Cecilia Part 15

"I have never examined the matter, my dear sir."

"It seems to me," said Monsieur Leroy, with airy superiority, "that it is rather rash to attribute to Satan everything which you will not take the trouble to examine."

"Hush, Doudou!" cried the Princess. "You are very rude!"

"Not at all, not at all, your Highness!" protested Don Nicola, rising.

"I should be very much surprised if Monsieur Leroy expressed himself differently."

Monsieur Leroy had no retort ready, and tried to smile.

"It will give me the greatest pleasure to be your guide to the new excavations in the Forum," added the priest, as he took his leave.

The Princess and Monsieur Leroy were left alone.

"Shall we?" he asked after a moment's silence, and waited anxiously for the answer.

"I am afraid They will not come to-night, Doudou," said the Princess.

"You have excited yourself in argument. You know that always has a bad effect."

"That man irritates me," answered Monsieur Leroy, peevishly. "Why do you receive him?"

He spoke in the tone of a spoilt child--a spoilt child of forty, or thereabouts.

"I thought you liked him," replied the Princess, very meekly. "I will give orders that he is not to be received. We will not go to the Forum with him."

"No, no! How you exaggerate! You always think that I mean a great deal more than I say. I only said that he irritated me."

"Why should you be irritated for nothing? You know it is bad for you."

She looked at him with an air of concern, and there was a gentleness in her eyes which few had ever seen in them.

"It does not matter," answered Monsieur Leroy, crossly.

He had risen, and he brought a very small and light mahogany table from a corner. It was one of those which used to be made during the second Empire in sets of six and of successive sizes, so that each fitted each under the next larger one. He moved awkwardly and yet without noise; there was something very womanish in his figure and gait.

He set the little table before the Princess, very close to her, lit a single candle, which he placed on the floor behind an arm-chair, and turned out the electric light. Then he sat down on the opposite side of the table and spread out his hands upon it, side by side, the right thumb resting on the left. The Princess did the same. They glanced at each other once or twice, hardly distinguis.h.i.+ng each other's features in the gloom. Then they looked steadily down upon the table, and neither stirred for a long time.

"I am sure They will not come," said the Princess at last, in a very low voice.

"Hus.h.!.+"

Silence again, for a quarter of an hour. Somewhere in the room a small clock, or a watch, ticked quickly, with a little rhythmical, insisting accent on the fourth beat.

"It moved, then!" whispered the Princess, excitedly.

"Yes. Hus.h.!.+"

The little table certainly moved, with a queerly soft rocking motion, as if its feet only just touched the carpet and supported no weight. The Princess's hands felt as if they were floating over tiny rippling waves, and between her shoulders came the almost stinging thrill she loved. She wished that the room were quite dark now, in order that she might feel more. There were tiny beads of perspiration on Monsieur Leroy's forehead, and his hands were moist. The candle behind the arm-chair flickered.

"Are You there?" asked Monsieur Leroy, in a voice unlike his own.

There was no answer. The table moved more uneasily.

"Rap once for 'yes,' twice for 'no,'" said Monsieur Leroy. "Is this the first time you have come to us?"

One rap answered the question, sharp and clear, as if the b.u.t.t of a pencil had struck the table underneath it and near the middle.

"Are you the spirit of a man?"

Two raps very distinct.

"Then you are a woman. Tell us----"

Several raps came in quick succession, in pairs, as if to repeat the negative energetically. Monsieur Leroy seemed to hesitate what question to ask.

"Perhaps it is a child," suggested the Princess, in a tremulous tone.

A sharp rap. Yes, it was a child. Was it a little girl? Yes. Had it been dead long? Yes. More than ten years? Yes. More than twenty? Yes. Fifty?

No. Forty? Yes.

Monsieur Leroy began to count, pausing after each number.

"Forty-one--forty-two--forty-three--forty-four----"

The sharp rap again. The Princess drew a quick breath.

"How old was it when it died?" she managed to ask.

Monsieur Leroy began to count again, beginning with one. At the word seven, the rap came. The Princess started violently, almost upsetting the table against her companion.

"Adelaide!" She cried in a broken voice.

One rap.

"Oh, my darling, my darling!"

The old woman bent down over the table, and her outspread hands tried frantically to take up the flat surface, and she kissed the polished wood pa.s.sionately, again and again, not knowing what she did, nor hearing her own incoherent words of mixed joy and agony.

"My child! My little thing--my sweet--speak to me----"

Her whole being was convulsed. Little storms of rappings seemed to answer her. The perspiration trickled down Monsieur Leroy's temples. He seemed to be making an effort altogether beyond his natural strength.

"Speak to me--call me by the little name!" sobbed the Princess, and her tears wet her hands and the table.

Monsieur Leroy began to repeat the alphabet. From time to time a rap stopped him at a letter, and then he began over again. In this way the rapping spelt out the word "Mamette."

"She says 'Mamette,'" said Monsieur Leroy, in a puzzled tone. "Does that mean anything?"

But the Princess burst into pa.s.sionate weeping. It was the name she had asked for, the child's own pet name for her, its mother; it was the last word the poor little dying lips had tried to form. Never since that moment had the heart-broken woman spoken it, never since the fourth year before Monsieur Leroy had been born.