Mrs. Swanson was pretty and pliant.  Babbitt was not an analyst of women, except as to their tastes in Furnished Houses to Rent.  He divided them into Real Ladies, Working Women, Old Cranks, and Fly Chickens.  He mooned over their charms but he was of opinion that all of them (save the women of his own family) were “different” and “mysterious.”  Yet he had known by instinct that Louetta Swanson could be approached.  Her eyes and lips were moist.  Her face tapered from a broad forehead to a pointed chin, her mouth was thin but strong and avid, and between her brows were two outcurving and passionate wrinkles.  She was thirty, perhaps, or younger.  Gossip had never touched her, but every man naturally and instantly rose to flirtatiousness when he spoke to her, and every woman watched her with stilled blankness.

Between games, sitting on the davenport, Babbitt spoke to her with the requisite gallantry, that sonorous Floral Heights gallantry which is not flirtation but a terrified flight from it:  “You’re looking like a new soda-fountain to night, Louetta.”

“Am I?”

“Ole Eddie kind of on the rampage.”

“Yes.  I get so sick of it.”

“Well, when you get tired of hubby, you can run off with Uncle George.”

“If I ran away—­Oh, well—­”

“Anybody ever tell you your hands are awful pretty?”

She looked down at them, she pulled the lace of her sleeves over them, but otherwise she did not heed him.  She was lost in unexpressed imaginings.

Babbitt was too languid this evening to pursue his duty of being a captivating (though strictly moral) male.  He ambled back to the bridge-tables.  He was not much thrilled when Mrs. Frink, a small twittering woman, proposed that they “try and do some spiritualism and table-tipping—­you know Chum can make the spirits come—­honest, he just scares me!”

The ladies of the party had not emerged all evening, but now, as the sex given to things of the spirit while the men warred against base things material, they took command and cried, “Oh, let’s!” In the dimness the men were rather solemn and foolish, but the goodwives quivered and adored as they sat about the table.  They laughed, “Now, you be good or I’ll tell!” when the men took their hands in the circle.

Babbitt tingled with a slight return of interest in life as Louetta Swanson’s hand closed on his with quiet firmness.

All of them hunched over, intent.  They startled as some one drew a strained breath.  In the dusty light from the hall they looked unreal, they felt disembodied.  Mrs. Gunch squeaked, and they jumped with unnatural jocularity, but at Frink’s hiss they sank into subdued awe.  Suddenly, incredibly, they heard a knocking.  They stared at Frink’s half-revealed hands and found them lying still.  They wriggled, and pretended not to be impressed.

Frink spoke with gravity:  “Is some one there?” A thud.  “Is one knock to be the sign for ’yes’?” A thud.  “And two for ’no’?” A thud.