“May we speak?” asked Natalie, eagerly.
“Not yet, please,” and the Priestess smiled at her. “May I not have my conditions complied with?”
“Keep still, Natalie,” said Barry. “Let her have fair play.”
“This is Mr. Stannard’s question,” and Orienta held another envelope in her long fingers, “‘Would it not be wiser not to attempt to solve the mystery, but to hush up the whole matter?’ My mind sees a picture. It is vague, there is no detail, but it is bright and beautiful. There are fair flowers and soft colours. They shift, like a kaleidoscope, but always rosy and lovely. It means, yes, it would be better to give up trying to solve the riddle.
“And now,” Orienta spoke in a distinctly scornful voice, “there is but one more, Mr. Roberts’ envelope. In it he has written, ‘Are you a fraud?’ I answer this as carefully as I do the others. My mind shows me myself, and I see my honest attempts to do my duty and to read aright. No, I am not a fraud. That is all.”
“For shame, Mr. Roberts!” cried Joyce, angrily. “I am sorry I asked you here to-night, and I will now ask that you go away. I am more than interested in Orienta’s work, I am enthralled, and I refuse to have it interrupted or interfered with by your unjust suspicions and rude behaviour! Please go away, and let us continue our experiments in peace.”
“Oh, Mrs. Stannard, please let me stay,” begged the penitent Bobsy; “I’ll be good, I promise you. You see, I’m so interested in the thing, I wrote that to test it, and Madame Orienta came through with flying colours. If you will let me remain, I promise not to offend again, in any particular.”
Bobsy had a way with him, and Orienta herself smiled a little as she said, “Let him stay. I’m glad to convince him.”
So Bobsy staid.
Then Barry proposed that they try the same test over again, but without signing their papers. “Thus,” he said, “we will feel more free to ask what we choose.”