Page:Hope--Sophy of Kravonia.djvu/71

PHAROS, MANTIS, AND CO. Meg. Had Pharos been veritably her idol, she would have kicked him into granting her prayer.

"She won't give me her will—she won't be passive," he protests, almost eliciting a perverse sympathy.

He produced a glittering disk, half as large again as a five-franc piece; it gave forth infinite sparkles through the dark of the room. "Look at that! Look hard—and think of nothing else!" he commanded.

Silence fell on the room. Quick breaths came from eager Lady Meg; otherwise all was still.

"It's working!" whispered the wizard. "The power is working."

Silence again. Then a sudden, overpowering peal of laughter from the medium—hearty, rippling, irrepressible and irresistible.

"Oh, Lady Meg, I feel such a fool—oh, such a fool!" she cried—and her laughter mastered her again.

Irresistible! Marie Zerkovitch joined in Casimir's hearty mirth, Mantis's shrill cackle and the sniggers of the dowagers swelled the chorus. Casimir sprang up and turned up the gas, laughing still. The wizard stood scowling savagely; Lady Meg glared malignantly at her ill-chosen medium and disappointing protégeé.

"What's the reason for it, Lord help you?" she snarled, with a very nasty look at Pharos.

He saw the danger. His influence was threatened, his patroness's belief in him shaken.

"I don't know," he answered, in apparent humility. "I can't account for it. It happens, so far as I know, only in one case—and Heaven forbid that I should suggest that of mademoiselle."

"What is the case?" snapped Lady Meg, by no means pacified—in fact, still dangerously sceptical. 53