Helene Vauquier locked the door of the salon upon the inside and
placed the key upon the mantel-shelf, as she had always done
whenever a seance had been held. The curtains had been loosened at
the sides of the arched recess in front of the glass doors, ready
to be drawn across. Inside the recess, against one of the pillars
which supported the arch, a high stool without a back, taken from
the hall, had been placed, and the back legs of the stool had been
lashed with cord firmly to the pillar, so that it could not be
moved. The round table had been put in position, with three chairs
about it. Mme. Dauvray waited impatiently. Celia stood apparently
unconcerned, apparently lost to all that was going on. Her eyes
saw no one. Adele looked up at Celia, and laughed maliciously.
"Mademoiselle, I see, is in the very mood to produce the most
wonderful phenomena. But it will be better, I think, madame," she
said, turning to Mme. Dauvray, "that Mlle. Celie should put on
those gloves which I see she has thrown on to a chair. It will be
a little more difficult for mademoiselle to loosen these cords,
should she wish to do so."
The argument silenced Celia. If she refused this condition now she
would excite Mme. Dauvray to a terrible suspicion. She drew on her
gloves ruefully and slowly, smoothed them over her elbows, and
buttoned them. To free her hands with her fingers and wrists
already hampered in gloves would not be so easy a task. But there
was no escape. Adele Rossignol was watching her with a satiric
smile. Mme. Dauvray was urging her to be quick. Obeying a second
order the girl raised her skirt and extended a slim foot in a
pale-green silk stocking and a satin slipper to match. Adele was
content. Celia was wearing the shoes she was meant to wear. They
were made upon the very same last as those which Celia had just
kicked off upstairs. An almost imperceptible nod from Helene
Vauquier, moreover, assured her.
She took up a length of the thin cord.
"Now, how are we to begin?" she said awkwardly. "I think I will
ask you, mademoiselle, to put your hands behind you."
Celia turned her back and crossed her wrists. She stood in her
satin frock, with her white arms and shoulders bare, her slender
throat supporting her small head with its heavy curls, her big
hat--a picture of young grace and beauty. She would have had an
easy task that night had there been men instead of women to put her
to the test. But the women were intent upon their own ends: Mme.
Dauvray eager for her seance, Adele Tace and Helene Vauquier
for the climax of their plot.
Celia clenched her hands to make the muscles of her wrists rigid
to resist the pressure of the cord. Adele quietly unclasped them
and placed them palm to palm. And at once Celia became uneasy. It
was not merely the action, significant though it was of Adele's
alertness to thwart her, which troubled Celia. But she was
extraordinarily receptive of impressions, extraordinarily quick to
feel, from a touch, some dim sensation of the thought of the one
who touched her. So now the touch of Adele's swift, strong,
nervous hands caused her a queer, vague shock of discomfort. It
was no more than that at the moment, but it was quite definite as
that.