MALONE sat at the side table of the smoking-room of the Literary Club. He had Enid’s impressions of the séance before him—very subtle and observant they were—and he was endeavouring to merge¹ them in his own experience. A group of men were smoking and chatting round the fire. This did not disturb the journalist, who found, as many do, that his brain and his pen worked best sometimes when they were stimulated² by the knowledge that he was part of a busy world. Presently, however, somebody who observed his presence brought the talk round to psychic³ subjects, and then it was more difficult for him to remain aloof⁴. He leaned back in his chair and listened.

 

Polter, the famous novelist, was there, a brilliant man with a subtle mind, which he used too often to avoid obvious truth and to defend some impossible position for the sake of the empty dialectic exercise. He was holding forth⁵ now to an admiring, but not entirely⁶ a subservient⁷ audience.

 

“Science,” said he, “is gradually sweeping⁸ the world clear of all these old cobwebs of superstition⁹. The world was like some old, dusty attic¹⁰, and the sun of science is bursting in, flooding it with light, while the dust settles gradually to the floor.”

 

“By science,” said someone maliciously¹¹, “you mean,{78} of course, men like Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver

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