had regained all her superiority; she
was once more the far-off being, desired and unassailable. Why had he
been such a fool as to suggest that carrying stunt? He reached the house
in a state of the profoundest depression.

He helped Anne upstairs, left her in the hands of a maid, and came down
again to the drawing-room. He was surprised to find them all sitting
just where he had left them. He had expected that, somehow, everything
would be quite different--it seemed such a prodigious time since he went
away. All silent and all damned, he reflected, as he looked at them. Mr.
Scogan's pipe still wheezed; that was the only sound. Henry Wimbush was
still deep in his account books; he had just made the discovery that Sir
Ferdinando was in the habit of eating oysters the whole summer through,
regardless of the absence of the justifying R. Gombauld, in horn-rimmed
spectacles, was reading. Jenny was mysteriously scribbling in her red
notebook. And, seated in her favourite arm-chair at the corner of the
hearth, Priscilla was looking through a pile of drawings. One by one she
held them out at arm's length and, throwing back her mountainous orange
head, looked long and attentively through half-closed eyelids. She wore
a pale sea-green dress; on the slope of her mauve-powdered decolletage
diamonds twinkled. An immensely long cigarette-holder projected at an
angle from her face. Diamonds were embedded in her high-piled
coiffure; they glittered every time she moved. It was a batch of Ivor's
drawings--sketches of Spirit Life, made in the course of tranced tours
through the other world. On the back of each sheet descriptive titles
were written: "Portrait of an Angel, 15th March '20;" "Astral Beings
at Play, 3rd December '19;" "A Party of Souls on their Way to a Higher
Sphere, 21st May '21." Before examining the drawing on the obverse of
each sheet, she turned it over to read the title. Try as she could--and
she tried hard--Priscilla had never seen a vision or succeeded in
establishing any communication with the Spirit World. She had to be
content with the reported experiences of others.

"What have you done with the rest of your party?" she asked, looking up
as Denis entered the room.

He explained. Anne had gone to bed, Ivor and Mary were still in the
garden. He selected a book and a comfortable chair, and tried, as far as
the disturbed state of his mind would permit him, to compose himself
for an evening's reading. The lamplight