil.
“Who’s first?” Uncle Robert demanded.
There was a moment’s hesitancy, then Aunt Mildred placed her hand on the board, and said: “Some one has always to be the fool for the delectation of the rest.”
“Brave woman,” applauded her husband. “Now, Mrs. Grantly, do your worst.”
“I?” that lady queried. “I do nothing. The power, or whatever you care to think it, is outside of me, as it is outside of all of you. As to what that power is, I will not dare to say. There is such a power. I have had evidences of it. And you will undoubtedly have evidences of it. Now please be quiet, everybody. Touch the board very lightly, but firmly, Mrs. Story; but do nothing of your own volition.”
Aunt Mildred nodded, and stood with her hand on Planchette; while the rest formed about her in a silent and expectant circle. But nothing happened. The minutes ticked away, and Planchette remained motionless.
“Be patient,” Mrs. Grantly counselled. “Do not struggle against any influences you may feel working on you. But do not do anything yourself. The influence will take care of that. You will feel impelled to do things, and such impulses will be practically irresistible.”
“I wish the influence would hurry up,” Aunt Mildred protested at the end of five motionless minutes.
“Just a little longer, Mrs. Story, just a little longer,” Mrs. Grantly said soothingly.
Suddenly Aunt Mildred’s hand began to twitch into movement. A mild concern showed in her face as she observed the movement of her hand and heard the scratching of the pencil-point at the apex of Planchette.
For another five minutes this continued, when Aunt Mildred withdrew her hand with an effort, and said, with a nervous laugh:
“I don’t know whether i did it myself or not. I do know that I was growing nervous, standing there like a psychic fool with all your solemn faces turned upon me.”
“Hen-scratches,” was Uncle Robert’s judgement, when he looked over the paper upon which she had scrawled.
“Quite illegible,” was Mrs. Grantly’s dictum. “It does not resemble writing at all. The influences have not got to working yet. Do you try it, Mr. Barton.”
That gentleman stepped forward, ponderously willing to please, and placed his hand on the board. And for ten solid, stolid minutes he stood there, motionless, like a statue, the frozen personification of the commercial age. Uncle Robert’s face began to work. He blinked, stiffened his mouth, uttered suppressed, throaty sounds, deep down; finally he snorted, lost his self-control, and broke out in a roar of laughter. All joined in this merriment, including Mrs. Grantly. Mr. Barton laughed with them, but he was vaguely nettled.
“You try it, Story,” he said.
