As for the mysterious whispering echo, they repudiated all talk of
acoustics. It was for them an eerie thing, like the laughter of elves or
the shriek of a banshee.
"Don't say every-day things to me," Anne had instructed Maxwell when he
had first placed her behind a mottled marble pillar before leaving for
the spot where he could speak to her by this unique wireless.
There came to her, therefore, a part of a famous speech; the murmured
words flung back by that strange sounding board rang like a bell:
"Give me liberty or give me death!"
She emerged from her corner, starry-eyed. "It was as if I heard him say
it."
"Perhaps it was he, and I was only a mouthpiece."
"I should think they'd like to come back. Will you come?"
He laughed. "Who knows? I'll come if you are here."
To have brought a third into these adventures would have robbed them of
charm. Knowing this he argued that the child was safe with him. Why
worry?
They always lunched together before he took her up to the Members'
Gallery, and went himself to the floor of the House.
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