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again.
    â€œQuite,” he said. “You could grow evergreens in it.”
    â€œThen,” said Nancy, with a slightly hysterical note in her voice, “I think you’d better ring for Agnes to clear it up.”
    â€œTouch it,” he said, “feel it, be sure it’s real.”
    â€œI wouldn’t touch it for anything,” she exclaimed. “Do ring, Henry. I want to see Agnes taking it away in a dustpan. That’ll prove it’s real.”
    Agnes indeed removed it in a dustpan, without any other emotion than a slight surprise and a slight perplexity. It was clear that she couldn’t think what Miss Nancy and her young man had been about; but it was also clear that she supposed whatever they had been about had resulted in a small heap of earth on the dining-room table, which she efficiently removed and then herself disappeared. Nancy lay back in her chair, and there was a complete silence for a long time.
    At last she stirred and looked at Henry. “Tell me now,” she said.
    He leaned against the mantelpiece, looking down on her. “I’ve told you,” he answered. “I told you at first; at least, I hinted at it. There is correspondence everywhere; but some correspondences are clearer than others. Between these cards”—he pointed to the leather case in which he had replaced the denier suit—“and the activities of things there is a very close relation.…”
    She broke in. “Yes, darling; don’t explain it, just tell me,” she said. “What you said about the wind, and this, and everything.”
    â€œEarth, water, air, and fire,” he said. “Deniers, cups, scepters, swords. When the hands of a man deal in a certain way with the cards, the living thing comes to exist.”
    She looked down at the hands that lay in her lap. “Hands,” she said. “Can they do it?”
    â€œThey can do anything,” he said. “They have power.”
    â€œBut why the cards?” she asked.
    He smiled at her, and suddenly she threw out her arms to him and he leaned and caught her in his own. The movement gathered her, but it was she who was raised from her chair, not he who was brought down to that other level, and even while he murmured to her his voice was charged with an exultant energy, and when upon her moving he loosed her at last there was in his action something of one who lays down a precious instrument till it shall be required. Or, since he kept his eyes on her, something of one who watches a complex and delicate piece of machinery to see if everything runs smoothly, and the experiment for which it is meant may be safely dared.
    Nancy patted her hair and sat down again. “Next time,” she said, “I shall be more prepared.”
    â€œThere is to be a next time?” he asked, testing a screw in the machinery.
    Her eyes were seriously upon him. “If you choose,” she said, “and you will, won’t you? If you want me to help, I will. But next time perhaps you’d better tell me more about it first. Why does it happen?”
    â€œI don’t know why,” he said, “but how is clear enough. These cards are in touch with a thing I’ll show you at Christmas, and they’re in touch with … well, there aren’t any words for it—with the Dance.”
    â€œThe Dance?” she asked.
    â€œThe Dance that is … everything,” he answered. “You’ll see. Earth, air, fire, water—and the Greater Trumps. There’s a way to all knowledge and prophecy, when the cards and they are brought together. But, O Nancy, Nancy, if you’ll see what I see and want what I want, there’s a way—if it can be found, there’s a way.” He caught her hands in his. “Hands,” he cried, “hands among them and all that they mean. Feel it; give it to me; take it.”
    She burned back to his ardor. “What will you do?”