They had reached a very tender and solemn pause--so self-revealing had been the woman's admission--and Britt was looking at his plate as his hostess began again with assumed brightness. "Well, now, about this girl. Can you take me to see her? She interests me beyond anything."
"Certainly. I should be delighted. But your brother knows her--she would be pleased to see you both, I've no doubt."
"My brother thinks she is a fraud, and does not wish to see her--"
"I derive my knowledge from you, Dr. Britt."
Britt was undisturbed. "I think she is a fraud, too, but a very charming one."
"That ought to make her all the more convincing," said Kate.
"And all the more dangerous," replied Britt. "She baffles me--when face to face with her."
"What are they going to do with her--exhibit her to the public?"
"Not for the present. Clarke has been making notes industriously all the year and is about ready to publish. He now wants a few of the big fellows, like Uncle Simeon Pratt, to help boom his book. The Lamberts are not in this for money--please give them credit for that--and as for the mother, she is entirely honest--she believes implicitly in her spirits."
"That puts the girl in a horrible position--if she is deceiving," Morton interposed. "Imagine her state of mind if she realizes that her own mother has come to rest upon her system of deceit. The thought is horrible."
"It is quite as bad at that," returned Britt. "You see, the mother has been for years in close daily communion--as she supposes--with her husband, her little son, and others of her dead. Half of her daily life is in these joys, the other half in her daughter. There stood the wall that stopped me. I couldn't express my doubt to the mother. I couldn't apply the clamps. I simply withdrew. I do not intend to pursue the matter to a finish so long as the mother is alive."
Morton's face was clouded with pain. "Let us drop the Lamberts as a subject; they are too distressing, especially as I see no way of helping them. When do you return?"
Kate acquiesced in her brother's diversion of the stream of talk, but an hour later, as Britt was about to go, she seized the opportunity to say: "You must not fail to take me to see this girl. I have never been so excited about any one in my life. Can't you take me to-morrow?"
"I am entirely at your service. Suppose I call at four--will that do?"
"Perfectly. I'm very grateful to you."
"I hope you won't come to curse me for it. I warn you, the girl is damnably convincing. She may enamour you."