She stood there with a quiet face, serious and
sightless; then, after a short further delay, she began to speak.
She began incoherently, almost inaudibly, as if she were talking in a
dream. Ransom could not understand her; he thought it very queer, and
wondered what Doctor Prance would have said. "She's just arranging her
ideas, and trying to get in report; she'll come out all right." This
remark he heard dropped in a low tone by the mesmeric healer; "in
report" was apparently Tarrant's version of _en rapport_. His prophecy
was verified, and Verena did come out, after a little; she came out with
a great deal of sweetness--with a very quaint and peculiar effect. She
proceeded slowly, cautiously, as if she were listening for the prompter,
catching, one by one, certain phrases that were whispered to her a great
distance off, behind the scenes of the world. Then memory, or
inspiration, returned to her, and presently she was in possession of her
part. She played it with extraordinary simplicity and grace; at the end
of ten minutes Ransom became aware that the whole audience--Mrs.
Farrinder, Miss Chancellor, and the tough subject from Mississippi--were
under the charm. I speak of ten minutes, but to tell the truth the young
man lost all sense of time.
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