Moreover, on the next Sunday, when, as usual, it arrived to fetch him at Kleindorf, Godfrey kept his word, so that it went back empty. By the coachman he sent an awkwardly worded note to Miss Ogilvy, saying that he was suffering from toothache which had prevented him from sleeping for several nights, and was not well enough to come out.
This note she answered by post, telling him that she had been disappointed not to see him as she was also ill. She added that she would send the carriage on the following Sunday on the chance of his toothache being better, but that if it was not, she would understand and trouble him no more.
During all that week Godfrey fought with himself. He did not wish to have anything more to do with the white and ghostly Eleanor, who changed her gems so constantly, and said that she had known him millenniums ago. Indeed, he felt already as though she were much too near him, especially at night, when he seemed to become aware of her bending over his bed, and generally making her presence known in other uncomfortable ways that caused his hair to stand up and frightened him.
At the same time he was really fond of Miss Ogilvy, and what she said about being ill touched him. Also there was something that drew him; it might be Eleanor, or it might be Madame Riennes. At any rate he felt a great longing to go. Putting everything else aside, these investigations had their delights. What other young fellow of his age could boast an Eleanor, who said she had been fond of him tens of thousands of years before?
Moreover, here was one of the gates to that knowledge which he desired so earnestly, and how could he find the strength to shut it in his own face?
Of course the end of the matter was that by the following Sunday, his toothache had departed, and the carriage did not return empty to the Villa Ogilvy.
He found his hostess looking white and ethereal, an appearance that she had acquired increasingly ever since their first meeting. Her delight at seeing him was obvious, as was that of the others. For this he soon discovered the reason. It appeared that the sitting on the previous Sunday, when he was overcome by toothache, had been an almost total failure. Professor Petersen had tried to fill his place as medium, with the result that when he fell under the influence, the only spirit that broke through his lips was one which discoursed interminably about lager beer and liqueurs of some celestial brew, which, as Madame Riennes, a lady not given to mince her words, told him to his face afterwards, was because he drank too much. Hence the joy of these enthusiasts at the re-appearance of Godfrey.