‘Offers like that are not repeated. They are but phantoms, after all. They come at their own choice, when they do come; and they stay but the measure of a breath or two. You cannot summon them!’ Leonard fell into the current of the metaphor and answered:
‘I don’t know that even that is impossible. There are spells which call, and recall, even phantoms!’
‘Indeed!’ Stephen was anxious to find his purpose.
Leonard felt that he was getting on, that he was again acquiring the upper hand; so he pushed on the metaphor, more and more satisfied with himself:
‘And it is wonderful how simple some spells, and these the most powerful, can be. A remembered phrase, the recollection of a pleasant meeting, the smell of a forgotten flower, or the sight of a forgotten letter; any or all of these can, through memory, bring back the past. And it is often in the past that the secret of the future lies!’
Miss Rowly felt that something was going on before her which she could not understand. Anything of this man’s saying which she could not fathom must be at least dangerous; so she determined to spoil his purpose, whatever it might be.
‘Dear me! That is charmingly poetic! Past and future; memory and the smell of flowers; meetings and letters! It is quite philosophy. Do explain it all, Mr. Everard!’ Leonard was not prepared to go on under the circumstances. His own mention of ‘letter,’ although he had deliberately used it with the intention of frightening Stephen, had frightened himself. It reminded him that he had not brought, had not got, the letter; and that as yet he was not certain of getting the money. Stephen also had noted the word, and determined not to pass the matter by. She said gaily:
‘If a letter is a spell, I think you have a spell of mine, which is a spell of my own weaving. You were to show me the letter in which I asked you to come to see me. It was in that, I think you said, that I mentioned your debts; but I don’t remember doing so. Show it to me!’
‘I have not got it with me!’ This was said with mulish sullenness.
‘Why not?’