's no
telling what he'll do."

CHAPTER XIV

Before the end of summer Lilla returned to the house on lower Fifth
Avenue.

In the hall paved with black and white tiles, the chasteness of the
ivory-colored wainscot set off two stately consoles, on which lamps
with cylindrical shades of painted parchment were reflected in antique
mirrors. The drawing-room furniture, from the eighteenth century,
displayed its discreet elegance against the sage green walls and the
formal folds of the mulberry-colored curtains; while over the chimney
piece, which was ornamented with three vases of the Renaissance in
silver gilt, a painting by Bronzino focused the gaze upon a triumph of
romance over formality. This painting, in this room, was like a
gesture of Aunt Althea's real self.

"How well she kept her secret," Lilla thought "She was rather heroic,
it seems."

And she felt as surprised a sadness as though she were the first who
had not quite appreciated the departed.

"The departed!"

The prophecy of Madame Zanidov--"that incredible balderdash!"--even
woke her in the night.

She discovered the date of Lawrence's birth, then went to a woman with
birdlike eyes, who was seated behind a table on which stood some little
Hindu idols and a vase of gilded lotus buds. The astrologer, when she
had made some marks on a sheet of paper, and had added up some figures,
confessed that "these next few months were going to be a critical time
for him." "You see, here are Saturn and Uranus----"

Emerging from the sanctum, Lilla felt the pavement move beneath her
feet.

Presently she sought out the teachers of New Thought, whose faces were
as serene as though they had found a talisman by which death itself
might be vanquished. They calmed her with benignant smiles, then
informed her that fear was as potent in bringing about disaster as
optimism was in preventing it. In those consultation rooms, where the
walls were dotted--rather unnecessarily, it seemed to Lilla--with
mottoes exhorting her to love, they gave her the recipe in gentle
voices that were nearly lyrical. But gradually she got the idea that
they were speaking to her in a foreign language. Drowsiness assailed
her, as though a malignant power, determined that she should not gain
this peace, had cast over her a spell of mental lethargy.

Nevertheless, she persisted. In the bookshops the customers turned to
regard this tall beauty clad in black, who, with a mournful eager