"You are Miss Linster?" he asked, smiling agreeably.
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
"You attended the first of my Prismatic Hall lectures ten days ago?... I seldom forget a face, and I remember asking one of my committee your name."
Paula found it rather a unique effort to hold in mind the truth that she had never spoken to this man before. Then the whole trend of her mental activity was suddenly complicated by the thought that all her past terrors might be groundless. Possibly Madame Nestor was insane on this subject. "It may be that her mad words and my stimulated imagination have reared a monster that has no actuality."
The bracing voices of the children, the brilliance of mid-forenoon, the man's kingly figure, agreeable courtesy, and commanding health—indeed, apart from the eyes in which she hardly dared to glance, there was nothing to connect him even vaguely with the sinister persecutions which bore his image. The whole world-mind was with him. What right had she to say that the world-mind was in error and she normal—she and the unreckonable Madame Nestor?... Paula recalled the strange intensity of her mental life for years, and the largeness of her solitudes. The world-mind would say she was beside herself from much study.... More than all, no power was exerted upon her now. Who would believe that this Bellingham, with miles of the metropolis between them, had repeatedly over-ridden her volition, when she felt no threatening influence at the present moment, almost within his reach—only the innate repulsion and the fear of her fears?
"I hope to see you again at the meetings, Miss Linster."
"They do not attract me."
"That is important, if unpleasant to learn," he remarked, as if genuinely perturbed. "I have been studying for a long time, and perhaps I have taken a roundabout road to discovery. It is quite possible that the values of my instruction are over-estimated by many.... Do you mind if I sit down a moment? I have walked a hundred squares and will start back from here." From his manner it was impossible to imagine irony covert in his humbleness.
"Certainly not, though I must return to my apartment in a moment.... I did not like the atmosphere—the audience—that first night," Paula added.
"Nor did I, altogether," he said quickly. "But how can one choose the real, if all are not admitted at first? With each lecture you will find a more select company, and there will be very few when the actual message is unfolded."