It was only by desperate effort that Zizi kept from laughing, for of all fads or whims, spiritism seemed to her the worst and most foolish. But she was there on business, and part of her business was to gather all the information she could regarding this same spiritism, so she showed only deep interest and apparent sympathy with their beliefs.
"You do believe in these things, don't you?" Mrs. Crane asked, and, being thus confronted, Zizi had to answer directly.
"It's hard to say," she replied, "for, you see, I've had so little real experience. Practically none. But I'm eager to learn, and most interested in what you tell me."
"I'm a frank unbeliever," declared Pennington Wise. He had considered the matter and concluded it was better to state this fact and thereby rouse the others to defense.
"You wouldn't be, Mr. Wise," Benjamin Crane said, "if you'd had the experiences we're continually enjoying. You've read my book?"
"Yes, Mr. Crane, and an able, well written work it is. But you must number some among your friends who find difficulty in accepting it in just the way you do."
"Certainly, and though I do what I can to convince them, I think none the less of them for their honest unbelief. But with you right here in the house, Mr. Wise, it will, I'm sure, be an easy matter to make a convert of you."
"We'll see; at any rate, I'm ready to be converted if you can do it. Now, let's begin with that note your daughter received from—ah, shall I say from your son?"
"Of course, it was from my son. You may compare the writing with Peter's own—we've lots of his letters, and I think you'll be convinced it's no forgery."
"And it doesn't seem illogical to you," Wise went on, as he took the papers Crane handed to him, "that your son should materialize this paper, this note, and leave it for you, when, if he can do such things, he doesn't write a letter to his mother or to you?"