All this was very shocking to Victor. Utterly disconcerted and unable to confront her at the moment, he left the room. The whole problem of her mental condition, the central kernel of her philosophy was involved in that one whisper. To solve that was to solve it all. It was not so much a question of how she did it, it was a question of her right to deceive him. He seized the time between tea and dinner to return to the library. For an hour he dug into the spongy soil of metaphysics, and it happened that he fell at last upon the Crookes and Zollner experiments (quoted at greater length in a volume of collected experience) and found there clear and direct testimony as to the mind's mastery of matter. There was abundant evidence of the handling of fire by the medium Home, and Slade's ability to float in the air was attested by well-known witnesses, but beyond this and closer to his own day, he came upon a detailed study of an Italian psychic with her "supernumerary hands," a story which should have made the materialization of a letter seem very simple. But it did not. All the testimony of these great men, abundant as it was, slid from his mind as harmlessly as water from oiled silk. Apparently, it failed to alter the texture of his thought in the slightest degree. His world was the world of youth, the good old wholesome, stable world, and he refused to be convinced. At dinner he was angered, in spite of Leo's presence, by his mother's returning confidence and ease of manner. His own position had been weakened, he felt, by his acquiescence in the sitting. His desire to satisfy himself, to solve his mother's mystery, had led him to abandon his stern resolution--and he regretted it. He ate sparingly and took no wine, being resolved to retain a perfectly clear head for the evening's experiment. He was grateful to Leo for keeping the talk on subjects of general interest, even though he had little part in it, and his liking for her deepened. As he neared the test he began to sharply realize that for the first time in all his life he was about to take part in one of his mother's hated "performances," and his breath was troubled by the excitement of it. "I will make this test conclusive," he said to himself, and his jaw squared. "There will be no nonsense to-night." The papers of the day had remained free from any further allusion to "the Spiritual Blood-Suckers," and it really seemed as if the cloud might be lifting, and this consideration made his participation in the sitting all the more like a return to a lower and less defensible position. He was irritated by the methodical action with which his mother proceeded to set the stage for her farce. Wood, who seemed quite at home, assisted in these preparations, leaving Victor leaning in sullen silence against the wall.