"Oh, don't look at it that way. That's foolish. I think it's glorious fun, this investigating."
He acknowledged her rebuke, but added, "It would be more fun if the person under the grill were not one's own mother."
"That's true," she admitted; "and yet, I think you can study her without giving offense. I began in a very offensive way—I can see that now—but she met my test, and still meets every test you bring. The faith she represents isn't going to have its heart plucked out in a hurry, I can tell you that."
"The immediate thing is to defend her against this man Aiken. Mr. Bartol said he would order up a lot of books, and I'm to cram for the trial. If you have any book to suggest, I wish you'd write its title down for me."
"What's the use of going to books? The judges will want the facts, and you'll have to convince them that she is what she claims to be."
"How can we do that? We can't exhibit her in a trance?"
"You might. Perhaps her guides will give her the power." She glowed with anticipatory triumph. "Imagine her confounding the jury! Wouldn't that be dramatic! It would be like the old-time test of fire."
He was radiant, too, for a moment, over the thought. Then his face grew stern. "Nothing like that is going to happen. She would fail, and that would leave us in worse case than before. Our only hope is to convince the jury that she is not responsible for what her Voices say. We've got to show she's auto-hypnotic."
"I hope the trial will come soon."
"So do I, for here I am eating somebody else's food, with no prospect of earning a cent or finding out my place in the world. I don't know just what my mother's idea was in educating me in classical English instead of some technical course, but I'm perfectly certain that I'm the most helpless mollusk that was ever kicked out of a school."