The white eyelids and yellow lashes were scornfully lowered over the angry eyes.
"I wonder, Aunt Cissy, that with your gifts and your genius you are so easily deceived! I am not strait-laced, as you know; but, really, I have never cared to make a companion of Lina Grahame. She has, I don't doubt, some very good reason of her own for letting Mr. Armstrong escape from her clutches."
"Would you like me to prove to your face that you are lying?" Mrs. Vandeleur inquires, in a white heat of anger and excitement.
"Unfortunately that is impossible—isn't it? You could only get Lina's word, and I don't quite think I should accept that under the circumstances."
"You shall hear it in a form which you cannot fail to believe!" the little lady cried in triumph. "I will put Lina into a hypnotic sleep, and she shall answer me as she would answer her own soul. With her own lips she shall, in your presence, clear her good name from the foul slur which you, in your mean jealousy, have cast upon it. And this shall be done this very evening—here, before your eyes!"
"Dear auntie, pray don't excite yourself!" Clare urged. "Such an ordeal would be unfair to the girl. I really meant nothing."
"I have made up my mind," said the little sibyl, as she sharply rang the silver hand-bell on the table before her.
In Lorin's interests she had already decided to submit Lina to hypnotic influence in order to extract from her the entire truth with regard to her present plans, and she was genuinely glad of the opportunity of proving to her niece how undeserved were her reflections on her rival.
For Mrs. Vandeleur had no trace of doubt but that Laline, when put to the test, would triumphantly prove her spotless innocence in a manner which must convince even the evil-minded and unbelieving Clare. She was revelling in her favourite part of Fate's representative. Lorin should be made happy, Clare confounded, and Laline vindicated by one and the same process.
"Hide yourself!" she signed to her niece imperatively. "Lina must believe herself alone with me. Turn out the lamp in the inner room, and conceal yourself behind that Japanese screen. When she is unconscious, I will signal you to come near."