Part 25 (1/2)

”Miss Fawcett and I have known each other a good many years,” Robert hurried on. ”She was once in a play with me, before she found her real _metier_. She kindly comes to see me now and then, when she can take a day off.”

”I want to bid you good-bye--if you are really going out of England,”

Opal said.

She had ceased to look at me now, but I went on looking hard at her. She was in what might be a spirit conception of a motor costume: smoke gray velvet, and yards of long, floating veil shot from gray to mauve. She wore a close toque with two little jutting Mercury wings, from behind which those yards of unnecessary chiffon fell. She had a narrow oval face, which Nature and (I thought) Art combined to make pale as pearl.

Her hair, pushed forward by the toque, was so colourless a brown that it looked like thick shadow. She had a beautifully cut, delicate nose, but her lips were thin and the upper one rather long and flat, otherwise she would have been pretty. Even as it was she had a kind of fascination, and I thought her the most graceful, willowy creature I'd ever seen.

”Well,” said Robert, ”as it happens I've put off going abroad, through a kind of mental laziness. But in the ordinary course of events you'd have come to-day only to find me gone--which would have been a pity. When I answered your letter, I told you----”

”Yes, but I _felt_ you'd still be here,” she cut him short. ”Apparently the Princess had the same premonition.”

”Oh, I just happened to be pa.s.sing,” I fibbed, ”and took my chance.

Fortunately, I came in the nick of time to give Captain Lorillard a lift to town in my car. It will save him a journey by train.”

”Then I am in the nick of time, too!” said Opal. ”If I'd been ten minutes later I might have missed him. I felt _that_, too! I told my taxi man to drive at least as fast as the legal limit.”

I guessed she was longing to get Robert to herself, and that he was glad there was no chance of it. Was he _really_ going abroad? she wanted to know. Or only just to London for a change?

Robert was restive under her uncanny questionings, but answered that he wasn't quite sure about the future. Travelling in France and Italy seemed to be disagreeable at the moment. Pa.s.sports, too, were a bother.

He'd be more certain of his plans in a few days, and would let her know.

Opal betrayed no crude emotion. Yet I was sure that, under her restrained manner--soft as a gentle breeze on a summer night--she would have enjoyed stamping her foot and having hysterics. Instead, she asked Robert about a psychic play she wanted him to write (he hadn't written a line of it!), told him a little news concerning people they both knew, and bethought herself that she ”mustn't keep us.”

Not more than twenty minutes after she had floated in Miss Fawcett floated forth again. Robert took her to her taxi, and then could hardly wait to get off in my car. As for me, I'd forgotten all about the d.u.c.h.ess. We chose the longer of the two roads to London, hoping to miss Opal; but soon pa.s.sed her taxi going at a leisurely pace. The Wraith must have had another of her mystic ”feelings,” and counted on our choice of that turning!

”She says she has 'helpers' from beyond,” Robert explained, when we were flying on, far ahead. ”She asks their advice, and they tell her what to do in daily life. She wanted to provide me with one or two, but I wasn't 'taking any.' Not that I'm a convinced materialist, or that I don't believe the dark veil can ever be lifted--I'm rather inclined the other way round--but I prefer to manage my own affairs without 'helpers' I've never known or seen on earth. Of course, it would be different if----Oh, you know what I mean. But even then--well, I should be afraid of being deceived. It's better not to begin anything like that when you can't be sure.”

”Did Opal Fawcett ever try to persuade you to--to----?” Courage failed me. But Robert understood only too well what was in my mind.

”Yes, she did,” he admitted. ”She wrote me--after--that awful thing happened. I hadn't heard from her for a long time till then. I'd almost forgotten her existence. She said in the letter that June's spirit had come to her with a message for me.”

”_Cheek!_” I exclaimed.

”Well, I'm afraid that's rather the way I felt about it, though probably Opal meant well, and a lot of people think she's wonderful. Several friends begged me in urgent letters to go to Opal Fawcett: a.s.sured me she'd given them indescribable comfort, put them in touch with those they loved who'd 'pa.s.sed on.' But somehow I couldn't be persuaded, Princess. A voice inside me always used to say: 'Why should June want to talk to you through Opal Fawcett? If she can come back, why shouldn't she speak with you direct, instead of through a third person?'”

”That's how I should have argued it out in your place,” I agreed.

”And--and June never----?”

”No. She never came, never made me realize her near presence, never seemed to influence me in favour of Opal--though Opal didn't give up till months had pa.s.sed. When she first came after writing to say she must see me, it was to beg me to visit her for _June's sake_. Afterward, when she saw she was making me uncomfortable, she stopped her persuasions. Since then--fairly often when Joyce Arnold was here--she has turned up at the cottage: sometimes just for a friendly chat like an ordinary human being (though I never feel she is one), sometimes to discuss that 'psychic play'--as she calls it--an idea of hers she wants me to work out for the stage.”

”Is it a good idea?” I wanted to know.

”Yes. Mysterious and dramatic at the same time. Yet I've always made excuses. I don't fancy collaborating with Miss Fawcett, though that may sound ungrateful.”

It didn't, to my ears, especially as Opal's object seemed transparent as the depths of her own crystal. Of course she was still in love with Robert, and had seized first one chance, then another, of getting into touch with him. I was rather sorry for her, in a vague, impersonal way; for to love Robert Lorillard and lose him would hurt. I could realize that, without the trouble and pain of being seriously in love with him myself.

”It's a good thing,” I thought, ”that Joyce Arnold's stopping with me at this time and not with Opal Fawcett! It would be as much as the girl's life is worth to be engaged to Robert in _that_ house!”