The poet was more and more convinced that there was only one perfect woman in the world, and that was the beautiful creature whom he had apostrophised in sonnets as:—
“Mysterious Mystery, whose bright sad eyes,
Wild as the roe, and deep with undreamt dreams.”
Etcetera, etcetera.
So he listened and sighed, and in a low and plaintive voice, significant of hidden woe and much “soul suffering,” to quote from another effusion, he read to her fragments of the “Light of Asia,” which she could not in the least comprehend, but which she bluntly criticised as “not half bad to listen to if you felt drowsy.”
“Oh, but I do wish the Princess would come down,” she said at last in the intervals of a “selection.”
“I’ve such hundreds of questions to ask her. Seems to me she dropped the seed in pretty fruitful soil the other night, for we’re all just ‘gone’ on occultism. Only we don’t know anything about it. Ah, there’s Colonel Estcourt, I’ll ask him if it’s possible to have her down this evening. I don’t mind which body she comes in: the Astral or the ordinary. In fact, I think I should prefer the former. Colonel!” she called out, raising her voice. “Come here, I want to speak to you.”
She put her request to him as he obeyed her summons, and put it with an earnestness and fervour that showed it was sincere, and not the formula of idle curiosity.
“I don’t know,” he said, “if it will be possible, but, if the princess consents, I will arrange that two or three of you shall have an opportunity of witnessing how really marvellous her powers are. She never makes a display or show of them, for reasons which you cannot yet understand, but, if she consents, I should like you, Mrs Jefferson, and my young friend here (smiling at the poet’s excited face), and one or two other people interested in the matter, to come up to her boudoir this evening. I will just send up a note and ask.”
“I could just worship you, Colonel,” cried the little American, ecstatically. “It’s real good of you to offer such a glorious treat to us.”
“Do not thank me yet,” he said, smiling; “you do not know whether you will be received.”
At the same moment there came a sound in the air above their heads—soft, clear, vibrating—like the faint echo of a silver bell.