“I’ve just received a letter from Mrs. Houghton-Smith,” she told me, mentioning the name of one of the most prominent women in New York. “She wants me to save her an hour this afternoon.” Seeing that I did not understand, she added: “Mrs. Houghton-Smith has me read her vibrations before every one of her visits to Washington.”
“Didn’t you know that I discovered the vibration theory?” she demanded. “Yes, indeed. And when I first came to New York I held my circles in the drawing-rooms of the most exclusive people in the city. I’d be doing it now if my son wasn’t such a fool.”
She then informed me that Mrs. Houghton-Smith was such a firm believer in vibrations that she had tried to induce her, Mrs. Brown, to go to Washington and get President Wilson’s vibrations. This Mrs. Brown refused to do, because, being of American Revolutionary stock, she felt it would not be well for any person to be in a position to control a President of the United States.
It all sounded like pure nonsense to me, but that afternoon on returning from work there was a limousine standing before the door. It was a noticeably handsome car. The chauffeur and footman were in livery. Judging by the brilliant lights in Mrs. Brown’s rooms I was sure she had company.
Three evenings later Alice burst into my room while I was cooking our dinner.
“What on earth has Bernstorf been doing here?” she demanded. “I met him coming down the front steps.”
“You mean the German ambassador?” I questioned.
“Exactly who I do mean. If ever I saw him I met him on the steps. He got in the taxi that was waiting at the curb, and turned up Fourth Avenue.”
“Vibrations must be powerful,” I remarked, “to attract such busy people as Mrs. Houghton-Smith and Count Bernstorf.”
Explaining, I told Alice of my conversation with Mrs. Brown about vibrations. To both of us it seemed a huge joke, but when later the two incidents were reported to Mrs. Wilkins, she shook her head.
“Mrs. Brown was a fortune-teller,” she assured us. “But she went under another name—something I-talian, or French. My husband knew her when she kept her carriage and horses, and used to go out with swells.”
On my way to work the following morning Mrs. Brown waylaid me on the stairs. She caught me by the sleeve and drew my ear down to the level of her lips.