“I can’t say it vanished at all. It ought still to be there. Have you ever returned to a place where you had always been wrong as to the points of the compass, and found yourself right up to a certain moment as you approached, and then without any apparent change, found yourself perfectly wrong again? The figure was not there, and it was there, and then it was not there.”
“I think I see what you mean,” said the psychologist, warily. “The evanescence was subjective.”
“Altogether. But so was the apparescence.”
“Ah!” said Wanhope. “You hadn’t any headache?”
“Not the least.”
“Ah!” The psychologist desisted with the effect of letting the defence take the witness.
A general dissatisfaction diffused itself, and Hewson felt it; but he disdained to do anything to appease it. He remained silent for that appreciable time which elapsed before his host said, almost compassionately, “Won’t you tell us all about it, Mr. Hewson.”
The guests, all but Miss Hernshaw, seemed to return to their impartial frame, with a leaning in Hewson’s favor, such as the court-room feels when the accused is about to testify in his own behalf; the listeners cannot help wishing him well, though they may have their own opinions of his guilt.
“Why, there _isn’t_ any ‘all-about-it,’” said Hewson. “The whole thing has been stated as to the circumstances and conditions.” He could see the baffled greed in the eyes of those who were hungering for a morsel of the marvellous, and he made it as meagre as he could. He had now no temptation to exaggerate the simple fact, and he hurried it out in the fewest possible words.