She was outside in the broad balustraded corridor from which one looked down into the hall, and she had lifted a bowl of flowers from a little mahogany table that stood there.
Bevis closed the door behind him. He, also, laid his hands on the table, arresting her.
“Tony,” he said, “give it up.” The door was closed, but he spoke in a low voice. “I don’t like it.”
“Why not?” She, too, spoke in a low voice; and she stood still, her eyes on his.
“I don’t like it,” he repeated. “It’s not right. Not now. After what’s happened in these years.”
Oh, what a blunder! What a cursed blunder! He saw, as he spoke the words, the fire they lighted in her. She had been an actress, dressed for a part, pretending gaiety and revival to inveigle him into an experiment. Over the table, her hands hard grasped upon the edge, she kept her eyes fixed on him.
“You do believe in it, then?—That the spirits of the dead speak through it?”
Cursed blunder! How pale she had become, as if beneath the actress’s rouge. There was no laughter left, or pretence of gaiety.
“No: I don’t believe it’s spirits. I believe, as you said, that it’s subconscious trickery. And it’s not a time to mess about with it. That’s all. It’s ugly: out of place.”
“If it’s only that—subconscious trickery—that’s what I believe too—why should you mind so much;—or even ugliness?”