"Have you no faith either?" asked Mr. Harrison.
"You would not ask that, if you had seen him as I did yesterday," said Mr. Floyd, "sitting with outstretched hands over a large dining-table. He told me, when I went in, that he had been there all the afternoon, and had not yet produced the slightest effect."
Mr. Lamb's face was by this time a deep crimson, and, feeling it useless to attempt to withdraw any longer from observation, he advanced to the table and placed upon it a pair of hands so large, soft, and yielding that, when they at last stopped spreading, seemed to cover two-thirds of the table.
"Ah, that is something like!" said Mr. Floyd, highly satisfied with his new recruit.
But yet the table did not move as soon as before. Several times I fancied I observed a preparatory quiver in it, and the exclamations of those around it showed that they also were in expectation of some decided result; but we were as often disappointed. Looking closely, I thought that Mr. Archer's hands rested more heavily on the table than was expedient. I suggested this to him, and he thanked me politely, and showed such an evident desire to do nothing out of rule that he quite won my approval.
"My fingers are tingling," said one of the ladies.
"So are mine," said Mr. Archer.
But nothing came of it. After a long waiting, Edith Floyd burst out with, "I am so tired!" in a low, sighing whisper.
Instantly, the table began to move, very slowly and cautiously at first. But soon it increased its velocity, until the excited group around it could hardly keep pace with it. It whirled from one end of the drawing-room to the other with a rapidity never before seen in Westbridge.
"Not so bad a substitute for the waltz," said Mr. Harrison, as he watched the movers running, laughing, and exclaiming, mingled in apparently inextricable confusion. "I would not object to take a turn myself."