disappear,” he said, picking it up. He handed it to Mabel, who put it on; and, of course, it disappeared. A roar of applause went up from the audience.
“Now,” he said, “I come to the last trick of all. I shall take three steps backwards and vanish.” He took three steps backwards, Mabel wrapped the invisible shawl round him, and—he did not vanish. The shawl, being invisible, did not conceal him in the least.
“Yah!” cried a boy’s voice in the crowd. “Look at ‘im! ’E knows ’e can’t do it.”
“I wish I could put you in my pocket,” said Mabel. The crowd was crowding closer. At any moment they might touch Mabel, and then anything might happen—simply anything. Gerald took hold of his hair with both hands, as his way was when he was anxious or discouraged. Mabel, in invisibility, wrung her hands, as people are said to do in books; that is, she clasped them and squeezed very tight.
“Oh!” she whispered suddenly, “it’s loose. I can get it off.”
“Not—”
“Yes—the ring.”
“Come on, young master. Give us summat for our money,” a farm labourer shouted.
“I will,” said Gerald. “This time I really will vanish. Slip round into the tent,” he whispered to Mabel. “Push the ring under the canvas. Then slip out at the back and join the others. When I see you with them I’ll disappear. Go slow, and I’ll catch you up.”
“It’s me,” said a pale and obvious Mabel in the ear of Kathleen. “He’s got the ring; come on, before the crowd begins to scatter.”
As they went out of the gate they heard a roar of surprise and annoyance rise from the crowd, and knew that this time Gerald really had disappeared.
They had gone a mile before they heard footsteps on the road, and looked back. No one was to be seen.
Next moment Gerald’s voice spoke out of clear, empty-looking space.
“Halloa!” it said gloomily.
“How horrid!” cried Mabel; “you did make me jump! Take the ring off; it makes me feel quite creepy, you being nothing but a voice.”
“So did you us,” said Jimmy.
“Don’t take it off yet,” said Kathleen, who was really rather thoughtful for her age, “because you’re still blackleaded,da I suppose, and you might be recognized, and eloped with by gipsies, so that you should go on doing conjuring for ever and ever.”
“I should take it off,” said Jimmy; “it’s no use going about invisible, and people seeing us with Mabel and saying we’ve eloped with her.”
“Yes,” said Mabel impatiently, “that would be simply silly. And, besides, I want my ring.”
“It’s not yours any more than ours, anyhow,” said Jimmy.
“Yes, it is,” said Mabel.
“Oh, stow it!” said the weary voice of Gerald beside her. “What’s the use of jawing?”
“I want the ring,” said Mabel, rather mulishly.
“Want”—the words came out of the still evening air—“want must be your master. You can’t have the ring. I can’t get it off!”
CHAPTER IV
The difficulty was not only that Gerald had got the ring on and couldn’t get it off, and was therefore invisible, but that Mabel, who had been invisible and therefore possible to be smuggled into the house, was now plain to be seen and impossible for smuggling purposes.
The children would have not only to account for the apparent absence of one of themselves, but for the obvious presence of a perfect stranger.
“I can’t go back to aunt. I can’t and I won’t,” said Mabel firmly, “not if I was visible twenty times over.”
“She’d smell a rat if you did,” Gerald owned—“about the motor-car, I mean, and the adopting lady. And what we’re to say to Mademoiselle about you—!” He tugged at the ring.
“Suppose you told the truth,” said Mabel meaningly.
“She wouldn’t believe it,” said Cathy; “or, if she did, she’d go stark, staring, raving mad.”
“No,” said Gerald’s voice, “we daren’t tell her. But she’s really rather decent. Let’s ask her to let you stay the night because it’s too late for you to get home.”
“That’s all right,” said Jimmy, “but what about you?”
“I shall go to bed,” said Gerald, “with a bad headache. Oh, that’s not a lie! I’ve got one right enough. It’s the sun, I think. I know blacklead attracts the concentration of the sun.”
“More likely the pears and the gingerbread,” said Jimmy unkindly. “Well, let’s get along. I wish it was me was invisible. I’d do something different from going to bed with a silly headache, I know that.”
“What would you do?” asked the voice of Gerald just behind him.
“Do keep in one place, you