When one is of an age to love, it is never the parent who gets the benefit of a doubt.
XVI
THE CRYSTAL
Like some shy, sad shade summoned up by the malign genius of a haunted chamber, a slender shape of pallor in softly flowing draperies slipped through the silent door and, advancing a few reluctant steps into the soundless gloom, paused and in apprehensive diffidence awaited the welcome that was for a time withheld.
For minutes Victor gave no sign or stir; and in all the room nothing moved but ghostly whorls of smoke writhing slowly upward from a pungent censer of beaten gold.
The great lamp of brass was dark, and there was no other light than a solitary bulb, whose hooded rays were concentrated upon the crystal ball, so that the latter shone with a dead-white glare, somehow baleful, like an elfin moon deeply lost in a sea of sombre enchantment.
Bending forward in his chair, an elbow planted on the table, his forehead resting upon the tips of long, white fingers, Victor’s gaze was steadfast to the crystal. Refracted light sculptured with curious shadows that saturnine face intent to immobility.
Too young, too inexperienced and sensitive to be insusceptible to the spell of the theatrical, the girl was conscious of a steady ebb of her new-found store of fortitude, skepticism, and defiance, together with an equally steady inflow of timidity and uneasiness. That sinister figure at the table, absorbed in study of the inscrutable sphere—what did he see there, to hold his faculties in such deep eclipse? Adept in black arts of the Orient as he was said to be, what wizardry was he brewing with the aid of that traditional tool of the necromancer? What spectacle of divination was in those pellucid depths unfolding to his rapt vision? And what had this consultation of the occult to do with the man’s mind concerning herself?
Sofia was shaken by a tremor of dread....
And as if her emotion were somehow communicated, arousing him to knowledge of her presence, Victor started, sat back, and with a sigh passed a hand across his eyes. When the hand fell, his face wore its habitual look for Sofia, modified by a slightly apologetic and weary smile.
“My child!” he exclaimed in accents of contrite surprise, “have I kept you waiting long?”