"I ought perhaps to have hesitated, before I asked you to spend the evening with me," he said, speaking with a gentleness and amiability of manner, strongly in contrast with his behavior up to this time. "It is my misfortune, as you both well know, to be a check on conversation. I dare say you have asked yourselves: How is he going to amuse us, after tea? If you will allow me, I propose to amuse you by exhibiting the dexterity of my fingers and thumbs. Before I was deaf, I should have preferred the piano for this purpose. As it is, an inferior accomplishment must serve my turn."
He opened a cupboard in the wall, close by the second table, and returned with a pack of cards.
Cristel imitated the action of dealing cards for a game. "No," he said, "that is not the amusement which I have in view. Allow me to present myself in a new character. I am no longer the Lodger, and no longer the Cur. My new name is more honorable still—I am the Conjurer."
He shuffled the pack by pouring it backwards and forwards from one hand to the other, in a cascade of cards. The wonderful ease with which he did it prepared me for something worth seeing. Cristel's admiration of his dexterity expressed itself by a prolonged clapping of hands, and a strange uneasy laugh. As his excitement subsided, her agitation broke out. I saw the flush again on her face, and the fiery brightness in her eyes. Once, when his attention was engaged, she stole a look at the door by which Gloody had left the room. Did this indicate another of the mysteries which, by her own confession, she had in preparation for me? My late experience had not inclined me favorably towards mysteries. I devoted my whole attention to the Conjurer.
Whether he chose the easiest examples of skill in sleight of hand is more than I know. I can only say that I never was more completely mystified by any professor of legerdemain on the public platform. After the performance of each trick, he asked leave to time himself by looking at his watch; being anxious to discover if he had lost his customary quickness of execution through recent neglect of the necessary practice.
Of Cristel's conduct, while he was amusing us, I can only say that it justified Mrs. Roylake's spiteful description of her as a bold girl. The more cleverly the tricks were performed, the more they seemed to annoy and provoke her.
"I hate being puzzled!" she said, addressing herself of course to me. "Yes, yes; his fingers are quicker than my eyes—I have heard that explanation before. When he has done one of his tricks, I want to know how he does it. Conjurers are people who ask riddles, and, when one can't guess them, refuse to say what the answer is. It's as bad as calling me a fool, to suppose that I like being deceived. Ah," she cried, with a shocking insolence of look and manner, "if our friend could only hear what I am saying!"
He had paused while she was speaking, observing her attentively. "Your face doesn't encourage me," he said, with a patience and courtesy of manner which it was impossible not to admire. "I am coming gradually to my greatest triumph; and I think I can surprise and please you."
He timed his last trick, and returned to the table placed against the wall.
"Excuse me for a moment," he resumed; "I am suffering as usual, after drinking tea. I so delight in it that the temptation to-night was more than I could resist. Tea disagrees with my weak stomach. It always produces thirst."