Again, if the women were tricking, and I caught them at it, there was always the chance of a disagreeable scene with people of their class.
On the other hand, it was losing a great opportunity, to refrain, as a mere matter of courtesy. Also I comforted myself by thinking that if anyone needed to feel ashamed it would be the ones who cheated, and not the detective.
So I pushed my chair a little nearer to the table, and the next time the Countess took the alphabet from me and the bangs were in full swing, I put my foot cautiously but very effectually entirely round the one leg of the table, moving it also up and down freely. Not a vestige of another foot, nor even of the flimsiest particle of dress or other obstruction! I could positively and distinctly hear the reverberation of the loud bangs on the wood, between me and the centre of the table, whilst my own leg and foot were firmly embracing the single wooden pillar upon which the latter stood. So the Harpies were justified, so far as this one phenomenon was concerned. The letters written down so rapidly by the daughter on large sheets of paper presented an apparently hopeless jumble, but when the sitting was over at the last, the Abbé and I were able to make out the words and sentences without great difficulty (he being accustomed to the task), and we then found a long, coherent, and at anyrate perfectly sensible, message addressed to him, and referring to the points of his coming discourse. This had to be proved upon its own merits, and without prejudice, arising from the fact that St Paul's name was given as the author. It was quite as helpful as some of the Apostle's letters, with the advantage of being up to date as regarded the question in hand. After all, the Abbé was about to embark upon an enterprise requiring much courage and great tact, in the forlorn hope that the walls of narrow Orthodoxy and Priestcraft might fall down before the trumpets of advancing Knowledge and Light.
It may or may not have been St Paul who stood by the Abbé with words of encouragement that night; but I, for one, find no difficulty in thinking it conceivable that the great Apostle should take a keen interest in the evolution of the planet upon which he once lived.
The charming young lady delivered up her script also. It was interesting and well written, but the only paragraph which remains in my memory was an excellent analysis of the initial difference between Christianity and Theosophy.
The Abbé kindly copied it out for me next day, but I must quote from memory.
"Christianity is a stretching down of the Divinity to Man.
"Theosophy is the attempt of Man, by his own efforts, to reach the Divine."
This seems to me both terse and true.
We had sat from nine p.m. till one a.m., and I think we were all relieved when an adjournment for supper was suggested by Lady Caithness.