"He's going to speak through Samuel," Mère Gontran declared. "What is it, dear? Tell me what it is?"
The dog, who had probably been stung by a gnat, got up and, putting his head upon his mistress's knee, gazed forth ineffable sorrows.
"You heard him trying to talk?" she asked.
"He certainly made a noise," Sylvia admitted.
There was a loud rap on the air—an unmistakable rap, for the five cats which had remained in the room all twitched their ears toward the sound.
"Gone for the night," said Mère Gontran. "And he's very angry about something. I suppose this daisy that Dick picked means something important to him, though we can't understand. Perhaps he'll come back later on when I've gone to bed and tell me more about it."
"Mère Gontran," said Sylvia, earnestly, "do you really believe in spirits? Do you really think we can talk with the dead?"
"Of course I do. Listen! They're all round us. If you want to feel the dead, walk up the garden with me now. You'll feel the spirits whizzing round you like moths."
"Oh, I wonder, I wonder if it's true," Sylvia cried. "I can't believe it, and yet...."
"Listen to me," said Mère Gontran, solemnly. "Thirty-five years ago I left England to come to Petersburg. I was twenty years old and very beautiful. You can imagine how I was run after by men. You've seen something of the way men run after women here. Well, one summer I went with my family to Finland, and I foolishly arranged to meet Prince Paul in the forest after supper. He was a fine, handsome young man, as bold and as wicked as the devil himself. But there again, I haven't got to give details. Anyway, he said to me: 'What are you afraid of? Your parents?' I can hear his laugh now after all these years, and I remember the bough of a tree was just waving very slightly and the moonlight kept glinting in and out of his eyes. I thought of my parents in England when he said this, and I remember challenging them in a sort of defiant way to interfere. You see, I'd never got on well at home. I was a very wayward girl and they were exceptionally old-fashioned. And when Prince Paul held me in his arms I reproached them. It's difficult to explain, but I was trying to conjure them up before me to see if the thought of home would have any effect. And then Prince Paul laughed and said, 'Or another lover?' Now with the exception of flirting with Prince Paul and Prince George, the two eldest sons, I'd never thought much about lovers. Even in those days I was more interested in animals, really, and of course I was very fond of children. But when Prince Paul said, 'Or another lover?' I saw Gontran leaning against a tree in the forest. He was looking at me, and I pushed Prince Paul away and ran back toward the house.