“Well, now,” said the unabashed Embro, “I’ll tell you what I think.  Here’s a story”—­Julius at that instant handed back the paper to him—­“of a healthy young woman mesmerised, hypnotised, or somnambulised, or whatever you like to call it, in the public street, by some man that casually comes up to her, and her brain so affected that her memory goes!  I say it’s inconceivable!—­impossible!” And he slapped the paper down on the table.

The others looked on with grim satisfaction at the prospect of an argument between the two representatives of rival schools; and it was noteworthy that, as they looked, they turned a referring glance on Courtney, as if it were a foregone conclusion that he must be the final arbiter.  He, however, sat abstracted, with his eyes on the floor, and with one hand propping his chin and the other drumming on the arm of his chair.

“I’m not a scientific man,” said the journalist who was not an Art critic, “and I am not prejudiced either way about this story; but it seems to me, Embro, that you view the thing through a very ordinary fallacy, and make a double mistake.  You confound the relatively inconceivable with the absolutely impossible:  this story is relatively inconceivable to you, and therefore you say it is absolutely impossible.”

“Is there such a thing as an absolute impossibility?” murmured Julius, who still sat with his chin in his hand, looking as if he considered the “thing” from a long way off as one of a multitude of other things.

“I do not believe there is,” said the journalist; “but—­”

“Don’t let us lose ourselves in metaphysics,” broke in Embro.  Then, turning to Courtney, whose direct intelligent gaze seemed to disconcert him, he said, “Now, Julius, you’ve seen, I daresay, a good many things we have not seen,—­have you ever seen or known a case like this we’re talking about?”

“I can’t say I have,” said Julius.

“There you are!” quoth Embro, in triumph.

“But,” continued Julius, “I don’t therefore nail that case down as false.”

“Do you mean to say,” exclaimed Embro, “that you have lived all your years, and studied science at the Salpetriere,—­or what they call science there,—­and studied and seen God knows what else besides, and you can’t pronounce an opinion from all you know on a case of this sort?”

“Oh yes,” said Julius, quietly, “I can pronounce an opinion; but what’s the use of that?  I think that case is true, but I don’t know that it is; and therefore I can’t argue about it, for argument should come from knowledge, and I have none.  I have a few opinions, and I am always ready to receive impressions; but, besides some schoolboy facts that are common property, the only thing I know—­I am certain of—­is, as some man says, ‘Life’s a dream worth dreaming.’”

“You’re too high-falutin for me, Julius,” said Embro, shaking his head.  “But my opinion, founded on my knowledge, is that this story is a hallucination of the young woman’s noddle!”