Flames by Robert Smythe Hichens
page 94 of 702 (13%)
page 94 of 702 (13%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
"Now I know why I stopped undressing just now," said Valentine. "I must
have had a sense that you were coming. Were you thinking very hard of me to-night and of our sittings?" "Rather! It is the oddest thing, but even since we had that talk with the doctor and agreed to give the whole thing up, I've been perfectly miserable. I haven't enjoyed a single thing I've done since that night." "Nor I," said Valentine. "What! you have been as bad? And without having Marr continually at your elbow!" "Marr again!" "Again! Yes, I should think so. That chap has taken a fancy to me, I suppose. Anyhow, directly I walk into the club, morning, noon, or night, up he comes. He must live there. And the first thing he says is, 'Have you gone on with your sittings? You should, you should.' To-day he changed his formula and said, 'You must,' and when I was going away, he looked at me in a damned odd way and remarked in his low, toneless voice, 'You will.' I declare I almost think he must have a sort of influence over me, for I couldn't go to bed for the life of me, and here I am. By the way, Marr seems to have a sort of power of divination. Last night, when I happened to see him, he began talking about doctors, and, by Jove, didn't he abuse them! He says they stand more in the way of the development of the spiritual forces in man than any other body of people. He denounced them all as low materialists, immersed in the tinkering of the flesh. 'What does the flesh matter?' he said. 'It is nothing. It is only an envelope. And the more tightly it is fastened |
|