Page:The strange experiences of Tina Malone.djvu/48

48 don't want to know beforehand. Tony why do you think this has happened? It makes me think that I must keep away from you and everybody who has ever believed in occultism."

"No," he said, talking very quickly. "If this has happened it is well to have someone near you who understands these things. Besides, my horoscope says that some woman is to be very good to me and you said it was you."

From the simplicity of the statement and its acceptance anyone might think we were engaged to be married but there was no thought of that—anyway on my part—I don't know what Tony felt.

The extraordinary thing was that while he was away I felt somehow as if I was in communication with him and that he was in need of money. This had seemed so real to me that I had taken my bank book in with the idea firmly fixed that I was going to offer him £600 to invest, with a view to going into partnership with him. I had been arranging with him, as I thought, all the way as I went in. He and I were to spend the rest of the day at a matinee. But when I met him there was no consciousness of this telepathy in his face and he told me that he must leave me soon after we had done our business.

"Leave me?" I stammered. "Aren't—you coming to the matinee?"

"No," he said, "I shall have to hurry home. I have some work to do before I go away to-morrow."

I was thoroughly perplexed, and had to re-adjust all my ideas while I was talking to him. There had never been any talk of marriage between us and to all appearance no thought of it. But I had so thoroughly found the idea fixed in my mind that it was he with whom I had been telepathing, that I had to seem unsurprised. He was evidently unconscious of it.

I walked along beside him holding my bank book and trying to straighten all my perplexed ideas without letting him see it.

It was not easy.

In those two weeks I had made plans for the future with him and had fancied that he was telling me all his past. That future we were to share together. I was to give him £600 to invest and he and I were to share profits.

Now I had to believe that we were just friends, that he wanted to begin life on his own, and I was lending him the wherewithal to do it.

"How much would you like me to lend you?" I asked.

"Oh, a hundred and fifty if you could spare it," he said.

"I can make it £200 if you like," I said, trying to hide the other two bank-books I had with me—I had quite expected the £600.