You hit a ball into the air----”

I was a little sore over the events of the afternoon. “That’s just what I don’t do,” I said. “I hit it along the ground!”

“Well, it doesn’t matter where you hit it,” said he. “It’s all subject
to known laws. But the guess, the conjecture: there’s the thrill and
the excitement of life. The charlatan with his new cure for cancer, the
automatic writer with his messages from the dead, the reincarnationist
with his positive assertions that he was Napoleon or a Christian
slave--they are the people who advance knowledge. You have to guess
before you know. Even Darwin saw that when he said you could not
investigate without a hypothesis!”

“So what’s your hypothesis this minute?” I asked. “Why, that we’ve all lived before, and that we’re going to live again
here on this same old earth. Any other conception of a future life
is impossible. Are all the people who have been born and have died
since the world emerged from chaos going to become inhabitants of some
future world? What a squash, you know, my dear Madge! Now, I know
what you’re going to ask me. If we’ve all lived before, why can’t we
remember it? But that’s so simple! If you remembered being Cleopatra,
you would go on behaving like Cleopatra; and what would Tarleton say? Judas Iscariot, too! Fancy knowing you had been Judas Iscariot! You
couldn’t get over it! you would commit suicide, or cause everybody who
was connected with you to commit suicide from their horror of you. Or
imagine being a grocer’s boy who knew he had been Julius Cæsar....
Of course, sex doesn’t matter: souls, as far as I understand, are
sexless--just sparks of life, which are put into physical envelopes,
some male, some female. You might have been King David, Madge and poor
Tony here one of his wives.”

“That would be wonderfully neat,” said I.

Charles broke out into a shout of laughter. “It would indeed,” he said. “But I won’t talk sense any more to you
scoffers. I’m absolutely tired out, I will confess, with thinking. I want to have a pretty lady to come to dinner, and talk to her as
if she was just herself and I myself, and nobody else. I want to win
two-and-sixpence at bridge with the expenditure of enormous thought. I want to have a large breakfast to-morrow and read _The Times_
afterwards, and go to Tony’s club and talk about crops and golf and
Irish affairs and Peace Conferences, and all the things that don’t
matter one straw!”

“You’re going to begin your programme to-night, dear,” said Madge. “A
very pretty lady is coming to dinner, and we’re going to play bridge
afterwards.”

Madge and I were ready for Mrs. Acres when she arrived, but Charles
was not yet down. Fungus, who has a wild adoration for Charles, quite
unaccountable, since Charles has no feelings for dogs, was helping him
to dress, and Madge, Mrs. Acres, and I waited for his appearance. It
was certainly Mrs. Acres whom I had met last night at the door of the
post-office, but the dim light of sunset had not enabled me to see
how wonderfully handsome she was. There was something slightly Jewish
about her profile: the high forehead, the very full-lipped mouth, the
bridged nose, the prominent chin, all suggested rather than exemplified
an Eastern origin. And when she spoke she had that rich softness
of utterance, not quite hoarseness, but not quite of the clear-cut
distinctness of tone which characterises northern nations. Something
southern, something Eastern....

“I am bound to ask one thing,” she said, when, after the usual
greetings, we stood round the fireplace, waiting for Charles--“but have
you got a dog?”

Madge moved towards the bell. “Yes, but he shan’t come down if you dislike dogs,” she said. “He’s
wonderfully kind, but I know----”

“Ah, it’s not that,” said Mrs. Acres. “I adore dogs. But I only wished
to spare your dog’s feelings. Though I adore them, they hate me, and
they’re terribly frightened of me. There’s something anti-canine about
me.”

It was too late to say more. Charles’s steps clattered in the little
hall outside, and Fungus was hoarse and amused. Next moment the door
opened, and the two came in. Fungus came in first. He lolloped in a festive manner into the middle
of the room, sniffed and snored in greeting, and then turned tail. He
slipped and skidded on the parquet outside, and we heard him bundling
down the kitchen stairs. “Rude dog,” said Madge. “Charles, let me introduce you to Mrs. Acres. My brother, Mrs. Acres: Sir Charles Alington.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Our little dinner-table of four would not permit of separate
conversations, and general topics, springing up like mushrooms, wilted
and died at their very inception. What mood possessed the others I
did not at that time know, but for myself I was only conscious of
some fundamental distaste of the handsome, clever woman who sat on
my right, and seemed quite unaffected by the withering atmosphere. She was charming to the eye, she was witty to the ear, she had grace
and gracefulness, and all the time she was something terrible. But
by degrees, as I found my own distaste increasing, I saw that my
brother-in-law’s interest was growing correspondingly keen. The
“pretty lady” whose presence at dinner he had desired and obtained
was enchaining him--not, so I began to guess, for her charm and her
prettiness, but for some purpose of study, and I wondered whether it
was her beautiful Jewish profile that was confirming to his mind some
Anglo-Israelitish theory, whether he saw in her fine brown eyes the
glance of the seer and the clairvoyante, or whether he divined in her
some reincarnation of one of the famous or the infamous dead. Certainly
she had for him some fascination beyond that of the legitimate charm of
a very handsome woman; he was studying her with intense curiosity. “And you are comfortable in the Gate-house?” he suddenly rapped out at
her, as if asking some question of which the answer was crucial. “Ah! but so comfortable,” she said--“such a delightful atmosphere. I have never known a house that ‘felt’ so peaceful and homelike. Or
is it merely fanciful to imagine that some houses have a sense of
tranquillity about them and others are uneasy and even terrible?”

Charles stared at her a moment in silence before he recollected his
manners. “No, there may easily be something in it, I should say,” he answered. “One can imagine long centuries of tranquillity actually investing a
home with some sort of psychical aura perceptible to those who are
sensitive.”

She turned to Madge. “And yet I have heard a ridiculous story that the house is supposed to
be haunted,” she said. “If it is, it is surely haunted by delightful,
contented spirits.”

Dinner was over. Madge rose. “Come in very soon, Tony,” she said to me, “and let’s get to our
bridge.”

But her eyes said, “Don’t leave me long alone with her.”

Charles turned briskly round when the door had shut. “An extremely interesting woman,” he said. “Very handsome,” said I. “Is she? I didn’t notice.