"The plan worked perfectly, and Denis started for New York without the least suspicion. Marceline and Marsh went with him in the car to Cape Girardeau, where he caught the afternoon train to St. Louis. They returned about dark, and as McCabe drove the car back to the stables I could hear them talking on the veranda. This time I resolved to do some intentional eavesdropping, so quietly went down to the front parlor and stretched out on the sofa near the window.
"At first I could hear nothing, but very shortly there came a sound as of a chair being shifted, followed by a short, sharp breath and a sort of inarticulately hurt exclamation from Marceline. Then I heard Marsh speaking in a strained, almost formal voice.
"'I'd enjoy working tonight—if you're not too tired.'
"Marceline's reply was in the same hurt tone which had marked her exclamation. She used English, as he had done.
"'Oh, Frank, is that really all you care about? Forever working! Can't we just sit out in this glorious moonlight?'
"He answered impatiently, his voice showing a certain contempt beneath the dominant quality of artistic enthusiasm.
"'Moonlight! Good God, what cheap sentimentality! For a supposedly sophisticated person you surely do hang on to some of the crudest claptrap that ever escaped from the dime novels. With art at your elbow, you have to think of the moon! Or perhaps it makes you think of the Roodmus dance around the stone pillars at Auteuil; hell! how you used to make those goggle-eyed yaps stare! But no, I suppose you've dropped all that now. No more Atlantean magic or hair-snake rites for Madame de Russy! I'm the only one to remember the old things, the things that came down through the temples of Tanit and called on the ramparts of Zimbabwe. But I won't be cheated of that remembrance—all that is weaving itself into the thing on my canvas—the thing that is going to capture wonder and crystallize the secrets of seventy-five thousand years.'
"Marceline interrupted in a voice full of mixed emotions.
"'It's you who are cheaply sentimental now! You know well that the old things had better be let alone. All of you had better look out if ever I chant the old rites or try to call up what lies hidden in Yuggoth, Zimbabwe, and Rl'yeh. I thought you had more sense!
"'You lack logic. You want me to be interested in this precious painting of yours, yet you never let me see what you're doing. Always that black cloth over it! It's of me—I shouldn't think it would matter if I saw it.'