"You don't know what I mean, do you? Listen, Shiela; stay here to dinner, if you can stand my relatives. We won't play cards. You'll really find it amusing I think."
"Do you wish me to stay?"
"Yes, I do. I want you to see something."
A few moments afterward she took her umbrella and waterproof and went away to dress, returning to a dinner-table remarkable for the silence of the diners. Something, too, had gone wrong with the electric plant, and after dinner candles were lighted in the living-room. Outside it rained heavily.
Malcourt sat beside his wife, smoking, and, unaided, sustaining what conversation there was; and after a while he rose, dragged a heavy, solid wooden table to the middle of the room, placed five chairs around it, and smilingly invited Shiela, the Tressilvains, and Portlaw to join him.
"A seance in table-tipping?" asked his sister coldly. "Really, Louis, I think we are rather past such things."
"I never saw a bally table tip," observed Tressilvain. "How do you do it, Louis?"
"I don't; it tips. Come, Shiela, if you don't mind. Come on, Billy."
Tressilvain seated himself and glanced furtively about him.
"I dare say you're all in this game," he said, with a rattling laugh.