He sank away from her and brooded over this thought for a minute or two before he replied. "But the whole thing is so preposterous. Have you seen her slate-writing 'stunt'?"
"Many times; but I don't think you should call it a 'stunt.'"
"Come, now, give me your honest opinion. Do you think my mother unconsciously cheats?"
She faced him with convincing candor. "No, I don't. I think she is perfectly simple and straightforward, and I believe the writing is supernormal."
"How can you believe that? You're a college girl, mother tells me. Don't the belief in these things wipe out everything you have been taught at school? It certainly rips science into strips for me, or would—if I believed it. It makes a fool of a man like Boyden, that's a sure thing."
Mrs. Joyce, looking across the room, smiled in delight at the charming picture these young people made in their animated conversation. Doubtless they were glowing over Tennyson's position in modern poetry or the question of Meredith's ultimate standing in fiction.
What the youth was really saying to the maid was this: "What did you get out of it all? What did The Voices give you?"
"They told me to study composition, for one thing. They told me I would compose successful songs, with the aid of—of Schubert." She was a little embarrassed at the end.
"And you took all that in?"
She colored. "I'm afraid I didn't really believe the Schubert part. However, I'm studying composition on the chance of their being right."