Page:The strange experiences of Tina Malone.djvu/24

24 smoking while we sat like two little girls from Sunday School.

"But you liked it?" said Naomi.

The exclamation was like an agonised cry.

"No, not really," I said, "I never really feel at home in that kind of thing."

The same quick flush spread over her face.

She was most extraordinary that week.

We began as friends and had some innocent fun in smoking cigarettes and playing, talking and laughing together like Bohemians.

She was a curious mixture.

"Do you feel inclined to go to a lecture at the Occult School?" she asked one day. "It's on 'The Invisible World.'"

"Sounds nice," I said, "let's go."

Tony was there and I called him over to speak to Naomi.

I could see at once that they were antagonistic as he shook hands—lightning darted at her from Tony's usually sleepy eyes, and Naomi, when she came home, rushed to her basin to wash her hands.

All the occultists were there in great form and the White Priestess led us to the part where we should be within the circle of the purest vibrations.

Whether the vibrations were counteracted by Tony's hand-shake or not, I don't know, but Naomi was full of questions about him afterwards.

"Life's just a clearing-up and sweeping out and going on again, isn't it, Naomi?" I said.

I was sitting on my heels with a dust pan and small broom in my hands, for little bits of philosophy always came to me when I was doing things.

"How do you mean?" asked she.

She was standing there looking very artistic in an old rose-coloured dressing-gown and I looked up at her, thinking what a picture she made.

"Well, it's just growing out of interests and putting them aside and looking round you for new ones," I said. "It cost me a lot to put aside my dolls but I knew I had to when I was a good deal more than twelve, then I had to wait till something else came to take their place."

"And what took their place?"

"I don'don't [sic] know"—I looked back on my life, on the grey of it when the bright lights faded and left it commonplace—"I don't know—I think we generally long and long for a thing and don't get it, and then after a time we do get it when the longing is dead."

"Is the longing ever dead?" she said, and I knew she was thinking of herself.