Lucas steadfastly forbade himself the credulity to take such superstition seriously; nevertheless, since he understood that such phenomena were particularly likely to occur in the presence of such a powerful psychic as Mrs. Brand, he had no impulse to visit her. Suppose she could give power not only to Agnes Cullen but to "J.Q." and Laylor and Drane—dead, disembodied spirits—to air each his personal and particular grievance! Lucas wished he had not said so much about his plan to the family and to Jaccard.
The attitude of that fellow who called himself Loutrelle also bothered Lucas; because, so far as Lucas could discover, he was doing nothing but spending certain regular hours each day and evening taking courses in economics and business in the Northwestern University School of Commerce. This meant that, in addition, he undoubtedly was doing something which Lucas's operative could not discover. So Lucas changed operatives but without more enlightening results. Also some one, in these days, watched Lucas whenever he left the hotel, and Lucas felt that he was watched within the hotel, too. He could not help wondering what would happen if he made an evident move to leave the city.
"But they can prove nothing," he constantly reassured himself; and in a few days he conquered his absurd dread of something "uncontrollable" occurring if he visited Mrs. Brand.
The medium then was visiting Mrs. Stanton-Fielding at her home on the Drive, where, in addition to wholly private sittings with individual applicants, Mrs. Brand was giving more public demonstrations upon certain afternoons. Occasionally representatives of the newspapers had been admitted to these sittings; more often
