“How did I manage it?” he asked.
“I suppose I need not tell you,” Genius answered. “Ah! what have you done?”
“You should have been watching,” said Plucritus. “You are just too late.”
Once more he had turned the curious dull red light upon the picture, and changed it by this glamour till it seemed almost life-size. And Deborah, led by what she did not understand, looked across at it. It had been put there for the first time that day, and was a simple representation of a wooded terrace and a garden. On the broad steps a woman stood, upon the ground a man—dressed for a period some three hundred years ago.
Deborah looked and looked again, and then with a sudden start, the colour rising to her cheeks and the light to her eyes, she walked across to it.
“How funny! How very funny!” she exclaimed, and looked at the picture for a long time without speaking. Then she looked at the words underneath it, and they were:—
“Against my wish I am sent to bid you come to dinner.”
“Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.”
“I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.”
“How curious,” said Deborah. “I suppose these words are what they’re saying to each other. How beautiful they look! Just like the people in my world.”