“Yet the crystal warned you!” she returned, with apparent but not real inconsequence.

“I want you to tell me,” I said eagerly, and with no further pretence. “You must have known something then, when you made me look in the crystal. What did you know — and how?”

She sat a moment in thought, stately, half-languid, mysterious.

“First,” she said, “let me hear all that has happened. Then I will tell you.”

“Is Sullivan about?” I asked. I felt that if I was to speak I must not be interrupted by that good-natured worldling.

“Sullivan,” she said a little scornfully, with gentle contempt, “is learning French billiards. You are perfectly safe.”