of Mme. de Montespan should be
called up, Helene Vauquier says: 'She was never gratified. Always she
hoped. Always Mlle. Celie tantalised her with the hope. She would not
spoil her fine affairs by making these treats too common.' Thus she
attributes your reluctance to multiply your experiments to a desire to
make the most profit possible out of your wares, like a good business
woman."

"It is not true, monsieur," cried Celia earnestly. "I tried to stop the
seances because now for the first time I recognised that I had been
playing with a dangerous thing. It was a revelation to me. I did not
know what to do. Mme. Dauvray would promise me everything, give me
everything, if only I would consent when I refused. I was terribly
frightened of what would happen. I did not want power over people. I
knew it was not good for her that she should suffer so much excitement.
No, I did not know what to do. And so we all moved to Aix."

And there she met Harry Wethermill on the second day after her arrival,
and proceeded straightway for the first time to fall in love. To Celia
it seemed that at last that had happened for which she had so longed.
She began really to live as she understood life at this time. The day,
until she met Harry Wethermill, was one flash of joyous expectation;
the hours when they were together a time of contentment which thrilled
with some chance meeting of the hands into an exquisite happiness. Mme.
Dauvray understood quickly what was the matter, and laughed at her
affectionately.

"Celie, my dear," she said, "your friend, M. Wethermill--'Arry, is it
not? See, I pronounce your tongue--will not be as comfortable as the
nice, fat, bourgeois gentleman I meant to find for you. But, since you
are young, naturally you want storms. And there will be storms, Celie,"
she concluded, with a laugh.

Celia blushed.

"I suppose there will," she said regretfully. There were, indeed,
moments when she was frightened of Harry Wethermill, but frightened
with a delicious thrill of knowledge that he was only stern because he
cared so much.

But in a day or two there began to intrude upon her happiness a
stinging dissatisfaction with her past life. At times she fell into
melancholy, comparing her career with that of the man who loved her. At
times she came near to an extreme irritation with Helene Vauquier. Her
lover was in her thoughts. As she put it herself:

"I wanted always to look my best, and always to be very good."