I beg you to leave the room if you cannot address Nurse Ursula in a more respectful manner."
Challenger glared, but the peacemaking Delicia was at work in a moment.
"You are far too hasty, dear Dr. Ross Scotton!" she cried. "Professor Challenger has had no time to understand this. You were just as sceptical yourself at first. How can you blame him?"
"Yes, yes, that is true," said the young doctor. "It seemed to me to open the door to all the quackery in the Universe -- indeed it does, but the fact remains."
"' One thing I know that whereas I was blind now I see'," quoted Miss Delicia. "Ah, Professor, you may raise your eyebrows and shrug your shoulders, but we've dropped something into your big mind this afternoon which will grow and grow until no man can see the end of it." She dived into the bag. "There is a little slip here 'Brain versus Soul'. I do hope, dear Professor, that you will read it and then pass it on."
15. In Which Traps Are Laid For A Great Quarry
MALONE was bound in honour not to speak of love to Enid Challenger, but looks can speak, and so their communications had not broken down completely. In all other ways he adhered closely to the agreement, though the situation was a difficult one. It was the more difficult since he was a constant visitor to the Professor, and now that the irritation of the debate was over, a very welcome one. The one object of Malone's life w as to get the great man's sympathetic consideration of those psychic subjects which had gained such a hold upon himself. This he pursued with assiduity, but also with great caution, for he knew that the lava was thin, and that a fiery explosion was always possible. Once or twice it came and caused Malone to drop the subject for a week or two, until the ground seemed a little more firm.
Malone developed a remarkable cunning in his approaches. One favourite device was to consult Challenger upon some scientific point -- on the zoological importance of the Straits of Banda, for example, or the Insects of the Malay Archipelago, and lead him on until Challenger in due course would explain that our knowledge on the point was due to Alfred Russel Wallace. "Oh, really! To Wallace the Spiritualist!" Malone would say in an innocent voice, on which Challenger would glare and change the topic.
Sometimes it was Lodge that Malone would use as a trap. "I suppose you think highly of him."
"The first brain in Europe," said Challenger.
"He is the greatest authority on ether, is he not?"
"Undoubtedly."
"Of course, I only know him by his psychic works."
Challenger would shut up like a clam. Then Malone would wait a few days and remark casually: "Have you ever met Lombroso!"
"Yes, at the Congress at Milan."
"I have been reading a book of his."
"Criminology, I presume?"
"No, it was called After Death -- What?"
"I have not heard of it."
"It discusses the psychic question."
"Ah, a man of Lombroso's penetrating brain would make short work of the fallacies of these charlatans."
"No, it is written to support them."
"Well, even the greatest mind has its inexplicable weakness."
Thus,with infinite patience and cunning did Malone drop his little drops of reason in the hope of slowly wearing away the casing of prejudice, but no very visible effects could be seen. Some stronger measure must be adopted, and Malone determined upon direct demonstration. But how, when, and where? Those were the all-important points upon which he determined to consult Algernon Mailey. One spring afternoon found him back in that drawing-room where he had once rolled upon the carpet in the embrace of Silas Linden. He found the Reverend Charles Mason, and Smith, the hero of the Queen's Hall debate, in deep consultation with Mailey upon a subject which may seem much more important to our descendants than those topics which now bulk large in the eyes of the public. It was no less than whether the psychic movement in Britain was destined to take a Unitarian or a Trinitarian course. Smith had always been in favour of the former, as had the old leaders of the movement and the present organized Spiritualist Churches.