Page:The cream of the jest; a comedy of evasions (IA creamofjestcomed00caberich).pdf/291

 have dared to do so, in view of her attitude in a world so opulent in insane asylums. But among her effects, hidden away as before in the press in her bathroom, Kennaston found both the pieces of metal. They were joined together now, forming a perfect circle, but with the line of their former separation yet visible.

He showed me the sigil of Scoteia, having told this tale

I had thought from the first there would prove to be supernal double-dealing back of all this. The Wardens of Earth sometimes unbar strange windows, I suspect—windows which face on other worlds than ours; and They permit this-or-that man to peer out fleetingly, perhaps, just for the joke's sake; since always They humorously contrive matters so this man shall never be able to convince his fellows of what he has seen, or of the fact that he was granted any peep at all. The Wardens without fail arrange what we call—gravely, too—"some natural explanation."

Kennaston showed me the sigil of Scoteia, having told this tale