“Madame had been very good to me.  She was kind and simple,” said Celia, with a very genuine affection in her voice.  “The people whom we knew laughed at her, and were ungenerous.  But there are many women whom the world respects who are worse than ever was poor Mme. Dauvray.  I was very fond of her, so I proposed to her that we should hold a seance, and I would bring people from the spirit world I knew that I could amuse her with something much more clever and more interesting than the fortune-tellers.  And at the same time I could save her from being plundered.  That was all I thought about.”

That was all she thought about, yes.  She left Helene Vauquier out of her calculations, and she did not foresee the effect of her stances upon Mme. Dauvray.  Celia had no suspicions of Helene Vauquier.  She would have laughed if any one had told her that this respectable and respectful middle-aged woman, who was so attentive, so neat, so grateful for any kindness, was really nursing a rancorous hatred against her.  Celia had sprung from Montmartre suddenly; therefore Helene Vauquier despised her.  Celia had taken her place in Mme. Dauvray’s confidence, had deposed her unwittingly, had turned the confidential friend into a mere servant; therefore Helene Vauquier hated her.  And her hatred reached out beyond the girl, and embraced the old, superstitious, foolish woman, whom a young and pretty face could so easily beguile.  Helene Vauquier despised them both, hated them both, and yet must nurse her rancour in silence and futility.  Then came the seances, and at once, to add fuel to her hatred, she found herself stripped of those gifts and commissions which she had exacted from the herd of common tricksters who had been wont to make their harvest out of Mme. Dauvray.  Helene Vauquier was avaricious and greedy, like so many of her class.  Her hatred of Celia, her contempt for Mme. Dauvray, grew into a very delirium.  But it was a delirium she had the cunning to conceal.  She lived at white heat, but to all the world she had lost nothing of her calm.

Celia did not foresee the hatred she was arousing; nor, on the other hand, did she foresee the overwhelming effect of these spiritualistic seances on Mme. Dauvray.  Celia had never been brought quite close to the credulous before.

“There had always been the row of footlights,” she said.  “I was on the platform; the audience was in the hall; or, if it was at a house, my father made the arrangements.  I only came in at the last moment, played my part, and went away.  It was never brought home to me that some amongst these people really and truly believed.  I did not think about it.  Now, however, when I saw Mme. Dauvray so feverish, so excited, so firmly convinced that great ladies from the spirit world came and spoke to her, I became terrified.  I had aroused a passion which I had not suspected.  I tried to stop the seances, but I was not allowed.  I had aroused a passion which I could not control.  I was afraid that Mme. Dauvray’s whole life—­it seems absurd to those who did not know her, but those who did will understand—­yes, her whole life and happiness would be spoilt if she discovered that what she believed in was all a trick.”