Moonchild

Lauder! apart from any deception, a man in such circumstances might be willing to swear away his own reputation in order to assure her a career!" "It's rather embarrassing," said the Pasha, "especially to a Mohammedan like myself; but one must endure everything in the cause of Science. In a moment now she'll be ready for the sitting." Indeed, she changed suddenly into Personality Number Three, a very decorous young Frenchwoman named Annette, maid to the wife of a Jewish Banker. She went with rather stiff decorum to the table — she had to lay breakfast for her mistress, it appeared — but the moment she got there, she began to tremble violently all over, sank into the chair, and resumed the "Baby" personality, after a struggle. "Det away, bad Annette — naughty, naughty!" was the [45] burden of her inspiring monologue for a few minutes. Then she suddenly became absorbed in the small objects before her — the Pasha had replaced them — and began to play with them, as intently as many children do with toys. "Now we must have the lights down!" said the Pasha. Cyril complied. "Light is terribly painful and dangerous to her in this state. Once she lost her reason for a month through some one switching on the current unexpectedly. But we shall make a close examination, for all that." He took a thick silk scarf, and bound it over her eyes. Then, with an electric torch, he swept the table. He pulled back her sleeves to the shoulder and fastened them there; and he went over her hands inch by inch, opening the fingers and separating them, searching the nails, proving, in short, to demonstration, that there was no deception. "You see," whispered Cyril, "we're not preparing for a scientific experiment; we're preparing for a conjuring trick. It's the psychology of trickery. Not my idea; the master's." However, the attention of Lisa la Giuffria, almost despite herself, was drawn to the restless fingers on the table. They moved and twisted into such uncanny shapes; and there was something in the play of them, their intention towards the frail globe on which they converged, that fascinated her. The medium drew her fingers swiftly away from the ball; at the same instant it jumped three or four inches into the air. The Turk purred delight. "Quite evidential, don't you think, sir?" he observed to Simon. "Oh, quite," returned the old man, but in a tone that would have made any one who knew him well continue the conversation with these words