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"That costs money, too," was Rick's reply. "But at least, if the play falls flat, you don't have to

produce it again the next week and the week after."

VII

Zaharoff was back at his hotel in Monte, and would send his car for Madame Zyszynski, and

write notes expressing his gratitude to the family. He said he wished there were something he

could do in return; and apparently he meant it, for when Robbie Budd came into possession of

a block of New England-Arabian stock, he came to see the old man, who bought the stock at

Robbie's own price. It wasn't a large amount, but Lanny said it was a sign that the duquesa

really was "coming through."

Beauty was devoured by curiosity about these seances, and questioned Madame every time she

came back; but the medium stuck to her story that she had no idea of what happened when

she was in her trance. Evidently Tecumseh was behaving well, for when she came out she

would find the sitter gracious and considerate. She always had tea with the maid of Sir Basil's

married daughter, and sometimes the great man himself asked questions about her life and ideas.

Evidently he was reading along the lines of spiritualism, but he never said a word about

himself, nor did he mention the duquesa's name.

Beauty thought it was poor taste for a borrower to keep the owner so entirely in the dark; and

perhaps the idea occurred to Sir Basil, for he called Lanny on the telephone and asked if he could

spare time to run over and see him. Lanny offered to drive Madame on the next trip, and

Zaharoff said all right; Lanny might attend the seance if it would interest him. That was certainly

an advance, and could only mean that Zaharoff had managed to make friends with the Iroquois

chieftain and his spirit band.

"All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." So Lanny's stern

grandfather had quoted, at the time when Lanny was making a scandal in Newcastle by falling

in love with a young actress. The playboy thought of it now as he sat and watched this man who

might be as old as Grandfather Samuel. His suave manners were a mask and his soul a bundle of

fears. He had fought so hard for wealth and power, and now he sat and watched infirmity

creeping over him and everything slipping out of his grasp. "Then I looked on all the works

that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do: and, behold, all was

vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun."

Secretiveness was the breath of the munitions king's being. For nearly a year he had had

Tecumseh and the spirits to himself, and if he had told anyone what was happening it hadn't

come to Lanny's ears. But he couldn't hold out indefinitely, because his soul was racked with

uncertainties. Was it really the duquesa who was sending him messages? Or was it merely a

fantasy, a cruel hoax of somebody or something unknown? Lanny had attended many seances,

and was continually studying the subject. The old man had to know what he made of it.

The sitting itself was rather commonplace. Evidently the munitions king and the spirit of his

dead wife had become established on a firm domestic basis. She came right away, as she would

have done if he had called her from the next room. She didn't have much to talk about—which

probably would have been the case if her "grass" had not withered and blown away. The only

difference was that Zaharoff would have known the "grass" for what it was; but this imitation

grass, this mirage, this painting on a fog—what was it? She assured him that she loved him—of

which he had never had any doubt. She assured him that she was happy—she had said it many

times, and it was good news if it was she.

As to the conditions of her existence she was vague, as the spirits generally are. They explain

that it is difficult for mortal minds to comprehend their mode of being; and that is a possibility,

but also it may be an evasion. The duquesa had given evidence of her reality, but now she

seemed to wish that he should take it as settled; that made her happier—and of course he

sought to make her happy.

But afterward he tormented himself with doubts. Should he torment her with them?

She greeted Lanny and talked to him. She had come to him first, with messages to her husband,

and now she thanked him for delivering them. It was exactly as if they had been together in the

garden of the Paris mansion. She reminded him of it, and of the snow-white poodles shaved to

resemble lions. She had escorted him into the library, and he, a courteous youth, had

understood that she might have no more time for him, and had volunteered to make himself

happy with a magazine. Did he remember what it was? She said: La Vie Parisienne, and he

remembered. He darted a glance at Zaharoff, and thought he saw the old white imperial

trembling. "Tell him that that is correct," insisted the Spanish duquesa with a Polish accent.

"He worries so much, pauvre cheri."

The spirit talked about the unusually wet weather, and about the depression; she said that

both would end soon. Such troubles did not affect her, except as they affected those she loved.

She knew everything that was happening to them; apparently she knew whatever she wanted to

know. Lanny asked her politely, could she bring them some fact about the affairs of her ancient

family which her husband had never known, but which he might verify by research; something

that was in an old document, or hidden in a secret vault in a castle; preferably something she

hadn't known during her own lifetime, so that it couldn't have been in the subconscious mind

of either of them?

"Oh, that subconscious mind!" laughed the Spanish lady. "It is a name that you make

yourself unhappy with. What is mind when it isn't conscious? Have you ever known such a

thing?"

"No," said Lanny, "because then it would be conscious. But what is it that acts like a

subconscious mind?"

"Perhaps it is God," was the reply; and Lanny wondered: had he brought with him some

fragment of the subconscious mind of Parsifal Dingle, and injected it into the subconscious

mind which called itself Maria del Pilar Antonia Angela Patrocino Simon de Muguiro у Berute,

Duquesa de Marqueni у Villafranca de los Caballeros?

VIII

When the seance was over, the maid invited Madame into another room to have tea; and Sir

Basil had tea and a long talk with Lanny. He wanted to know what the younger man had

learned and what he now believed. Lanny, watching the aging and anxious face, knew exactly

what was wanted. Zaharoff wasn't an eager scientist, loving truth for truth's sake; he was a man

tottering on the edge of the grave, wanting to believe that when he departed this earth he was

going to join the woman who had meant so much to him. And what was Lanny, a scientist or a

friend?

He could say, quite honestly, that he didn't know; that he wavered, sometimes one way,

sometimes the other. Then he could go on to waver in the right direction. Certainly it had

seemed to be the duquesa speaking: not the voice, but the mind, the personality, something

which one never touches, never sees, but which one comes to infer, which manifests itself by

various modes of communication. The duquesa speaking over a telephone, for example, and the

line in rather bad condition!

Zaharoff was pleased. He said he had been reading the books. "Telepathy?"' he said. "It seems to

me just a word they have invented to save having to think. What is this telepathy? How would