This gave her aunt the opportunity for which she was seeking. "You did! And as a result he made up some cock-and-bull excuse and went back to London this morning. Lionel is very much put out about it."
"I should have thought Lionel would have been glad," said Bubbles, and there came into her voice the touch of slight, almost insolent, contempt with which she generally spoke of Lionel Varick.
"He was very far from glad; he was furious," said Blanche gravely.
"I only did it because he said he wanted his guests entertained," said Bubbles sulkily.
And then, after there had been a rather long silence between them, she asked: "What did you think of it, Blanche? You'd never been at a séance before, had you?"
Miss Farrow hesitated. "Of course I was impressed," she acknowledged. "I kept wondering how you did it. I mean that I kept wondering how those people's thoughts were conveyed to your brain."
"Then you didn't believe that I saw anything of the things I said I saw?" said Bubbles slowly. "You thought it was all fudge on my part?"
Her aunt reddened. "I don't quite know what you mean by saying that. Of course I don't believe you saw the—the figures you described so clearly. But I realized that in some queer way you must have got hold of the memory of your victims. Lionel admits that you did so in his case."
"Does he indeed?" Bubbles spoke with sharp sarcasm.
There rose before her a vision of her host's pale, startled face. In some ways he had been the most inwardly perturbed of her last night's sitters, and she, the medium, had been well aware of it.