Overhead was a heavy, burnished copper
fixture, from which a cluster of electric bulbs threw their
brilliance upward, so that the room was evenly lighted with the
diffused rays as reflected from the ceiling. Thus, there were no
shadows to confuse the problem.
The chorus of the song was almost through when I heard from the
direction of the table a faint sound, as though someone had drawn
fingers lightly across the polished oak. I listened; the sound was
not repeated, at least not loud enough for me to catch it above
the music. Next moment, however, the record came to an end; Jerome
leaned forward to put on another, and Charlotte opened her mouth
as though to suggest what the new selection might be. But she
never said the words.
It began with a scintillating iridescence, up on the ceiling, not
eight feet from where I sat. As I looked the spot grew, and
spread, and flared out. It was blue like the elusive blue of the
gem; only, it was more like flame--the flame of electrical
apparatus.
Then, down from that blinding radiance there crept, rather than
dropped a single thread of incandescence, vivid, with a tinge of
the colour from which it had surged. Down it crept to the floor;
it was like an irregular streak of lightning, hanging motionless
between ceiling and floor, just for the fraction of a second. All
in total silence.
And then the radiance vanished, disappeared, snuffed out as one
might snuff out a candle.
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