The Clifford Affair. Dorothy Fielding

one. She's out in the garden."

      Maud Gillingham slid an arm through Diana's, and the two sauntered out on to the lawn to where, under a cedar tree, Mrs. Clifford lay in a long garden-chair looking more like the sketch of a woman than actual flesh and blood. She lifted her strange aquamarine eyes as the two came up to her.

      "I have a message for you from your grandfather, Diana." She spoke as casually as though she had just met the dead man in the street. "From Sir William Haslar. It spelled itself out on my Ouija board. I would have sent for you at once, only some tiresome person came in about an appointment of Julian's...But this message—'Tell Day' it began. Evidently you are Day."

      Diana started. That was her grandfather's name for her, not heard for many a long year, and certainly not known to Alison Clifford.

      "...not to mind whatever it is that you are minding," Mrs. Clifford went on. "That it will all come right. That he could see the end, and it will all come right."

      She signalled to Newman, who was standing watching them, to come closer.

      "Come along, Maud!" Diana turned to the girl beside her, "let's take a stroll around the rosary. You know"—Diana began when they were out of earshot—"there are times when I can't bear Alison. Spiritualists can be so smug, and generally are!"

      "It's like talking to a woman from Mars sometimes," Maud agreed, "but she can be wonderful. With Mr. Newman, for instance. But I forgot—you don't like your uncle's secretary."

      "I'm sorry for him," Diana said rather reluctantly.

      Maud Gillingham nodded. "Naturally. Anybody would have to be sorry for a man who lost his memory in the war. But instead of pitying him, as we all do, Mrs. Clifford makes him feel that what he's lost is so tiny a thing in the immensity of our eternal life that it really isn't worth while fretting over."

      "Yet don't you think she'd fret if she lost her memory?" Diana checked herself. "Maud, I never can quite make up my mind about Alison. Is she posing, or is she quite sincere?"

      "Heavens, Di, if she weren't sincere she'd have to be an utter liar. Surely you don't think that of her?" Maud was aghast. She was an honest soul who knew no half-tones. You were white or you were black to Maud.

      "N—no. No, of course I don't think that." Diana spoke rather as though dropping a trap-door on something within herself that wanted to peep out. "No, of course not. Every one knows that Alison, however mistaken, has a beautiful mind. But that message from my grandfather..." There was a pause.

      "Did he call you Day?" Maud asked curiously.

      "He did. But..." There was another pause. "This message from him for me: Maud, doesn't it ever strike you that Alison always gets the messages from the other world that she wants to get? Hears the things she wants to hear?"

      Maud reflected a moment.

      "I think there's more than that in it, Di. Oh, much more! Look at this last Saturday afternoon. But I don't think you were in the room. Mrs. Orr was here, and was scoffing as usual in her laughing way at something I said about Mrs. Clifford's powers. But I stuck to it that she could 'see'—sometimes—with her hands. Mrs. Orr whipped out a letter from her bag, folded it, and held it folded on Mrs. Clifford's knee, and said, 'Read this, then, Alison darling.' And she did! Mrs. Clifford did! She pressed her hands hard down on the letter and read out a whole sentence. 'If you keep your end up, no one will suspect us.' She would have gone on, only Mrs. Orr put the letter back into her bag. It was from a friend on her honeymoon. Even she looked startled. And no wonder! If that wasn't white magic, what is?"

      Now Diana had been in the room; had heard and watched the whole strange little scene. But what had struck her most had been Julian Clifford's face as his wife began slowly—laboriously— like some one reading a distant signpost, to almost spell out the words. If Mazod Orr had looked startled, so had he. Diana thought that his hand had palpably twitched to snatch the envelope with its contents from under his wife's fingers. He and Mrs. Orr had drifted on into his study to look at some new prints which he had bought, and Diana saw again Mrs. Clifford's equable smile as she looked after them. Yet there had been a new element in her expression. Diana's perceptions were very quick. In Alison Clifford's eyes was a look almost of sarcasm. It was the smile with which skill might watch transparent make-believe through which it sees absolutely, but from which, for reasons of its own, it prefers not to tear the cloak away. It was not an unkind smile—Alison never looked unkind—but it had made Diana wonder. The two girls were back again by the cedar tree now. Mrs. Clifford was talking to Newman.

      "But even so, why not let me get into touch with your forgotten memories? They're not important, but still, why not have them? I might be able to lift the veil for you."

      Newman flicked the ash off his cigarette with an impatient gesture which had something almost of contempt in it. There was a certain haughty, hawk-like look about his whole face.

      "I'd rather not. Thank you immensely for caring, Mrs. Clifford. But I have a very definite feeling against having the veil lifted that way. Your powers are very wonderful, but something tells me, warns me, if you like, not to use them for this purpose."

      Diana gave him a long, long look. It amounted to a stare. "I should never be able to resist the chance if I were you!" panted Maud.

      "You mean if I were you," Newman said looking at her under his heavy, brooding lids—lids that lifted slowly. There was something watchful about his gaze always—not suspicious—just watchful.

      Dick Straight joined the group, and when they moved towards the house, sauntered after them with the secretary, of whom he asked a question or two about a couple of old Spanish works on the shelves. They were soon discussing Spanish bindings, and Straight found that his companion was indeed well up in the subject. Diana passed them again.

      "I'm off to see how Arnold is, though he hates me to fuss over him." She made her remark exclusively to Dick Straight.

      "Interesting girl, Miss Haslar," Dick said casually as she walked on.

      "Most girls are," was the equally casual reply. Newman's dark eyes glanced for the barest second at Straight's face; that face was not usually considered a tell-tale one, yet Dick felt certain that the man beside him was aware from it of the state of affairs between himself and Diana.

      Straight took an instant dislike to the man.

      "Dago blood of some sort," he told himself, as Newman left him with a civil excuse, and turned off into the hall.