cars, looking like magnified beetles, with bulging eyes of fire, went
swiftly by. The pavements were almost deserted when they reached the
park. He felt as if hypnotized, and once, rather meanly, was glad that
no one saw him in company of his dowdy companion.

"I wonder if you realize that we do not know each other's name," he
said.

"Oh, yes. You are Mr. Baldur. My name is Mrs. Lilith Whistler."

"Mrs. Whistler. Not the medium?"

"The medium--as you call it. In reality I am only a woman, happy, or
unhappy, in the possession of super-normal powers."

"Not supernatural, then?" he interposed. He was a sceptic who called
himself agnostic. The mystery of earth and heaven might be interpreted,
but always in terms of science; yet he did not fancy the superior manner
in which this charlatan flouted the supernatural. He had heard of her
miracles--and doubted them. She gave a little laugh at his correction.

"What phrase-jugglers you men are! You want all the splendours of the
Infinite thrown in with the price of admission! I said super-normal,
because we know of nothing greater than nature. Things that are off the
beaten track of the normal, across the frontiers, some call
supernatural; but it is their ignorance of the vast, unexplored
territory of the spirit--which is only the material masquerading in a
different guise."

"But you go to church, to a Lenten service--?" It was as if he had known