Meanwhile, Helene Vauquier, it must be held, burnt carefully Adele Taces letter.  She was left in the Villa Rose with the charwoman to keep her company.  The charwoman bore testimony that Helene Vauquier certainly did burn a letter in the kitchen-stove, and that after she had burned it she sat for a long time rocking herself in a chair, with a smile of great pleasure upon her face, and now and then moistening her lips with her tongue.  But Helene Vauquier kept her mouth sealed.

CHAPTER XVII

THE AFTERNOON OF TUESDAY

Mme. Dauvray and Celia found Adele Rossignol, to give Adele Tace the name which she assumed, waiting for them impatiently in the garden of an hotel at Annecy, on the Promenade du Paquier.  She was a tall, lithe woman, and she was dressed, by the purse and wish of Helene Vauquier, in a robe and a long coat of sapphire velvet, which toned down the coarseness of her good looks and lent something of elegance to her figure.

“So it is mademoiselle,” Adele began, with a smile of raillery, “who is so remarkably clever.”

“Clever?” answered Celia, looking straight at Adele, as though through her she saw mysteries beyond.  She took up her part at once.  Since for the last time it had got to be played, there must be no fault in the playing.  For her own sake, for the sake of Mme. Dauvray’s happiness, she must carry it off to-night with success.  The suspicions of Adele Rossignol must obtain no verification.  She spoke in a quiet and most serious voice.  “Under spirit-control no one is clever.  One does the bidding of the spirit which controls.”

“Perfectly,” said Adele in a malicious tone.  “I only hope you will see to it, mademoiselle, that some amusing spirits control you this evening and appear before us.”

“I am only the living gate by which the spirit forms pass from the realm of mind into the world of matter,” Celia replied.

“Quite so,” said Adele comfortably.  “Now let us be sensible and dine.  We can amuse ourselves with mademoiselle’s rigmaroles afterwards.”

Mme. Dauvray was indignant.  Celia, for her part, felt humiliated and small.  They sat down to their dinner in the garden, but the rain began to fall and drove them indoors.  There were a few people dining at the same hour, but none near enough to overhear them.  Alike in the garden and the dining-room, Adele Tace kept up the same note of ridicule and disbelief.  She had been carefully tutored for her work.  She was able to cite the stock cases of exposure—­“les freres Davenport,” as she called them, Eusapia Palladino and Dr. Slade.  She knew the precautions which had been taken to prevent trickery and where those precautions had failed.  Her whole conversation was carefully planned to one end, and to one end alone.  She wished to produce in the minds of her companions so complete an impression of her scepticism that it would seem the most natural thing in the world to both of them that she should insist upon subjecting Celia to the severest tests.  The rain ceased, and they took their coffee on the terrace of the hotel.  Mme. Dauvray had been really pained by the conversation of Adele Tace.  She had all the missionary zeal of a fanatic.