"Mercy! It's ten o'clock. Where are Aunt Louise and your mother? I hear
Mr. Bartol's voice!" she exclaimed, rising hastily. "Let's go get the
latest news."
The master of the house entered before the young people could shake off
the spell of what they had been imagining.
"What a waste of good moonlight!" he exclaimed, with smiling sympathy.
"Why aren't you youngsters out on the lawn?"
"It's all your fault," responded Leo. "We've been absorbing one of the
books you sent up."
"Have you? It must have been a wonderful romance. I can't conceive of
anything but a love-story keeping youth indoors on a night like this."
Victor defended her. "We've been reading of Morselli's wonderful
experiments. It's in Italian, and Miss Wood has been translating it for
me."
"What luck you have!" exclaimed Mr. Bartol. "I engage her to
re-translate it for me at the same rate."
Mrs. Ollnee and Mrs. Joyce came in as he was speaking, and Mrs. Joyce,
after disposing herself comfortably, said, "Well, what is your report?"
He confessed that he had been too busy with other matters to give the
Aiken accusation much thought. "However, I sent an armful of books out
to my assistant attorney." He waved his hand toward Victor.
"You don't mean to read books," protested Mrs. Joyce, energetically,
"when you've the very source of all knowledge right here in your own
house? Why don't you study your client and convince yourself of her
powers?--then you'll know what to do and say."
"I had thought of that," he said, hesitantly. "But--"
"You need not fear," Mrs. Joyce assured him. "It's true Lucy cannot
always furnish the phenomena on the instant. In fact, the more eager she
is the more reluctant the forces are; but you can at least try, and she
is not only willing but eager for the test."
Bartol turned to Mrs. Ollnee. "Are you prepared now--to-night?" he
asked.
"Yes, this moment," she answered.
Mrs. Joyce exulted. "The power is on her. I can see that. See how her
hand trembles! One finger is signaling. Don't you see it?"
Mr. Bartol rose. "Come with me into my study. Mrs. Joyce may come some
other time. I do not want any witnesses to-night," he added, with a
smile.
Victor watched his mother go into Bartol's study with something of the
feeling he might have had in seeing her enter the den of a lion. She
seemed very helpless and very inexperienced in contrast with this great
inquisitor, so skilled in cross-examination, so inexorable in logic, so
menacing of eye.
Leo, perceiving Victor's anxiety, proposed that they return to the
porch, and to this he acceded, though it seemed like a cowardly
desertion of his mother. "Poor little mother," he said. "If she stands
up against him she's a wonder."
The girl stretched herself out on the swinging couch, and the youth took
his seat on a wicker chair close beside her. Mrs. Joyce kept at a decent
distance, so that if the young people had anything private to say she
might reasonably appear not to have overheard it.
Talk was spasmodic, for neither of them could forget for a moment the
duel which was surely going on in that inner room. Indeed, Mrs. Joyce
openly spoke of it. "If Lucy is not too anxious, too eager, she will
change Alexander's whole conception of the universe this night."
"Of course you're exaggerating, Aunt Louise; but I certainly expect her
to shake him up."
"It only needs one genuine phenomenon to convince him of her sincerity.
What a warrior for the cause he would make! She must stay right here in
his house till she utterly overwhelms him. He took up her case at first
merely because I asked him to do so; but he likes her, and is ready to
take it up on her own account if he finds her sincere. But I want him to
believe in the philosophy she represents."
Half an hour passed with no sign from within, and Mrs. Joyce began to
yawn. "That ride made me sleepy."
"Why don't you go to bed?" suggested Leo.