At The Villa Rose

Helene Vauquier locked the door of the salon upon the inside and

placed the key upon the mantel-shelf, as she had always done

whenever a seance had been held. The curtains had been loosened at

the sides of the arched recess in front of the glass doors, ready

to be drawn across. Inside the recess, against one of the pillars

which supported the arch, a high stool without a back, taken from

the hall, had been placed, and the back legs of the stool had been

lashed with cord firmly to the pillar, so that it could not be

moved. The round table had been put in position, with three chairs

about it. Mme. Dauvray waited impatiently. Celia stood apparently

unconcerned, apparently lost to all that was going on. Her eyes

saw no one. Adele looked up at Celia, and laughed maliciously.

"Mademoiselle, I see, is in the very mood to produce the most

wonderful phenomena. But it will be better, I think, madame," she

said, turning to Mme. Dauvray, "that Mlle. Celie should put on

those gloves which I see she has thrown on to a chair. It will be

a little more difficult for mademoiselle to loosen these cords,

should she wish to do so."

The argument silenced Celia. If she refused this condition now she

would excite Mme. Dauvray to a terrible suspicion. She drew on her

gloves ruefully and slowly, smoothed them over her elbows, and

buttoned them. To free her hands with her fingers and wrists

already hampered in gloves would not be so easy a task. But there

was no escape. Adele Rossignol was watching her with a satiric

smile. Mme. Dauvray was urging her to be quick. Obeying a second

order the girl raised her skirt and extended a slim foot in a

pale-green silk stocking and a satin slipper to match. Adele was

content. Celia was wearing the shoes she was meant to wear. They

were made upon the very same last as those which Celia had just

kicked off upstairs. An almost imperceptible nod from Helene

Vauquier, moreover, assured her.

She took up a length of the thin cord.

"Now, how are we to begin?" she said awkwardly. "I think I will

ask you, mademoiselle, to put your hands behind you."

Celia turned her back and crossed her wrists. She stood in her

satin frock, with her white arms and shoulders bare, her slender

throat supporting her small head with its heavy curls, her big

hat--a picture of young grace and beauty. She would have had an

easy task that night had there been men instead of women to put her

to the test. But the women were intent upon their own ends: Mme.

Dauvray eager for her seance, Adele Tace and Helene Vauquier

for the climax of their plot.

Celia clenched her hands to make the muscles of her wrists rigid

to resist the pressure of the cord. Adele quietly unclasped them

and placed them palm to palm. And at once Celia became uneasy. It

was not merely the action, significant though it was of Adele's

alertness to thwart her, which troubled Celia. But she was

extraordinarily receptive of impressions, extraordinarily quick to

feel, from a touch, some dim sensation of the thought of the one

who touched her. So now the touch of Adele's swift, strong,

nervous hands caused her a queer, vague shock of discomfort. It

was no more than that at the moment, but it was quite definite as

that.