The conversazione was, in its way, a brilliant gathering. There were present scientists, men of letters, artists, with a very fair sprinkling of society people, always anxious to absorb any new sensation. One saw there amongst the white-haired men, passing backwards and forwards, or talking together in little knots, professors whose names were famous throughout Europe.

A very great man indeed brought Saton up to Pauline with a little word of explanation.

“I am sure,” he said to her—she was one of his oldest friends—“that you will be glad to meet the gentleman whose brilliant paper has interested us all so much. This is Lady Marrabel, Saton, whose father was professor at Oxford before your day.”

The great man passed on. Pauline’s first impulse had been to hold out her hand, but she had immediately withdrawn it. Saton contented himself with a grave bow.

“I am afraid, Lady Marrabel,” he said, “that you are prejudiced against me.”

“I think not,” she answered. “Naturally, seeing you so suddenly brought into my mind the terrible occurrence of only a few days ago.”

“An occurrence,” he declared, “which no one could regret so greatly as myself. But apart from that, Lady Marrabel, I am afraid that you are not prepared to do me justice. You look at me through Rochester’s eyes, and I am quite sure that all his days Rochester will believe that I am more or less of a charlatan.”

“Your paper was very wonderful, Mr. Saton,” she said slowly. “I am convinced that Mr. Rochester would have admitted that himself if he had been here.”

“He might,” Saton said. “He might have admitted that much, with a supercilious smile and a little shrug of the shoulders. Rochester is a clever man, I believe, but he is absolutely insular. There is a belt of prejudice around him, to the hardening of which centuries have come and gone. You are not, you cannot be like that,” he continued with conviction. “There is truth in these things. I am not an ignorant mountebank, posing as a Messiah of science. Look at the men and women who are here to-night. They know a little. They understand a little. They are only eager to see a little further through the shadows. I do not ask you to become a convert. I ask you only to believe that I speak of the things in which I have faith.”

“I am quite sure that you do,” she answered, with a marked access of cordiality in her tone. “Believe me, it was not from any distrust of that sort that I perhaps looked strangely at you when you came up. You must remember that it is a very short time since our last meeting. One does not often come face to face with a tragedy like that.”

“You are right,” he answered. “It was awful. Yet you saw how they drove me on. I spoke what I felt and knew. It is not often that those things come to one, but that there was death in the room that night I knew as surely as I am sitting with you here now. They goaded me on to speak of it. I could not help it.”

“It was very terrible and very wonderful,” she said, looking at him with troubled eyes. “They say that Lady Mary is still suffering from the shock.”

“It might have happened at any moment,” he reminded her. “The man had heart disease. He had had his warning. He knew very well that the end might come at any moment.”

“That is true, I suppose,” she admitted. “The medical examination seemed to account easily enough for his death. Yet there was something uncanny about it.”

“The party broke up the next day, I suppose,” he continued. “I have been down in the country, but I have heard nothing.”

“We left before the funeral, of course,” she answered.

“Fortunately for me,” he remarked, “I had important things to think of. I had to prepare this paper. The invitation to read it came quite unexpectedly. I have been in London for so short a time, indeed, that I scarcely expected the honor of being asked to take any share in a meeting so important as this.”

“I do not see why you should be surprised,” she said.

“You certainly seem to have gone as far in the study of occultism as any of those others.”

He looked at her thoughtfully.

“You yourself should read a little about these things,” he said—“read a little and think a little. You would find very much to interest you.”

“I am sure of it,” she answered, almost humbly. “Will you come and see me one day, and talk about it? I live at Number 17, Cadogan Street.”

“I will come with pleasure,” he answered, rising. “Will you forgive me if I leave you now? There is a man just leaving with whom I must speak.”

He passed away, and left the room with a little thrill of satisfaction. He had contrived to impress the one woman whom he was anxious to impress! Children like little Lois Champneyes and those others, were easy. This woman he knew at once was something different. Besides, she was a friend of Rochester’s, and that meant something to him.

He walked along Regent Street to the end, and crossing the road, entered a large cafÉ. Here he sat before one of the marble-topped tables, and ordered some coffee. In a few minutes he was joined by another man, who handed his coat and hat to the waiter, and sat down with the air of one who was expected. Saton nodded, a little curtly.

“Will you take anything?” he asked.

“A bottle of beer and a cigar,” the newcomer ordered. “A shilling cigar, I think, to-night. It will run to it.”

“Anything special?” Saton asked.

“Things in general are about the same as usual,” his companion answered. “They did a little better in Oxford Street and Regent Street, but Violet had a dull day in Bond Street. I have closed up the Egyptian place in the Arcade—‘Ayesha’ we called it. The police are always suspicious of a woman’s name, and I had a hint from a detective I know.”

Saton nodded.

“You have something else to tell me, haven’t you?” he asked.

“Yes!” the other answered. “We had a very important client in Bond Street this afternoon, one of those whose names you gave me.”

Saton leaned across the table.

“Who was it?” he asked.

“Lady Mary Rochester of Beauleys,” the other answered—“got a town house, and a big country place down in Mechestershire.”

Something flashed for a moment in Saton’s eyes, but he said nothing. His companion commenced to draw leisurely a sheet of paper from his breast coat pocket. He was fair and middle-aged, respectably dressed, and with the air of a prosperous city merchant. His eyes were a little small, and his cheeks inclined to be fat, or he would have been reasonably good-looking.

“Lady Mary called without giving her name,” he continued, “but we knew her, of course, by our picture gallery. She called professedly to amuse herself. She was told the usual sorts of things, with a few additions thrown in from our knowledge of her. She seemed very much impressed, and in the end she came to a specific inquiry.”

“Go on,” said Saton.

“The specific inquiry was briefly this,” the man continued. “She gave herself away the moment she opened her mouth. She behaved, in fact, like a farmer’s daughter asking questions of a gipsy girl. She showed us the photograph of a man, whom we also recognised, and wanted to know the usual sort of rubbish—whether he was really fond of her, whether he would be true to her if she married him.”

“Married him?” Saton repeated.

“She posed as a widow,” the other man reminded him.

“What was the reply?”

“Violet was clever,” the man remarked, with a slow smile. “She saw at once that this was a case where something might be done. She asked for three days, and for a letter from the man. She said that it was a case in which a sight of his handwriting, and a close study of it, would help them to give an absolutely truthful answer.”

“She agreed?” Saton asked.

The other nodded, and produced a letter from his pocket.

“She handed one over at once,” he said. “It isn’t particularly compromising, perhaps, but it’s full of the usual sort of rot. She’s coming for it on Tuesday.”

Saton smiled as he thrust it into his pocketbook.

“I will put this into Dorrington’s hands at once,” he said. “This has been very well managed, Huntley. I will have a liqueur, and you shall have some more beer.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Mr. Huntley assented cheerfully. “It’s thirsty weather.”

They summoned a waiter, and Saton lit a cigarette.

“You’ve been amongst the big pots to-night,” Huntley remarked, looking at him.

Saton nodded.

“I have been keeping our end up,” he said, “in the legitimate branch of our profession. You needn’t grin like that,” he added, a little irritably. “There is a legitimate side, and a very wonderful side, only a brain like yours is not capable of assimilating it. You should have heard my paper to-night upon self-directed mesmeric waves.”

The man shook his head, and laughed complacently.

“It’s not in my way,” he answered. “Our business is good enough as it is.”

“You are a fool,” Saton said, a little contemptuously. “You can’t see that but for the legitimate side there would be no business at all. Unless there was a glimmer of truth at the bottom of the well, unless there existed somewhere a prototype, Madame Helga, and Omega, and Naomi might sit in their empty temples from morning till night. People know, or are beginning to know, that there are forces abroad beyond the control of the ordinary commonplace mortal. They are willing to take it for granted that those who declare themselves able to do so, are able to govern them.”

He broke off a little abruptly. Huntley’s unsympathetic face, with the big cigar in the corner of his mouth, choked the flow of his words.

“Never mind,” he said. “This isn’t interesting to you, of course. As you say, the business side is the more important. I will see you at the hotel to-morrow night. Considering where I have been this evening, it is scarcely wise for us to be seen together.”

Huntley took the hint, finished his drink, and departed. Saton sat for a few more minutes alone. Then he too went out into the street, and walked slowly homewards. He let himself into the house in Regent’s Park with his latchkey, and went thoughtfully upstairs. The room was still brilliantly illuminated, and the woman who was sitting over the fire, turned round to greet him.

“Well?” she asked.

Saton divested himself of his hat and coat. Madame’s black eyes were still fixed upon him. He came slowly across towards her.

“Well?” she repeated.

“You were there,” he reminded her. “I saw you sitting almost in the front row. What did you think of it?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“What does it matter what I think of it? Tell me about the others.”

“My paper was pronounced everywhere to be a great success,” he declared. “Many of the cleverest men in London were there. They listened to every syllable.”

Madame nodded.

“Why trouble to teach them?” she asked, a little scornfully. “What of Huntley? Have you seen him? How have they done to-day?”

“It goes well,” he answered. “It always goes well.”

She moved her head slowly.

“Yet to-night you are not thinking of it,” she said. “For many nights you have not counted your earnings. You are thinking of other things,” she declared harshly. “Don’t look away from me. Look into my eyes.”

“It is true,” he answered. “To-night I have been with clever men. I have measured my wits against theirs. I have pushed into their consciousness things which they were unwilling to believe. I have made them believe. There were many people there who felt, I believe, for the first time, that they were ignorant.”

The woman looked at him scornfully. There was no softening in her face, and yet she had taken his hand in hers and held it.

“What do we gain by that?” she asked harshly. “What we want is gold, gold all the time. You ought to know that, you, who have been so near to starvation. Are you a fool that you don’t realize it?”

“I am not a fool,” Saton answered calmly, “but there is another side to the whole matter. A meeting such as to-night’s gives an immense fillip on the part of society to what they are pleased to call the supernatural. It is only the fear of ridicule which keeps half the people in the world from flooding our branches, every one of them eager to have their fortunes told. A night like to-night is a great help. Clever men, men who are believed in, have accepted the principle that there are laws which govern the future so surely as the past in its turn has been governed. One needs only to apprehend those laws, to reduce them to intelligible formulÆ. It is an exact study, an exact science. This is the doctrine which I have preached. When people once believe it, what is to keep them from coming in their thousands to those who know more than they do?”

The woman shook her head derisively.

“No need to wait for those days,” she answered. “The world is packed full of fools now. No need to wrestle with nature, to wear oneself inside out to give them truth. Give them any rubbish. Give them what they seem to want. It is enough so long as they bring the gold. How much was taken to-day altogether?”

Saton passed on to her the papers which the man Huntley had given him in the cafÉ.

“There is the account,” he said. “You see it grows larger every day.”

“What becomes of the money?” she asked.

“It is paid into the bank, and the banker’s receipt comes to me each morning. There is no chance for fraud. I must make some more investments soon. Our balance grows and grows.”

The woman’s eyes glittered.

“Bring me some money to-morrow,” she begged, grasping his other hand. “I like to have it here in my hands. Money and you, Bertrand, my son—they are all I care for. Banks and investments are well enough. I like money. Kiss me, Bertrand.”

He laughed tolerantly, and kissed her cheek.

“My dear Rachael,” he said, “you have already bagsful of gold about the place.”

“They are safe,” she assured him, “absolutely safe. They never leave my person. I feel them as I sit. I sleep with them at night. I am going to bed now. Bertrand!”

“Well?” he asked.

She pointed to him with long forefinger, a forefinger aflame with jewels.

“Look! We play with no fortune-telling here. What is there in your face? What is there in your life you are not telling me of? Is it a woman?”

“There are many women in my life,” he answered. “You know that.”

“I do,” she answered. “Poor fools! Play with them all you will, but remember—the one whom you choose must have gold!”

He nodded.

“I am not likely to forget,” he said.

She left the room with a farewell caress. There was something almost tigress-like about the way in which her arms wound themselves around him—some gleam of the terrified victim in his eyes, as he felt her touch. Then she left the room. Saton sank back into an easy-chair, and gazed steadfastly into the fire through half-closed eyes.