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Benson, Robert Hugh, 1871-1914

"The Necromancers"


"Why do you not go to Mr. Baxter himself?"
"I have done so. I arranged to meet him at lunch, and somehow I took a
wrong turn with him: I have no tact whatever, as you perceive. But I
wrote to him on Friday night, offering to call upon him, and just
giving him a hint. Well, it was useless. He refused to see me."
"I don't see what I--"
"Oh yes," chirped the old gentleman almost gaily. "It would be quite
unusual and unconventional. I just ask you to send him a line--I will
take it myself, if you wish it--telling him that you think it would be
better for him not to come, and saying that you are making other
arrangements for tonight."
He looked at her with that odd little air of birdlike briskness that
she had noticed in the street; and it pleasantly affected her even in
the midst of the uneasiness that now surged upon her again tenfold
more than before. She could see that there was something else behind
his manner; it had just looked out in the glance he had given round
the room on entering; but she could not trouble at this moment to
analyze what it was. She was completely bewildered by the strangeness
of the encounter, and the extraordinary coincidence of this man's
judgment with her own.


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