Victor passed his hand over his face in bewilderment. "I must think," he
protested. "He said so much--Where is mother?"
"She is on the porch--waiting. Let us go out to her."
He followed her with troubled face, but the bright sunshine and the
songs of the birds miraculously restored him. He looked up and down the
piazza hoping to see Leo, but she was not in sight. He took a seat in
silence, and Mrs. Joyce saw his mother grow pale in sympathy as she read
the trouble in his face.
Mrs. Joyce urged him to tell what had passed between them, and he
replied:
"I can't do it. All I can say is this: he believes mother is honest, and
that she has some strange power. He will defend her in court; but he
intends to study into the whole business very closely, and he wants us
to help him."
"Of course we'll help him," responded Mrs. Joyce, readily.
Mrs. Ollnee went to the heart of the problem. "Just what does he want to
do, Victor?"
"It is necessary to prove absolutely that you have nothing to do with
these phenomena."
"But I do have everything to do with them," she replied; "that's what
being a medium means. However, I know what he needs better than you do.
He wants to prove that the messages are supra-normal. Very well, I am
ready for any test."
"It will be a fierce one, mother. He intends to use electricity and
machines for recording movements and instantaneous photography."
"I am willing, provided he will proceed in co-operation with your father
and Watts."
"He will never do that," declared Victor. "He will not begin by granting
the very thing he's trying to prove."
It was upon this most solemn conference that Leo descended, pale and
restrained, and though Victor sprang up with new-born love in his face,
she did not flush with responding warmth. Her mood of the moonlit walk
had utterly vanished, and he found himself checked, chilled, and thrust
down from his high place of exaltation.
It was as if she (ashamed of her own weakness) had resolved to punish
him for presumption. He smarted under her indifference, but made no open
protest, though his hand (in the pocket of his coat) rested upon the
jeweled sign of her self-surrender.
She lost a little of her indifference when she learned that Bartol had
been kept awake all night by the significance of the phenomena he had
witnessed, and she joined heartily in declaring that he must be met in
every demand. "Oh, I wish I might see the experiments," she exclaimed.
"He wishes you to do so," replied Victor, eagerly. "The Voices told him
to have you in the circle, you and Mrs. Joyce--"
"And Marie," added Mrs. Ollnee. "Marie is psychic."
"When do we try?" asked Leo, meeting his eyes a little unsteadily, so it
seemed to him.
Again Mrs. Ollnee answered for him. "To-night; Mr. Bartol is telephoning
now, arranging for it."
"How do you know?" asked Victor.
"Your father is speaking to me."
"I hear him!" exclaimed Mrs. Joyce, listening intently.
"What does he say?" asked Leo.
Mrs. Ollnee again replied. "He says: '_Be brave--trust us. We will
protect you._'"
Looking across at the girl, in whose cheeks the roses were beginning to
bloom again, the youth resented the interposition of the supernatural.
He was eager to approach her, to hint at the memory of her secret, sweet
embrace. As he studied the exquisite curve of her lips their touch
burned again upon his flesh, and he rose with sudden reassertion of
himself. "Come, Leo, let's return to Morselli."
He had never called her by her first name before, and it produced a
shock in them both. She looked her reproof, but he pretended not to see
it, and neither Mrs. Joyce nor Mrs. Ollnee seemed to think his
familiarity worthy of remark.
Leo coldly answered: "I can only give a little time. We must go home
to-day."