"I grow more and more conscience-smitten!" he exclaimed. "To think we should be the ones to tie and torture you, and at our first dinner-party!"
"Please don't blame yourself. It was not your fault; grandfather insisted on talking with you, and I—I wished it very much." Her face grew radiant with pleasure. "Oh, I'm so glad you made it a test-sitting!—I want you to believe in me. I mean that I don't deceive—"
"There are so many things I want to talk with you about—but not now—it is late."
Clarke, who had grown too restless to remain seated, interrupted a story which Kate was relating, and rose, saying, harshly: "It is time for us to be going. Pratt will lock us out if we don't."
The cloud again fell on Viola's face—her little hour of freedom from her keeper was over. Morton felt the change in her, and so did Kate, who fairly pleaded with the mother to remain. "It is late and you are tired, and after this wonderful evening you ought not to go back to that gloomy place."
Mrs. Lambert looked at Clarke, whose reply was stern. "No, we must return."
Something very sweet and intimate was in Morton's voice as he found opportunity to say to Viola: "I don't like to think of you returning to that gilded mausoleum. It is a most unwholesome place for you. You are too closely surrounded with morbid influences."
"I know it. I dread to go back—I admit that. I suppose Mr. Pratt is a good man, I know he does a great deal for the faith, and he is very generous to us, but oh, he is so vulgar, so impertinent! He bores me nearly frantic by being always at my elbow. I shudder when he touches me as if he were some sort of evil animal. Mother can't realize how he annoys and depresses me, and Anthony insists that we must endure it."
"I wish you'd stay here!" he exclaimed, impulsively. "Accept my sister's invitation—it would give us such an opportunity to talk of this sitting. Come, let me send for your trunks."