“Hilda, you must not go,” she implored. “Oh, Mr Raynier, don’t take her—if only as a favour to me.”
“But I’m not in the least superstitious, Mrs Tarleton,” said the girl, looking up from the work she was engaged upon. “In fact, I like to demonstrate the absurdity of these childish beliefs. Why, I can hardly count the number of times I’ve got up first of thirteen from table.”
“Well, there must be something in these ideas, I suppose, or else they wouldn’t be so universally accepted,” cut in Tarleton.
“No? Then of course the world has only lately become round, seeing that for ages it was ‘universally accepted’ as flat,” said Raynier.
“Ah, but that’s quite a different thing.”
Then Haslam told a weird and wonderful story or two illustrating the strange power of native prophecy, which interested Hilda, and Tarleton would cap such with the coincidence type of anecdote, such as the first of thirteen at table—and at these she laughed.
“None of those instances come anywhere near carrying conviction,” she said. “Now, remember. In good time I will supply you with just such an instance to the contrary. No; I won’t tell you anything about it now. But you’ll see at the right time.”
“I believe Miss Clive means to go into the tangi,” said Haslam.
“No, I don’t,” Hilda answered. “I won’t go into it now. I don’t want to frighten all you poor creatures.”
They laughed, rather weakly it must be owned—all but Raynier, that is, for he was in the know, and was enjoying the situation immensely. How well she looked when she was animated and her face lighted up like that—was what he was thinking as he sat watching her. Somebody touched on the subject of clairvoyance. In a moment Hilda’s manner changed. She became grave, almost earnest.