Yetta wanted to begin at once with some questions about Socialism.
"You'd better save them till Isadore and Mabel come," Longman laughed. "He's got all the answers down by heart—the orthodox ones. And Mabel isn't a Socialist. I'm neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring. It will start a beautiful shindy if you spring those questions to-night."
He told her about his projected book on Philosophy, and how he would like to add her credo to his collection. The big scope of the idea caught her fancy, and she said she was willing.
It was slow work at first. The earlier questions on his list led her into unfamiliar fields. She had never troubled her mind over metaphysics. She was not sure what kind of a god she believed in—nor whether It really ought to be called "God." She had given no thought to the question whether this is the best or worst possible world. The prophecies, which her father had loved so much, inclined her strongly to the idea that it might be made a better one. But she had never even tried to determine whether the Universe is an elaborate and precise mechanical instrument, a personally conducted puppet show, or a roulette wheel. Her inability to answer these questions—and the way he put them made them seem very important—shamed her. He seemed to be sounding the depths of her ignorance. Did she believe in a future life? She threw up her hands.
"I don't know."
"Nobody knows. It's a question of belief. You loved your father very much, and when you were a little girl he died. Was that the end of him?"
She shook her head. He waited patiently for words.
"No. It wasn't the end of him. Anyhow the memory lasts."
"Do you ever talk to him now?"
"Sometimes. I pretend to."