With these performances the first part came to an end.  The light was turned on again, and the tying committee was requested to come forward and examine the cords with which Bott still seemed tightly bound.  The skeptic remained scornfully in his seat, and so it was left for the believer to announce that not a cord had been touched.  He then untied Bott, who came out from the closet, stretching his limbs as if glad to be free, and announced that there would be a short intermission for an interchange of views.

As he came toward Maud, Sam rose and said: 

“Whew! he smells like a damp match.  I’ll go out and smoke a minute, and come back.”

Bott dropped into the seat which Sleeny had left.

To one who has never attended one of these queer cenacula, it would be hard to comprehend the unhealthy and even nauseous character of the feeling and the conversation there prevalent.  The usual decent restraints upon social intercourse seem removed.  Subjects which the common consent of civilized creatures has banished from mixed society are freely opened and discussed.  To people like the ordinary run of the believers in spiritism, the opera, the ballet, and the annual Zola are unknown, and they must take their excitements where they can find them.  The dim light, the unhealthy commerce of fictitious ghosts, the unreality of act and sentiment, the unwonted abandon, form an atmosphere in which these second-hand mystics float away into a sphere where the morals and the manners are altogether different from those of their working days.

Miss Matchin had not usually joined in these morbid discussions.  She was of too healthy an organization to be tempted by so rank a mental feast as that, and she had a sort of fierce maidenhood about her which revolted at such exposures of her own thought.  But to-night she was sorely perplexed.  She had been tormented by many fancies as she looked out of her window into the deepening shadows that covered the lake.  The wonders she had seen in that room, though she did not receive them with entire faith, had somewhat shaken her nerves; and now the seer sat beside her, his pale eyes shining with his own audacity, his lank hair dripping with sweat, his hands uneasily rubbing together, his whole attitude expressive of perfect subjection to her will.

“Why isn’t this a good chance?” she thought.  “He is certainly a smart man.  Horrid as he looks, he knows lots.  May be he could tell me how to find out.”

She began in her airiest manner:  “Oh, Mr. Bott, what a wonderful gift you have got!  How you must look down on us poor mortals!”

Bott grew spotted, and stammered: 

“Far from it, Miss Matchin.  I couldn’t look down on you.”

“Oh, you are flattering.  That’s not right, because I believe every word you say—­and that ain’t true.”

She rattled recklessly on in the same light tone.

“I’m going to ask you something very particular.  I don’t know who can tell me, if you can’t.  How can a young lady find out whether a young gentleman is in love with her or not?  Now, tell me the truth this time,” she said with a nervous titter, “for it’s very important.”