He was properly surprised. "Yes, I did meet such a man."
"Then you went to the library and read for a long time?"
He sneered. "Did The Voices tell you that I was turned down everywhere on account of my mother's reputation as a medium?"
"No; but they said you would oppose the idea of our going abroad, and that you were under discipline."
"You're tired, Victor," interposed the mother. "Don't worry over me any more now. I'll get you some coffee."
While she was gone on this errand Mrs. Joyce leaned toward Victor and said: "I can understand a part of your feeling, because there was a time when I lived in the world of definite, commonplace things – but you must not oppose your mother's Voices. They are as real to her as anything in this universe. I've proved their reality again and again. As I say, they have advised me in my investments and always right. In a sense – in a very real sense – I owe a part of my wealth to your mother, and the little that she has permitted me to do in return for her aid is trifling. I want to do more. Please be just to your dear little mother, who is truly a marvelous creature and loves you beyond all other earthly things. She lives only for you. If it were not for you she would pass on to the spirit plane to-night."
Victor listened to her in a sullen meditation. The whole situation was becoming incredibly fantastic, vaporous as the texture of a dream.
Mrs. Joyce went on: "Come to my house to-night for dinner. Never mind the morrow till the morrow comes. Come and talk with some friends of mine – they may help you."
He spoke thickly: "I'm much obliged, Mrs. Joyce. I'm grateful for what you've done for us, but to take her money or yours now would be – would be dishonest. I can't let you feed us any longer – we've got to fight this out alone."
"What will you do with her Voices?" she asked.
"Forget 'em," he answered, curtly.
"They'll force you to remember them," she warningly retorted. "I assure you they hold your fate in their hands."
Mrs. Ollnee, returning, cut short the discussion, which was growing heated.
As he drank his coffee Victor recovered a part of his native courtesy. "I'm going to win out," he said, with kindling eyes. "It would have been a wonder if I had found a job the first day. I'm going to keep going till I wear out my shoes."
A knock at the door made his mother start.
"Another reporter!" she whispered. "They're pestering me still."
Victor rose with a spring. "I'll attend to this reporter business," he said, hotly.
"No," interposed Mrs. Joyce; "let me go, please!"
He submitted, and she went to meet the intruder. Her quiet, authoritative voice could be heard saying: "Mrs. Ollnee is not able to see any one. That cruel and false article of yesterday has completely upset her. – No, I am only her friend and nurse. I have nothing to say except that the article in the Star was false and malignant."
Thereupon she closed and locked the door and came back quite serious. "They've been coming almost every hour, determined to see your mother. I would have taken her away, only she persisted in saying she must remain here till you returned."
"Have you been here all day?" he asked, moved by the thought of her loyalty.
His mother answered. "Louise came about ten this morning – and except for an hour at lunch we've both been here waiting, listening."
This devotion on the part of a rich and busy woman was deeply revealing. The youth was being educated swiftly into new conceptions of human nature. His mother was neither beautiful nor wise nor witty. Why should she attract and hold a lady like Mrs. Joyce? He wondered if she had been quite honest with him. Would her interest be the same if The Voices had not enriched her?
She returned to her invitations. "Now put on your dinner-suit and come with us," she insisted. "My niece, Leo, will be there – surely you will respond to that lure?"
His mother laid her small hand upon his arm. "Let us go, Victor. I am in terror here."
"Why did you stay? Why didn't you go before?" he demanded.
"Because The Voices said 'Wait!' – and besides, I wanted to be here when you came."
He rose. "You go. I will come after dinner and bring you home."
Mrs. Joyce was quick on the trail of his intent. "You refuse to eat my bread! You are rigorous. Very well. Let it be so. Come, Lucy, let us go."
Mrs. Ollnee seemed to listen a moment, then rose. "You'll surely come after dinner, Victor?"
"Yes, I'll come about nine," he replied, in a tone that was hard and cold. And she went away deeply hurt.
Left alone, he walked about the "ghost-room" with bitterness deepening into fury. What were these invisible, intangible barriers which confined him? He stood beside the old brown table which he had hated and feared in his boyhood. What silliness it represented. The pile of slates, some of them still bearing messages in pencil or colored crayon, offered themselves to his hand. He took up one of these and read its oracular statement: "He will come to see the glory of the faith. His neck will bow. It is discipline. Do not worry. FATHER." Here was the source of his troubles!
He dashed the slate to the floor and ground it under his heel. Catching the table by the side and up-ending it, he wrenched its legs off as he would have wrung the neck of a vulture. He breathed upon it a blast of contempt and hate, and, gathering it up in fragments, was starting to throw it into the alley when the door burst open and his mother reappeared, white, breathless, appalled.
"Victor; what are you doing?" she called, with piercing intonation.
He was shaken by her tone, her manner, but he answered, "I'm going to throw this accursed thing into the alley."
She put herself before him with one hand pressed upon her bosom, her breath weak and fluttering.
"You – shall – not! You are killing me. Don't you see that is a part of me. Don't you know – Put it down instantly! My very life and soul are in it."
He dropped the broken thing in a disordered pile at her feet. Her anguish, which seemed both physical and mental, stunned him. As they stood thus confronting each other Mrs. Joyce returned. She seemed to comprehend the situation instantly, and, putting her arm about the little psychic's waist, gently said, "You'd better lie down, Lucy, you are hurt."
Mrs. Ollnee permitted herself to be led to the little couch silently sobbing.
It was growing dusky in the room, and the youth, though still rebellious, was profoundly affected by this action. His hot anger died away and a swift repentance softened him. "Don't cry, mother," he said, clumsily kneeling beside her. "I didn't think you cared so much about the old thing."
Mrs. Joyce broke forth in scorn: "What a crude young barbarian you are! That table is something more than a piece of wood to her. It is a sacred altar. It is the place where the quick and the dead meet. It is sentient with the touch of spirit hands – and you have desecrated it. You have laid violent hands upon your mother's innermost heart. You will destroy her if you keep on in this way."
At these words the youth for the first time caught a glimpse of the vital faith which lay behind and beneath these foolish and ridiculous practices. No matter what that worn table was to him, it stood for his mother's faith – that he now saw – and he was sorry.
"I can rebuild it again," he said. "It is not hopelessly smashed. I will repair it to-morrow."
The symbolism which could be read in his words seemed to comfort his mother and she grew quieter, but her face remained ghastly pale