"Oh no, we can't do that—not to-night," Viola answered, decisively.
Morton threw back the doors. "Kate, take Miss Lambert into the dining-room and give her something to drink. She is quite exhausted. Let me steady you," he said, tenderly, touching her arm. "You fairly reel with weakness."
"I will be as well as ever as soon as my blood begins to circulate," she bravely answered, and his touch quickened her pulse miraculously.
As soon as Weissmann had finished taking his notes and measurements, he locked the door of the library and joined them all in the dining-room, where they were sipping coffee and nibbling cake. Morton was sitting beside Viola (who had entirely regained her girlish lightness of mood), and was chafing her cold hand in the effort to restore the circulation as well as to remove the deep mark the silken thread had made about her wrist.
"We shall be obliged to shut out all young men from our committee," the old scientist jocularly remarked, as he stood looking down at them. "Lovely psychics like you would put the whole American Academy of Science in disorder."
Clarke, raging with jealous fire, turned to Weissmann in truculent mood. "Well, Dr. Weissmann, how do you account for these phenomena? To whose agency do you ascribe these marvels?"
"Spooks!" answered the old man, with cheerful promptness.
Clarke reeled before this laconic admission. "What! You agree? You admit the agency of spirits?"
"Certainly—unless I say Miss Lambert wriggled herself out of her skin, which would not be nice of me, or that you are the greatest ventriloquist in the world. No, I prefer to compliment the spirits."
Clarke's face darkened. The old man's face and voice were too jocose. "I see you do not value our wonderful experiences to-night."