In a corner stood a wooden
cabinet that resembled a sentry box on wheels. It was from this,
on certain evenings, before a select circle of spiritualists,
that Vera projected the ghosts of the departed. Hanging inside
the cabinet was a silver-gilt crown and a cloak of black velvet,
lined with purple silk and covered in gold thread with signs of
the zodiac.
Save that these stage properties illustrated the taste of Mabel
Vance, the room was of no interest. It held a rubber plant, a
red velvet rocking chair, across the back of which Mrs. Vance
had draped a Neapolitan scarf; an upright piano, upon which
Emmanuel Day, or, as he was known to the cross-roads of Broadway
and Forty-second street, "Mannie" Day, provoked the most
marvelous rag-time, an enlarged photograph in crayon, of
Professor Vance, in a frock coat and lawn tie, a china bull dog,
coquettishly decorated with a blue bow, and, on the mantel
piece, two tall beer steins and a hand telephone. From the long
windows one obtained a view of the iron shutters of the new
department store in Thirty-fourth Street, and of a garden, just
large enough to contain a sumach tree, a refrigerator, and the
packing-case in which the piano had arrived.
After leaving Winthrop, without waiting for Vance, Vera had
returned directly to the house in Thirty-fifth Street, and
locked herself in her room. And although "Mannie" Day had
already ushered two visitors into the front room, Vera had not
yet come downstairs.
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