"Nothing remarkable?" squealed Mrs. Batholommey; then, bridling, she scoffed: "Oh, of course. I forgot. You believe in——"
"In fact," pursued McPherson, getting under weigh with his pet idea, "you'll remember, both of you, that I told you he and I made a compact to——"
"Oh!" cried Mrs. Batholommey with a shudder. "That absurd, horrible 'compact' you told us about! It was positively blasphemous!"
But McPherson was looking speculatively down at Willem, and did not accept nor even hear the challenge to combat.
"I've sometimes had the idea," said he, "that the boy was a 'sensitive.' And this evening, I've been wondering——"
"No, you haven't, Andrew," denied Peter Grimm. "It's I who have been doing the 'wondering'; through that Scotch brain of yours. I'm making use of that Spiritualistic hobby of yours because you're too dense to hear me except through some rarer mortal's voice."
"——Wondering," continued the doctor, "whether—perhaps——"
"Yes," declared Peter Grimm, as McPherson hesitated, "the boy is a 'sensitive,' as you call it."
"I really believe," declared McPherson, his last doubts vanishing, "that Willem is a 'sensitive.' I'm certain of it. And——"
"A 'sensitive'?" queried Kathrien. "What's that?"