The great Towle ducked and sc.r.a.ped in cabman fashion.
"Oh, will you materialise for us to-night?"
"Yes, yes," cried Mrs. Bridgeman, trembling with excitement. "He"s promised to after supper. He says he feels less material then--more _en rapport_ with the dear spirits."
"How delightful! Mr. Towle, tell me, do you agree with Eureka? I await your fiat. Am I astral?"
"Ay, miss, as like as not," said the great man, twisting his lips as if they held a straw between them. "Astral, that"s it. That"s it to a T."
"Then I"m Lady Enid Thistle, my ancestress, who"s always with me?"
"Ay, ay! Every bit of her. Her ladyship to a T."
The company was much impressed, and whispers of "It"s Lady Enid; Eureka and Mr. Towle say it"s her ladyship in the astral plane!" flew like wildfire through the rooms.
At this point Harriet Browne, who was sufficiently Christian and scientific to like to have all the attention of the company centred upon her, cleared her throat loudly and exclaimed,--
"If I am to heal this poor sufferer, I must be provided with an armchair."
"An armchair for Mrs. Browne!"
"Fetch a chair for Harriet!"
"Mrs. Harriet can"t demonstrate without a chair!"
"What is she going to do?" whispered the Prophet to Lady Enid, feeling thoroughly ashamed of his ignorance.
"Demonstrate."
"Yes, but what"s that?"
"Put her hands over that girl and think about her."
"Is that all?"
"Yes."
"Does she do it out of kindness?"
"Of course. But she"s paid something, not because she wants to be paid, but because it"s the rule."
"Oh!"
An armchair was now wheeled forward, and Mrs. Harriet ensconced herself in it comfortably.
"I"m very tired to-night," she remarked in her thick voice. "I"ve had a hard afternoon."
"Poor darling!" cried Mrs. Bridgeman. "Fetch a gla.s.s of champagne for Mrs. Harriet somebody. Oh, would you, Mr. Brummich?"
Mr. Brummich, a gentleman with a remarkably foolish, ascetic face and a feebly-wandering sandy beard, was just about to hasten religiously towards the Moorish nook when the great Towle happened, by accident, to groan. Mrs. Bridgeman, started and smiled.
"Oh, and a gla.s.s of champagne for Mr. Towle, too, dear Mr. Brummich!"
"Certainly, Mrs. Bridgeman!" said dear Mr. Brummich, hurrying off with the demeanour of the head of an Emba.s.sy entrusted with some important mission to a foreign Court.
"Were you at work this afternoon, Harriet, beloved?" inquired Mrs.
Bridgeman of Mrs. Browne, who was leaning back in the armchair with her eyes closed and in an att.i.tude of severe prostration.
"Yes."
"Which was it, lovebird? Hysteric Henry?"
"No, he"s cured."
Cries of joy resounded from those gathered about the chair.
"Hysteric Henry"s cured!"
"Henry"s better!"
"The poor man with the ball in his throat"s been saved!"
"How wonderful you are, Harriet, sweet!" cried Mrs. Bridgeman. "But, then which was it?"
"The madwoman at Brussels. I"ve been thinking about her for two hours this afternoon, with only a cup of tea between."
"Poor darling! No wonder you"re done up! Ought you to demonstrate? Ah!
here"s the champagne!"
"I take it merely as medicine," said Mrs. Harriet.
At this moment, Mr. Brummich, flushed with a.s.siduity, burst into the circle with a goblet of beaded wine in either hand. There was a moment of solemn silence while Mrs. Harriet and the great Towle condescended to the Pommery. It was broken only by a loud gulp from the hysterical-looking girl who was, it seemed, nervously affected by an imitative spasm, and who suddenly began to swallow nothing with extreme persistence and violence.
"Look at that poor misguided soul!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Harriet, with her lips to the Pommery. "She fancies she"s drinking!"
The poor, misguided soul, yielded again to her distraught imagination, amid the pitiful e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of the entire company, with the exception of one mundane, young man who, suddenly a.s.sailed by the wild fancy that he wasn"t drinking, crept furtively to the Moorish rook, and was no more seen.
"Give her a cushion!" continued Mrs. Harriet, authoritatively.
"Mr. Brummich!" said Mrs. Bridgeman.
Mr. Brummich ran, and returned with a cushion.
"Sit down, poor thing! Sit at my feet!" said Mrs. Harriet, giving the hysterical-looking girl a healing push.
The girl subsided in a piteous heap, and Mrs. Harriet, who had by this time taken all her medicine, leant over her and inquired,--
"Where d"you feel it?"