The beautiful voice throbbed away into silence, and the mandolin jarred and thrummed upon the floor. Violet Campion sat staring straight before her with eyes that were wide and fixed.
Olga jumped up impulsively. "Violet, why did you sing that gruesome thing? Do you want to give us all the horrors?"
She picked up the mandolin with a swish of its red ribbons, and laid it upon the piano, where it quivered and thrummed again like a living thing, awaking weird echoes from the instrument on which it rested.
Then she turned back to her friend. "Violet, wake up! What are you looking at?"
But Violet remained immovable as one in a trance.
Olga bent over her, touched her. "Violet!"
With a quick start, as though suspended animation had suddenly been restored, Violet relaxed in her chair, leaning back with careless grace, her white arms outstretched.
"What's the matter, Allegretto? You look as if you had had a glimpse of the conqueror of conquerors yourself. I shall have to come and sleep with you to frighten away the spooks."
"I don't think I shall ever dare to go to bed at all after that," said
Nick.
She laughed at him lazily. "Get Max to sit up with you and hold your hand! The very sight of him would scare away all bogies."