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278 This was too much for Georgie.

"But you asked Mrs Quantock and the Princess to dine with you," he said, "and hoped there would be a séance afterwards. You wouldn't have done that, if you thought it was only a false nose and a pot of luminous paint."

"I may have been impulsive," said Lucia speaking very rapidly. "I daresay I'm impulsive, and if my impulses lie in the direction of extending such poor hospitality as I can offer to my friends, and their friends, I am not ashamed of them. Far otherwise. But when I see and observe the awful effect of this so-called spiritualism on people whom I should have thought sensible and well-balanced—I do not include poor dear Daisy among them—then I am only thankful that my impulses did not happen to lead me into countenancing such piffle, as your sister so truly observed about poor Daisy's Guru."

They had come opposite Georgie's house, and suddenly his drawing-room window was thrown up. Olga's head looked out.

"Don't have a fit, Georgie, to find me here" she said. "Good morning, Mrs Lucas; you were behind the mulberry, and I didn't see you. But something's happened to my kitchen range, and I can't have lunch at home. Do give me some. I've brought my crystal, and we'll gaze and gaze. I can see nothing at present except my own nose and the window. Are you psychical, Mrs Lucas?"

This was the last straw; all Lucia's grievances had been flocking together like swallows for their flight, and to crown all came this open annexation of Georgie. There was Olga, sitting in his