At The Villa Rose

Adele dropped for the moment her tone of raillery.

"I am not unwilling to believe," she said, "but I cannot. I am

interested--yes. You see how much I have studied the subject. But

I cannot believe. I have heard stories of how these manifestations

are produced--stories which make me laugh. I cannot help it. The

tricks are so easy. A young girl wearing a black frock which does

not rustle--it is always a black frock, is it not, because a black

frock cannot be seen in the dark?--carrying a scarf or veil, with

which she can make any sort of headdress if only she is a little

clever, and shod in a pair of felt-soled slippers, is shut up in a

cabinet or placed behind a screen, and the lights are turned down

or out--" Adele broke off with a comic shrug of the shoulders.

"Bah! It ought not to deceive a child."

Celia sat with a face which WOULD grow red. She did not look, but

none the less she was aware that Mme. Dauvray was gazing at her

with a perplexed frown and some return of her suspicion showing in

her eyes. Adele Tace was not content to leave the subject there.

"Perhaps," she said, with a smile, "Mlle. Celie dresses in that

way for a seance?"

"Madame shall see tonight," Celia stammered, and Camille Dauvray

rather sternly repeated her words.

"Yes, Adele shall see tonight. I myself will decide what you shall

wear, Celie."

Adele Tace casually suggested the kind of dress which she would

prefer.

"Something light in colour with a train, something which will hiss

and whisper if mademoiselle moves about the room--yes, and I think

one of mademoiselle's big hats," she said. "We will have

mademoiselle as modern as possible, so that, when the great ladies

of the past appear in the coiffure of their day, we may be sure it

is not Mlle. Celie who represents them."

"I will speak to Helene," said Mme. Dauvray, and Adele Tace was

content.

There was a particular new dress of which she knew, and it was

very desirable that Mlle. Celie should wear it tonight. For one

thing, if Celia wore it, it would help the theory that she had put

it on because she expected that night a lover; for another, with

that dress there went a pair of satin slippers which had just come

home from a shoemaker at Aix, and which would leave upon soft

mould precisely the same imprints as the grey suede shoes which

the girl was wearing now.

Celia was not greatly disconcerted by Mme. Rossignol's

precautions. She would have to be a little more careful, and Mme.

de Montespan would be a little longer in responding to the call of

Mme. Dauvray than most of the other dead ladies of the past had

been. But that was all. She was, however, really troubled in

another way. All through dinner, at every word of the

conversation, she had felt her reluctance towards this seance

swelling into a positive disgust. More than once she had felt

driven by some uncontrollable power to rise up at the table and

cry out to Adele: "You are right! It IS trickery. There is no truth in it."