"Do you believe in the supernatural?"
"I neither believe nor disbelieve," I replied, "for I have never met with anything that might be a manifestation of it. But I may say that I am not a hard and fast materialist." And I added: "Do you believe in it?"
"Of course," she snapped.
"Then, if you really believe, if it's so serious to you, why do you make a show of it for triflers?".
"Ah!" she breathed. "Some of them do make me angry. They like to play at having dealings with the supernatural. But I thought the crystal would be such a good thing for Sullivan's reception. It is very important to Sullivan that this should be a great success—our first large public reception, you know. Sullivan says we must advertise ourselves."
The explanation of her motives was given so naïvely, so simply and unaffectedly, that it was impossible to take exception to it.
"Where's the crystal?" I inquired.
"It is here," she said, and she rolled a glass ball with the suddenness that had the appearance of magic from the dark portion of the table's surface into the oval of light. And it was so exactly spherical, and the table top was so smooth that it would not stay where it was put, and she had to hold it there with her ringed hand.
"So that's it," I remarked.
"Carl," she said, "it is only right I should warn you. Some weeks ago I saw in the crystal the face of a man whom I did not know. I saw it again and again—and always the same scene. Then I saw you at the Opera last week, and Sullivan introduced you as his cousin that he talks about sometimes. Did you notice that night that I behaved rather queerly?"