“Yes,” Wanhope admitted after a thoughtful reluctance.
“Even when she is half aware of having invited it?”
“If she is not spoiled she is never aware of having invited it. Take the case in point; we won't mention any names. She is sailing through time, through youthful space, with her electrical lures, the natural equipment of every charming woman, all out, and suddenly, somewhere from the unknown, she feels the shock of a response in the gulfs of air where there had been no life before. But she can't be said to have knowingly searched the void for any presence.”
“Oh, I'm not sure about that, professor,” Minver put in. “Go a little slower, if you expect me to follow you.”
“It's all a mystery, the most beautiful mystery of life,” Wanhope resumed. “I don't believe I could make out the case, as I feel it to be.”
“Braybridge's part of the case is rather plain, isn't it?” I invited him.
“I'm not sure of that. No man's part of any case is plain, if you look at it carefully. The most that you can say of Braybridge is that he is rather a simple nature. But nothing,” the psychologist added with one of his deep breaths, “is so complex as a simple nature.”
“Well,” Minver contended, “Braybridge is plain, if his case isn't.”
“Plain? Is he plain?” Wanhope asked, as if asking himself.
“My dear fellow, you agnostics doubt everything!”