CHAPTER XVII.

Lady Rossland's reception for the New Shoreham candidate on the evening preceding the nomination day was a thing of note.

For the space of ten hours, Britton had been out among his constituents with Lord Rossland, Ainsworth, and Trascott, who had come down from his London work to witness the honors bestowed upon his friend. At seven o'clock, Rex returned alone to Britton Hall, the curate and the lawyer having gone on with Rossland to his country-seat, where the function was to be held.

The strain of canvassing had been more wearisome than a day of Yukon mushing, but dinner and a bath refreshed him. Upstairs, he called his wife's maid.

"At what time has your mistress ordered the carriage?" he asked.

"Nine o'clock, sir,-if that will suit you." The maid spoke almost timidly, as if she recognized some gulf between husband and wife, and feared that their plans for the evening might conflict.

"That will do very well," Britton decided. "Tell her I will await her at nine."

He crossed to his own suite and entered the bedroom, where Bassing, his man, had laid out his clothes. He knew the room of old, and a glow of possession thrilled him. The magnificence of its appointing was a delight. The heavy furniture, the lofty fretted ceiling, the ponderous chandelier, and thick Oriental curtains, unaltered in setting for three generations, gave an impression of stability which had a far-reaching effect. His grandfather had slept, as he himself slept, in the high canopied bed with its massive carved corner posts, and ancestral pride buoyed up Britton to the heights of egotism.

He dressed slowly and carefully, with a due consciousness of the relation between appearance and personality, and descended the stairs at five minutes to nine. The carriage had not yet drawn up in the driveway, nor had Mercia come from her apartments. By the door stood Crandell, the footman who had served his uncle, and who regarded the advent of the young master with satisfaction.

For five minutes Rex waited, and the carriage wheels shrieked on the gravel as the driver wheeled his horses sharply in front of the great arched entrance. A silver-chimed clock pealed nine in the drawing-room, and the soft rustle of Mercia's garments sounded on the stairway.

Britton looked up involuntarily, his face flushing slightly. His wife's beauty was a revelation to which no man could deny homage; she carried herself with distinction enhanced by a peculiar, free rhythm of movement which is a heritage of the life in the open. Her individuality seemed a blending of youthful bloom with a certain mature, womanly power born of the true conception of existence.

And marring her sweet winsomeness, was a scarcely observable flaw, a cold reserve maintained, apparently, not of inward intention but by the outward pressure of circumstance. This unbidden attribute matched Britton's unemotional, respectful attitude, presenting, as it were, foil to foil in the guarding of a common neutrality.

"Let me hold your cloak," he said deferentially.

She suffered his help with a distant, though polite, acknowledgment, and Crandell opened the door. The horses pranced impatiently upon the white sand before the portico, and Mercia hurried out. Her husband followed quickly, handed her in, and they dashed away.

The drive to Rossland House was made practically in silence. Britton spoke once, remarking on the hot night and predicting rain.

Outside Lord Rossland's grand country-seat their equipage fell in line, stopped at the steps, and let them down. They found themselves traversing the length of the front hall, which opened on the splendid reception-rooms.

It was nearly twelve months since Britton had mingled with society of this class, that is, of his own county, and he experienced the feeling of an actor who plays an unfamiliar part. The sensation stamped his bearing and augmented that chill reserve which had never been present before he left England. He attempted to shake it off in the exchange of greetings with Lord and Lady Rossland and others. In this he succeeded to a certain degree, and when he had made the round of presentation as the coming member, the contact with his fellows wore away the shyness.

He was separated from his wife, and, flattered by Rossland's patronage and amused by Ainsworth's ironic comment on everything they saw, Britton's affability grew more marked.

Toward the supper-hour he found Mercia again in the rooms, in company with Lady Rossland.

"Here is the truant," cried her ladyship, laughing. "We searched everywhere for you, sir."

"No truant, my dear," put in Lord Rossland. "I have been heaping his responsibilities upon him."

"But here is a responsibility he has forgotten-his wife," objected Lady Rossland, in feigned reproach. "Reginald, take her in to supper. A score of men have begged the honor, but I have been obdurate for your sake!"

Britton bowed ostentatiously, catching her ladyship's bantering spirit, yet a shade of that cloudy reserve dampened his manner as he took his wife's arm. They passed on to the supper-rooms, with the Rosslands leading and his lordship's sister behind with Kinmair, editor and owner of _The Daily Challenge_, one of the most powerful organs in London. Kinmair, next to Lord Rossland, was Britton's staunchest supporter.

They made a merry group at the profusely decorated tables, and because the evening grew so warm in spite of wide open doors and swinging casements, the quarter-hour's refreshment proved grateful.

"Now," announced her ladyship, when they emerged from the roses and palms, "you are thrown upon your own resources. There are the galleries, the gardens, billiards, and cigars! You may play bridge up-stairs, dance in the drawing-rooms, row upon the river, or interview the spirit reader in the conservatory."

Britton raised his eyebrows.

"Ah!" he smiled, "-a new departure?"

"It is all the rage in London now," explained Lord Rossland's sister, Dora. "Everyone has a theosophist at their evening functions to give a seance or read futures."

Rex laughed a little, thinking of the great, tight-locked Yukon where the issues of life and death prohibited any such toys or trifling.

"I-I am afraid I am somewhat behind the times," he ventured, looking at Mercia for a brief instant.

"Then you shall be initiated into the mysteries at once," cried Lady Rossland, "and I must conduct you to Madame Spiritualist. A politician should know his future. Should he not, Mrs. Britton?"

"If I were a politician, I should hardly dare to gaze on it," Mercia smiled. "Disappointment might be lying somewhere in wait."

"Men have no such fears," Lord Rossland blustered in his kindly way. "If they had, they would never reach the top, and Britton has, I believe, a brilliant career waiting for him. But, my dear, if you are going to act as his guide, I shall take Mrs. Britton through the galleries. She wished to see the paintings."

"Thank you, yes," said Mercia. "I have heard of your famous pictures, and I adore the art."

"She has the great gift, Rossland," observed Rex, turning aside with her ladyship, "and she may tell you things even about your own canvases."

Kinmair and Lord Rossland's sister went into the garden among the fountains, while Lady Rossland took her recruit to the conservatory. On the way they passed the billiard-rooms and saw Ainsworth engaged in his customary game with the redoubtable Trascott. Her ladyship smiled at their earnest devotion to the stroke.

"Your friends are fine men," she remarked appreciatively. "I doubt if there are in England two grander representatives of their respective professions."

"I believe you," agreed Britton, with a sudden gravity approaching severity, "but here we are."

They had reached the conservatory, and Lady Rossland's nephew came out with a slip of paper in his hand. Her ladyship bad commissioned him to act as the theosophist's assistant and play the part of scout. He was a slim, light-haired youth, and his aunt had insisted at his christening that he should be named Guy.

"Hello," said Guy, "your palmist has given me a list of guests for whom she wants to gaze. Here it is! You're first on the paper, Britton. See? Now go along and get through while I bring your successor."

He pushed Rex inside and closed the door, taking his aunt away with him.

"Now was that name on the list coincidence or design?" Britton asked himself before he came to the end of the conservatory's corridor.

One corner of the cool place had been curtained off with blue silk hangings as a retreat for the spiritualist. Her tiny tent was closed and lighted from within by a red-globed lamp which gave a subdued effect. The pavilion was arranged thus to give the palmist the advantage of illumination while her subject stood outside in partial darkness.

Rex felt awkward and ill at ease at the weighty sense of desolation which filled the long, empty conservatory. His footsteps paused uncertainly, but the waiting priestess heard them.

"Come closer please," she said in a muffled tone that sounded disguised.

Britton obeyed the summons with an increasing sensation of awkwardness for which he was at a loss to account. He stood so near the soft curtains that they brushed his body without weight, like fine cobwebs, and he could perceive a small horizontal slit in the pavilion's side which was not noticeable before. Set back of it, so as to block the vision and prevent an inspection of the interior, was a Japanese screen in weird colors.

His mind was filled with an irritation aroused by the feminine whim that had sent him to this place. The whole environment jarred on him as possessing an illusion disproportionate to his mental vision.

"Well?" he demanded in a voice which set the responsibility for his coming on the head of the person within the gaudy pavilion.

There was a noise inside that seemed like a smothered exclamation of surprise together with a vague rustle of woman's garments, and the same muffled tone as before became audible, though it seemed shaken and difficult to control.

"Extend your palms through the opening," was the subdued order of the spirit reader.

Rex hesitated. The incongruity of this dallying imbued a sort of rankling disgust for its exponent and an ashamed opinion of himself.

"You are a doubter?" the unseen spiritualist asked. Her inflection was one of sarcasm.

Britton laughed scornfully. "It is hardly worth while," he replied.

"But still you belong to the sceptic class," the voice insisted. "Please extend your hands. I promise you that you will be surprised at my methods."

Rex stirred his feet, the motion making an inordinately loud noise in the deserted place. He listened when the echoes ceased, but young Guy Rossland had not returned. He was doubtless having some trouble in finding Britten's successor.

"I promise to surprise you," repeated the palmist.

"Surprise!-yes," Rex assented. "Convincing is a different matter. You know I have not followed the fad."

"Nevertheless, I think conviction is hard upon you," came the declaration from the tent. "Will you give me a trial?" There was a defiant note in the question.

"That is but fair, now you speak of it," said Britton, mockingly. He thrust his arms through the slit with a total lack of ceremony.

A pair of soft, electric palms took his, and the current of the hidden woman's presence flowed through every vein in his body.

Rex stood immovable as if a secret shock had fixed his feet. He cried out with an inarticulate exclamation because he knew the touch, but his paralyzed vocal organs would frame no speech. A short, dramatic silence succeeded his outcry. The drone of a clumsy, waking fly beat distinctly on the panes; the creak of oar-locks on the river rose insistently through the open conservatory windows; beneath the sills the gentle plashing of the fountain water changed to a gurgle of wicked glee.

In the silence, Britton was beginning to find his self-possession, when the sorceress spoke, her voice now undisguised.

"It's centuries and ages since we were so close, Rex," she said-and the magnetic hands were glued to his in a melting, appealing touch. "Isn't it ages and ages?" she continued passionately.

Britten's answer was a cry like that of a trapped bear. He wrenched his hands loose, swept away the intervening curtains, as he once swept the silken portieres from an old-time boudoir, and stood face to face with the siren it had held. She had taken off her veiled turban, and her eyes shone like stars, with a former potent lure.