Page:The strange experiences of Tina Malone.djvu/90

90 fight that of her ayah's when she wanted to gain back her own.

I had been very bad myself that day. The voices had been terrible, and I had felt all confusion, only held up by the one who urged me to go into town.

When I walked into the room I saw a man looking over at me with an amused twinkle in his eyes.

I crossed the room to him presently. I had met him before but did not expect him to remember me. He was a student of the occult I knew, and I thought he might be able to give me help.

To my surprise he remembered me but said:

"I thought you were someone else when first you came in."

When I left that afternoon he left too and as we passed the picture show about Rozanne, I said:

"Do you believe in black magic?"

"Why?" he said.

"Oh, please tell me—do you?" I asked.

He looked at me kindly then and saw I was in trouble.

"Yes, but there's White Magic, too," he said.

He just touched my arm to help me across the tram-line and we parted at the wharf.

I felt he was trying to help me, but all through these experiences I had been cautioned so much not to say this or that, that I felt I must not speak quite openly about them so that I had not been able to ask him all I wanted to—So when in after days I called to him, I called him "White Magic."

When I told Tony about him, he said:

"Has he power?"

"I don't know," I said, searching Tony's face for the reason of the question. But Tony wouldn't say more.

"Power to help," I said.

Then there was someone else I counted a friend.

One day in the midst of the medley of voices I heard:

"Moi je me carre Moi je me parre Moi je suis belle et blue Ma tetè"

"Yes, I know you, Pip McMillan," I cried. "Your French is about as good as my brother's—You learnt it out of McMillan's French course—You only got as far as irregular verbs."

"I've not got time to waste on you, Bunty Blue," he said.

"I don't want you to," I said. "I know you—you belong to the Farm-yard group—I know you—You're one for creeping through the fences. And now you're doing a strut."