She, on her part, was astonished and a little scared by her own complaisant weakness, and as they came out into the lighter part of the walk she disengaged herself with a self-derisive remark, and asked, "Do you always take such good care of the arms of your girl friends?"
"Always," he replied, instantly, though his heart was still in the clutch of his new-born pa.s.sion.
"I shall be on my guard next time.... I see Mr. Bartol in the doorway.
Don"t you think we"d better go in? What time do you suppose it is?"
"The saddest time in the world for me if you are going to leave me."
"Don"t be maudlin." She had recovered her self-command, and was disposed to be extra severe. "Sentimental nothings is hardly your strong point."
"What is my strong point?"
She was ready with an answer. "Plain down-right impudence."
He, too, was recovering speech. "I"m glad I have _one_ strong trait. I was afraid there was nothing about me to make a definite impression on a proud beauty like you."
"Please don"t try to be literary. Stick to your oars and your baseball raquet."
"Bat," he corrected.
"I meant bat."
"I know you did; but you said raquet."
In this juvenile spat they approached the porch where Mr. Bartol stood waiting for them.
"Young people," he called, in a voice that somehow voiced a deep emotion, "do you realize that it is midnight?"
Protesting their amazement, they mounted the steps and entered the house; but the moment they looked into their host"s face they became serious, perceiving that something very tremendous had taken place in his laboratory.
"What has happened?" asked Leo. "What did she do?"
"I don"t know yet," he replied, strangely inconclusive in tone and phrase. "I must think it all over. If I can persuade myself that the marvels which I have witnessed are realities, the universe is an entirely new and vastly different machine for me."
Thrilling to the excitement in his face and in his voice, they pa.s.sed on. At the top of the stairs Leo faced Victor with eyes big with excitement. "What do you suppose came to him?"
"I haven"t an idea. He seemed terribly wrought up, though."
"We must say good-night." She held out her hand, and he took it.
"This has been the finest, most instructive day of my life."
She released her hand with a little decisive, dismissing movement. "How nice of you! Signor Morselli should know of it. Good-night!" And the smile with which she left him was delightfully provoking and mirthful.
Victor would have gone straight to his mother had he known where to find her, for he was eager to know what had taken place in the deeps of Bartol"s study. That she had been able to mystify the great lawyer, he was convinced; and yet, perhaps, this was only temporary. "He will go further. What will he find?"
He was standing before his dresser slowly removing his collar and tie when the door opened and his mother entered. She was abnormally wide awake, and her eyes, violet in their intensity, betrayed so much excitement that he exclaimed: "Why, mother, what"s the matter? What kind of a session did you have? What has happened to you?"
"Victor, father tells me that Mr. Bartol will be convinced. He is the greatest mind I have ever met. If I can bring him to a belief in the spirit world it will be the most important victory of my life."
"What did he say to you? What did he think?"
"I don"t know; and strange to say, I cannot read his mind. He seems convinced of the phenomena, and yet I can"t tell for certain. He was skeptical at the beginning, as nearly every one is."
Hitherto, at every such opening, Victor had rushed in to pluck the heart out of her mystery, but now he restrained himself, for fear of trapping her into some admission, which would make his own testimony more difficult in court. He took a seat on the bed and regarded her with meditative eyes, and she went on.
"The Voices are clamoring round me still. They want to speak to you."
"I don"t want to hear them--not to-night," he replied, coldly. "Tell them to wait and talk to me when Mr. Bartol is listening."
She seemed disappointed and a little hurt by his tone. "Altair is here.
She wishes most to speak."
Interest awoke in him. "What does she want of me?"
She listened. "She says, "_Trust Mr. Bartol._""
He could see nothing, hear nothing, therefore his face lost its light.
"Well, we"ve got to trust him. He"s all the help in sight."
Something, a breath, the light caress of a hand, pa.s.sed over his hair, and a whisper that was almost tone spoke in his ear, "_Fear nothing, if you will be guided and protected._"
Sweet as this voice was, it irritated him, for he could not disa.s.sociate his mother from it. Indeed, it had something subtly familiar in its utterance, and yet he could not accuse her of deceit. He only roughly said: "Don"t do that! I don"t like that!"
Silence followed, and then his mother sadly said: "You have hurt her.
She will not speak again."
"Let her show herself. How do I know who is speaking to me? Let me see her face again." He added this in a gentler voice, being moved by a vivid memory of the exquisite picture Altair had made.
After another pause Mrs. Ollnee answered: "She will do so. She says soon. She has gone; but your father wants to speak to you."
Victor rose impatiently. "Tell him to come again some other time. I"m sleepy now."
She turned away saddened by his manner, and with a gentle "good-night"
went softly from the room.
Victor regretted his bluntness, but could not free himself from a feeling that his mother"s Voices were deceptive or imaginary, and her visit hurt and disgusted him so deeply that the charm of his evening"s companionship with Leo was all but lost. "Part of her phenomena are real, but these Voices--" He broke off and went to his bed with a vague feeling of loss weighing him down.
For a half-hour he lay in growing bitterness, and then quite suddenly he thought he detected a thin, blue vapor rising from the rag rug at the side of his bed, and for an instant he was startled. "Is it smoke? Or do I imagine it?" As it rose and sank, expanded and contracted, he studied it closely. It was not smoke, for it did not ascend. It was more like filmy drapery tossed by a wind from a hidden aperture in the floor.
Motionless, amazed, and awed, he watched it, till out of it the face of a woman looked, her wistful eyes touched with an accusing sorrow. It was Altair, and her form became more real from moment to moment, until at last he could detect the swell of her bosom, draped with the folds of a shimmering white robe. As he waited a hand appeared at her side, vaguely outlined, yet alive. He could see the fingers loosely clasped about a rose. She was so beautiful that he lay gazing at her in speechless wonder. "Am I dreaming?" he asked himself. "I _must_ be dreaming." And yet he could feel the air from the window.
In the light of her glance he forgot all his other loves and cares. His worship for her returned like swift hunger, and he yearned to touch her, to hear her voice. "She is a dream," he decided, and his hand, lifted to test the vision, fell back upon the coverlet.
As if reading his thought, Altair put out her right arm and touched his wrist with a caress like the stroke of a beam of moonlight, so light and cold it was.
"_Victor_," she seemed to say, and his whisper was almost as light as her own.