“You’re talking like a woman,” he said, with another little laugh.
“Possibly,” she said. “Perhaps I don’t mean quite all I say. But that I feel here, opposing me, opposing all my western notions, a force which is antagonistic to me ... that is certain. I am sometimes frightened. I always feel ... that I am on the point of being conquered, I don’t know what by: by something out of the ground, by a force of nature, by a secret in the soul of these black people, whom I don’t know.... I feel particularly afraid at night.”
“You’re overwrought,” he said, tenderly.
“Possibly,” she replied, wearily, seeing that he did not understand and too tired to go on explaining. “Let’s talk about something else. That table-turning’s very curious.”
“Very,” he said.
“The other day, the three of us: Ida, you and I....”
“It was certainly very curious.”
“Do you remember the first time? Addie de Luce: it seems to be true about him and Mrs. van Oudijck.... And the insurrection ... the table foretold it.”
“May we not have suggested it unconsciously?”
“I don’t know. But to think that we should all be playing fair and that that table should go tapping and talking to us by means of an alphabet!”