THE SÉANCE
Je cherche des parfums nouveaux, des fleurs plus larges, des plaisirs inéprouvés.—Flaubert.
"It may be all a magnificent illusion, but—" he began.
"Everything is an illusion in this life, though seldom magnificent," she answered. They slowly walked up the avenue. The night was tepid; motor cars, looking like magnified beetles, with bulging eyes of fire, went swiftly by. The pavements were almost deserted when they reached the park. He felt as if hypnotized, and once, rather meanly, was glad that no one saw him in company of his dowdy companion.
"I wonder if you realize that we do not know each other's name," he said.
"Oh, yes. You are Mr. Baldur. My name is Mrs. Lilith Whistler."
"Mrs. Whistler. Not the medium?"
"The medium—as you call it. In reality I am only a woman, happy, or unhappy, in the possession of super-normal powers."
"Not supernatural, then?" he interposed. He was a sceptic who called himself agnostic. The mystery of earth and heaven might be interpreted, but always in terms of science; yet he did not fancy the superior manner in which this charlatan flouted the supernatural. He had heard of her miracles—and doubted them. She gave a little laugh at his correction.
"What phrase-jugglers you men are! You want all the splendours of the Infinite thrown in with the price of admission! I said super-normal, because we know of nothing greater than nature. Things that are off the beaten track of the normal, across the frontiers, some call supernatural; but it is their ignorance of the vast, unexplored territory of the spirit—which is only the material masquerading in a different guise."