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Vance, laughing, the while noting that Carrie's appearance had modified somewhat. "The address, too," she added to herself. "They must be hard up." Still she liked Carrie well enough to take her in tow. "Come with me in here a minute," she exclaimed, turning into a store. When Carrie returned home, there was Hurstwood, reading as usual. He seemed to take his condition with the utmost nonchalance.
By heaven, my heart went out to him. It was magnificent." The thin, strong hand of Elizabeth closed on the arm of Vance. "That was a Colby who did that!" she whispered. "The sheriff gritted his teeth," went on Gainor, "and tore out his gun. All this pause had been such a space as is needed for an eyelash to flicker twice. Out shot the sheriff's Colt.
As for years, she might have been almost any age, judging from her wizened little face, but her height seemed to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of twelve. "Who are you?" asked Jerry. The girl looked about her as if seeking a way of escape. Then she seemed to give in with a little shiver of despair. "I'm Mary Vance," she said. "Where'd you come from?" pursued Jerry.
That woman is my enemy, Clara," said Mrs. Waldeaux quietly. "I will make no terms with her." Miss Vance sighed and turned to the stage, but Frances still watched the opposite box. It seemed as if the passion within her had cleared her eyes. They never had seen George as they now saw him. Was that her son? Was it that little priggish, insignificant fellow that she had made a god of?
He insists that tonight you hold a seance in his house, and that you materialize the spirit of his dead sister. So that he can see his sister, and talk with his sister. Vance says you can do that. Can you?" From Vera's face the look of girlishness, of happy anticipation, had already disappeared. "It is my business to do that," the girl answered.
It seemed altogether beyond their power to do anything, and yet there was not a boy who would not have given his dearest possession, were it a white rat or a stamp collection, if by parting with it he could have rendered some assistance to his ill-fated comrade. "There's only half an hour before tea," said Vance, looking up at the clock; "if anything can be done, we must do it at once."
"A very hard blow, eh," said Vance, "if he were robbed of the Colby illusion and had Black Jack put in its place as a cold fact? But of course we'll never tell him." Her color was never high. Now it became gray. Only her eyes remained burning, vivid, young, blazing out through the mask of age.
With evident pride in her appearance, Vance introduced the two men to his wife, and then sent her and Mannie from the room the latter with orders to dismiss the visitors in the front parlor and to admit no others. At the door Mrs. Vance turned to Vera and nodded mysteriously. "If that party calls," she said with significance, "I'll put him in the front parlor."
The girl's face assumed the hue of death, a thrilling suspicion flashed through her mind. "You can save me, Renie, but if you betray my real identity I am doomed!" "Are you Spencer Vance?" "Yes." "Heavens! what does this mean?" "It is no time for explanations now; tell me, is your father dead" "He shows signs of life." "Then you can save my life." "You shall not die!"
Alma was left with Beaton near the piano, and he began to talk about the Dryfooses as he sat down on the piano-stool. He said he had been giving Miss Dryfoos a lesson on the banjo; he had borrowed the banjo of Miss Vance. Then he struck the chord he had been trying to teach Christine, and played over the air he had sung. "How do you like that?" he asked, whirling round.
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