Madalena shook her head. "No, it will not come back. I am sure of that, because when the crystal clouds as if milk were pouring into it, I know that I shall never see the same picture again. Whether it is a cross current in myself or the crystal, I cannot tell; but it amounts to the same thing. I am sorry! It is useless to try any more. Shall we go to the other room and have tea?"
Constance did not persist, as she wished to do. She had to take the Countess's word that further effort would be useless, but she felt thwarted, as if the curtain had fallen by mistake in the middle of an act, and the characters on the stage had availed themselves of the chance to go home.
It was vexatious enough that Madalena had not been able to explain the mystery of last night. But this was ten times more annoying.
"Am I not to know the end of the act?" she asked as her hostess poured tea. The latter shrugged her shoulders, as if to shake off responsibility. "Ah, I cannot tell! Perhaps if——"
She stopped, and handed her guest a cup.
"Perhaps if—what?"
"Oh, nothing!" Madalena tasted her own tea and put in more cream.
"Do tell me what you were going to say, dear Countess, unless you want me to die of curiosity."
"I should be sorry to have you do that!" smiled Madalena. "But if I said what I was going to say, you might misunderstand. You might think—I was asking for an invitation."
Instantly Constance's mind unveiled the other's meaning. There was to be an Easter party at Valley House—a very smart party. The Countess de Santiago wished to be a member of it. Lady Annesley-Seton, shrewd as she was, had a vein of superstition running through her nature, and, though one side of that nature said that the scene with the crystal had been arranged for this end, the other side held its belief in the vision.