As a whipping-boy he was too spiritless to be satisfying, and Lady Barbara addressed herself to the invitation. Since the accident and the inquest she had not embarked on any expeditions with him. Indeed, on the evening before she went into court, she had deliberately broken a prized Venetian vase and whispered to herself—or any one who was listening—that, if she emerged without discredit, she would never go with him again. Nemesis had accepted the vase and played false on the bargain. But, while she might fairly feel herself released from her promise, she was oppressed by premonition that disaster would overtake her if she risked her luck again with Webster.
"Where are you going to? I'm waiting for a telephone message," she answered.
At that moment the bell rang; and, as she picked up the receiver, she felt guilty towards Jack Waring; in part she had undertaken to drop her "objectionable friends," in part she felt that, if he were with her, he would stop her going.... But his clerk had been unpardonable....
Gaymer's voice invited her to dine and go to a theatre with him. She accepted and impatiently replaced the receiver.
"I'll come for a short time," she answered and felt that she was defying Jack. "I must be back for tea, though."
"Have tea my place. Madame Hilary coming. Know who mean? Perfect wonder that woman. Doesn't use medium; makes you, me, any one medium; throws you in trance, and you do talking."
The séance was more alluring than the drive, for Madame Hilary had been famous in necromantic society for more than a month. Lady Barbara had been generally forbidden by her parents to dabble in black magic, and a special warning had been issued against Madame Hilary, whose methods had made her notorious, if not as a new witch of Endor, at least as an accomplished blackmailer.
"Is she good about the future?" Lady Barbara asked. "I don't want to be told that I've lived in distant lands, sometimes among the palms, sometimes in sight of the snows. I know that better than she does."
"She don't tell you anything," Webster explained. "You do all the talking, and we listen. Better hear some one else first; people sometimes more candid than they like—afterwards."
He chuckled maliciously and followed her downstairs. For an hour they drove round Richmond Park, and, as the light began to fail, he turned back to London and brought her to his flat by the Savoy in time for tea. The drowsy joy of rapid movement through the air had calmed her nerves and blown away her ill-humour; she was too tranquil to quarrel even with Jack Waring.