Ledyard whispered to Betty Barkley: "I'll go mad and bite if he says another word!"
She cautioned him with a light touch of her gloved hand, and strove very hard to remain serious as Mr. Sissly minced over to his "organ," seated himself, and gazed upward.
All at once every light in the house went out.
For a while the great screen remained invisible, then a faint sheen possessed its surface, blotted out at eccentric intervals by a deep and thunderous tint which finally absorbed it and slowly became a coldly profound and depthless blue.
The blue was not permanent; almost imperceptible pulsations were stirring and modifying it toward a warmer and less decisive hue, and through it throbbed and ebbed elusive sensations of palest turquoise, primrose and shell-pink. This waned and deepened into a yellow which threatened to become orange.
Suddenly all was washed out in unaccented grey; the grey gradually became instinct with rose and gold; the gold was split by a violet streak; then virile scarlet tumbled through crashing scales of green, amethyst, crimson, into a chaos of chromatic dissonance, and vanished engulfed in shimmering darkness.
The lights flashed up, disclosing Mr. Sissly, very pale and damp of features, facing the footlights again.
"That," he faltered, amid a stillness so profound that it seemed to fill the ear like a hollow roar,--"that is weather. If you approve it, the most precious expression of your sympathy will be absolute silence."
Fortunately, not even Reggie Ledyard dropped.
Mr. Sissly passed a lank and lily hand across his large pale eyes.
"Like the Japanese," he lisped, "I bring to you my most precious thought-treasures one at a time--and never more than two between the rising of the orb of day and the veiling of it at eventide. I offer you, on the altar of my colour organ, a transposition of Von Schwiggle's symphony in A minor; and I can only say that it is replete with a meaning so exquisitely precious that no human intelligence has yet penetrated it."
Out went the lights. Presently the screen became visible. Upon it there seemed to be no colour, no hint of any tint, no quality, no value. It was merely visible, and remained so for three mortal minutes. Then the lights broke out, revealing Mr. Sissly half fainting at his organ, and two young women in Greek robes waving bunches of violets at him. And the curtain fell.