"Oh, you just got an attack of nerves, that's all. You'll get over it and laugh at it. You keep still and cool off."
She wagged her head solemnly, unconscious of her hanging hat. "See here, Vixley, you know me! I'm too old a bird to be fooled with fakes—I've done too much of that myself. I've always claimed that I had clairvoyance, but I lied. I never got that nor clairaudience, no matter how I tried for it, and I've had to fake. I've had a gift o' guessing, perhaps, but that's all. But I swear to God, I got materializing just now. I've scoffed at it all my life, but I believe it now. I see her just as soon as you left, standing right over there by the desk, she was, and she turned to me and she says, 'If you persist you will come to harm. Take my advice and don't you do it!' and then she faded away. What d'you s'pose it means?"
"It means you need a drink," he said, and, walking to the desk, he took out a whisky bottle and poured out a stiff dose. "Them's the spirits that'll help you most. You put this down and see how you feel!"
She put it away with an impatient gesture. "Oh, you don't believe it," she cried, "but I see her just as plain as I see you this minute, and I heard her, too. What'll I do, Vixley? I can't give up my business, can I? I got to live."
"What's the matter with you? I don't see as they's anything to worry about, granted it was a spirit, which it wasn't one, o' course."
"She said, 'If you persist you will come to harm!' What else could that mean but Payson? Let's call it all off, before anything happens."
"Bosh! It ain't likely it meant Payson any more than it did anything else. Why, the thing is as simple as a rattle. Spirits be damned! You leave that to the suckers—with money."
Although his incredulity and sneers prevented her from actually withdrawing from the projected séance, she was by no means restored to calmness. She gave but a reluctant, distracted attention to his plans, and talked little herself. She went home oppressed by the sinister suggestions of her vision, muttering her dread for the future.
CHAPTER XVII
THE MATERIALIZING SÉANCE