"Reached end of chapter," murmured Webster, glancing covertly at the late medium. "What deuce want spoil everything?" he demanded, in a hectoring aside, of Pennington's late giggling companion.... "Who'd like go next?"
Summertown had been peering lazily in search of cigarettes, but his host's question roused him to activity.
"Don't be in such a hurry, old son," he called out. And, turning to the hypnotist, "You were talking about the jolly old seeds. Big fleas and little fleas...."
Madame Hilary glanced at him and then, carelessly, at the group between the fire-place and the door. She was too well-bred to shew triumph.
"You tell me you doubt. Good!" she answered Summertown. "I try to explain just my theory. Now, in every man there are seeds of new life, and each seed contains seeds of other new life, of the Future...."
Webster waited until he saw Summertown nodding intelligently; then he joined the group by the door.
"What do you think of it?" he asked, like a conjuror.
The Baroness Kohnstadt shuddered.
"Ach, derrible!"
"It's the same old game," said Pennington, with newly recovered valour. "She pinned herself down to something fairly definite, but, before anything comes along to kill Summertown, she'll have vamoosed and set up in Harrogate as a beauty specialist. Agree with me, Lady Barbara?"