Rosalie looked him sternly over a moment, but in the end her dimples triumphed.  She lifted her right hand as though to arrange her hair, two fingers extended—­the sign in the Brotherhood of Professional Mediums to recognize a fellow craftsman.  The young man made no response; Rosalie’s eyes flashed back on guard.

“How much is this business worth to you?” pursued the young man.

“Mediums ain’t measuring their rewards by earthly gains,” responded Rosalie; and now she made no secret of her dimples.  “If we wanted to water our mediumship, couldn’t we get rich out of the tips we give people on their business?”

“But getting down to the earth plane,” the young man continued—­and perhaps the twinkles in his eyes were never more obstreperous—­“how much would you ask to take a nice, easy job of using your eyes for me?”

“Well,” said Rosalie, “if there was nothin’ unprofessional about it, I should say fifty dollars a week.”  She smiled on him now openly.  “You’re a doctor.  I don’t have to say, as one professional person to another, that there’s such a thing as ethics.”

The young man smiled back.  “Oh, certainly!” he said.  “I understand that!” Quite suddenly he leaned forward and clapped Rosalie’s shoulder with a motion that had nothing offensive about it—­only good fellowship and human understanding—­“I want you to help me expose Mrs. Paula Markham.”

The announcement stiffened Rosalie.  She sat bolt upright.  “There ain’t nothin’ to expose!” she said.

“Now let’s get on a business basis,” said the young man.

“Well, you let me tell you one thing first.  If you’re pumpin’ me for evidence, it don’t go, because you’ve got no witnesses.”

“I’m not pumping you for anything.  I’m willing to admit that the spirits, not you, smelled the iodoform—­”

“An’ noticed that you was scrubbed clean as a whistle and that when we held hands to unite our magnetism, you was pawing for my pulse,” pursued Rosalie, dropping her defences all at once.  Thereupon, Roman haruspex looked into the eyes of Roman haruspex, and they both laughed.  But Rosalie was serious enough a moment later.

“Now when you come to talk about exposing Mrs. Markham, you’ve got to show me first why you want her exposed, and you’ve got to let me tell you that you’re wastin’ your money.  There’s enough that’s fake about this profession, but I know two mediums I’d stake my life on; barring of course myself”—­here Rosalie smiled a smile which might have meant a confession or a boast, so balanced was it between irony and sweetness—­“Mrs. Markham and Mrs. Anna Fife.  They’re real.”

She peered into the face of her investigator.  His expression showed skeptical amusement.  She knew that her passion for talking too much was her greatest professional flaw; though had she thought it over maturely, she would have realized that she had never got into trouble through her tongue.  Her trained instinct for human values led her inevitably to those who would appreciate her confidences and keep them.  So the sudden retreat within her defences, which followed, proved irritation rather than suspicion.