was he aware--the odour of iris and her eyes.

He knew that he was in an overwrought mood. For some weeks this mood had
been descending upon his spirit, like a pall. He had avoided music,
pictures, the opera--which he never regarded as an art; even his
favourite poets he could not read. Nor did he degustate, as was his
daily wont, the supreme prose of the French masters. The pleasures of
robust stomachs, gourmandizing and drinking, were denied him by nature.
He could not sip a glass of wine, and for meat he entertained distaste.
His physique proved him to be of the neurotic temperament--he was very
tall, very slim, of an exceeding elegance, in dress a finical dandy;
while his trim pointed blue-black beard and dark, foreign eyes were the
cause of his being mistaken often for a Frenchman or a Spaniard--which
illusion was not dissipated when he chose to speak their several
tongues.

Involuntarily, and to the ire of his neighbours, he arose and indolently
made his way down the side aisle. When he reached the baize swinging
doors, he saw the woman approaching him. As if she had been an
acquaintance of years, she saluted him carelessly, and, accompanied by
the scandalized looks of many in the congregation, the pair left the
church, though not before the preacher had sonorously quoted from the
Psalm, _Domine ne in Furore_, "For my loins are filled with illusions;
and there is no health in my flesh."

II

THE SEANCE

Je cherche des parfums nouveaux, des fleurs plus larges, des
plaisirs ineprouves.--FLAUBERT.

"It may be all a magnificent illusion, but--" he began.

"Everything is an illusion in this life, though seldom magnificent," she
answered. They slowly walked up the avenue. The night was tepid; motor
cars, looking like magnified beetles, with bulging eyes of fire, went
swiftly by. The pavements were almost deserted when they reached the
park. He felt as if hypnotized, and once, rather meanly, was glad that
no one saw him in company of his dowdy companion.

"I wonder if you realize that we do not know each other's name," he
said.

"Oh, yes. You are Mr. Baldur. My name is Mrs. Lilith Whistler."

"Mrs. Whistler. Not the medium?"

"The medium--as you call it. In reality I am only a woman, happy, or
unhappy, in the possession of super-normal powers."

"Not supernatural, then?" he interposed. He was a sceptic who called
himself agnostic. The mystery of earth and heaven might be interpreted,
but alway