The medium, in her former voice, low and gentle, interrupted.
"I can tell you nothing else. I do not know what was said. But I am sorry if you have had bad news."
Margaret stood up, replacing her glove. She knew, as we all know, that certain gifted organisms hear combinations of sound to which the rest of us are deaf. She knew, as many of us also know, that there are other organisms that can foresee events to which the rest of us are blind. But she knew too that in the same measure that the auditions of composers are not always notable, the visions of clairvoyants are not always exact. The knowledge steadied and partially comforted, but partially only.
At the entrance, Lennox stood with Miss Bleecker. A little beyond were Paliser and her mother. Mrs. Amsterdam, minus her money, must have rushed away.
Poppet Bleecker laughed and questioned: "No horrors?"
Lennox questioned also, but with his eyes.
Margaret hesitated. Then she got it. Taking the girl's hand she patted it and to Lennox said, and lightly enough: "Do go in. I want to see if what the medium says to you conforms with what she said to me."
Yet, however lightly she spoke, behind her girdle was that sensation which only the tormented know.
Beyond on the stage, the fat woman, now at the piano, was accompanying a girl who was singing a brindisi. The girl was young, good-looking, unembarrassed, very much at home. Her dress, a black chiffon, became her.
Then, in a moment, as Lennox entered the booth, Margaret joined her mother and looked at the girl.