Ralston said nothing in reply to her question, but transferred his gaze from her to Wingfield, with something not unlike envy in his look. Few men could look at Wingfield without feeling a little envious of his outward being, and Ralston was a man singularly devoid of personal vanity, like his mother.
“I wish I could paint you all!” exclaimed Crowdie, suddenly.
“That’s a large order,” observed Bright, with a smile.
“You’ve all got such lots in your faces to-night,” continued the artist, with an odd enthusiasm. “There must be something in the air—well, that doesn’t mean anything, of course—but it’s very strange.”
“What’s strange?” asked Katharine.
“Oh—I can’t exactly explain. There’s an unusual air about us all, as though we were under pressure and rather inclined to do eccentric things. I could paint it, but I can’t possibly put it in words.”
“I suppose I’m not sensitive,” said Wingfield to Katharine. “I don’t notice anything particular, do you? At least—not outside, you know,” he added, quickly, being all at once conscious of something he had not been aware of a moment earlier.
“I know what he means,” answered Katharine. “I feel it myself. But then—I’m tired and I suppose I’m nervous.”
“There’s a queer, mythological atmosphere about,” Crowdie was saying.
“It’s what we’ve been talking about,” said Mrs. Bright. “We’re all so completely mixed on the subject of time and space and things like that, that we’re just ready to believe in ghosts, and turn tables, and make idiots of ourselves.”