The words he had overheard when approaching the dining-room showed how completely he had failed.

And now Bubbles Dunster, with her stupid tomfoolery, was actually driving Mr.
Burnaby away! But Mr.Burnaby's host was far too well used to conceal his thoughts, and to command his emotions, to do more than gravely assent, with an expression of regret.

Nay more, as some of the others gradually lounged in, and as the meal became a trifle more animated, he told himself that after all Mr.Burnaby might have turned out a spoil-sport, especially with regard to a secret, all-important matter which he, the convener of this curiously assorted Christmas party, had very much at heart.
Even so, for the first time in their long friendship, he felt at odds with Blanche Farrow.

She ought to have stopped the seance the moment she saw whither it was tending! His own experience of Bubbles' peculiar gift had been very far from agreeable, and had given him a thoroughly bad night.

That strange, sinister evocation of his long-dead mother had stirred embers Varick had believed to be long dead--embers he had done his best, as it were, to stamp out from his memory.
Another thing which added to his ill-humour was the fact that Bubbles, alone of the party, had not come down to breakfast.