“Would you care to see Yulun?” she asked.
“Well—no,” he said, startled. “I—I shall not deny that such things worry me a lot, Mrs. Cleves. I’m a—an Episcopalian.”
The tension released, Selden was the first to laugh.
“There’s no use blinking the truth,” he said; “we’re up against something absolutely new. Of course, it isn’t magic. It can, of course, be explained by natural laws about which we happen to know nothing at present.”
Recklow nodded. “What do we know about the human mind? It has been proven that no thought can originate within that mass of convoluted physical matter called the brain. It has been proven that something outside the brain originates thought and uses the brain as a vehicle to incubate it. What do we know about thought?”
Selden, much interested, sat cogitating and looking at Mrs. Cleves. But Benton, still flushed and evidently nervous, sat staring out of the window at the full moon, and twisting an unlighted cigarette to shreds.
“Why didn’t you tell Benton when the thing occurred down there at Orchid Lodge, the night we called to say good-bye?” asked Selden, curiously.
Tressa gave him a distressed smile: “I was afraid he wouldn’t believe me. And I was afraid that you and Mr. Recklow, even if you believed it, might not like—like me any the better for—for being clairvoyant.”
Recklow came over, bent his handsome grey head, and kissed her hand.
“I never liked any woman better, nor respected any woman as deeply,” he said. And, lifting his head, he saw tears sparkling in her eyes.