Page:Across the Stream.djvu/149

Rh something outside myself made me write. Baldly stated, it was Martin who spoke to my subconscious self, and my subconscious self said to my conscious self, 'Take a pencil and write.' I know that is so."

Once again Jessie had to anchor herself against this current running out to sea. There was Archie sitting opposite her, large and brown and hungry, talking of things which were altogether fantastic, unless they were dangerous. And somehow, they were not either fantastic or dangerous to him; they were as ordinary as the cherry-jam which he was so profusely eating. She had suddenly come on a great undiscovered tract of country, dubious and full of dangers.

"I dislike it all," she said. "I'm too ordinary, I suppose, my—my subconscious self doesn't act, you would say. But what proof is there that there is such a thing as the subconscious self? Why should I suppose that there is anything of the sort? I have no reason to suppose it. It is all nonsense."

Archie laughed.

"My dear Jessie," he said, "you are arguing not with me but with yourself. You have an uneasy conviction that I am right."

"Not a bit," she said. "I want a proof."

Archie rubbed his hand over his head.

"I wonder how I can give it you most easily," he said. "Of course there are lots of ways, though it is quite a long time since I have practised any of them."

He thought for a moment.

"Well, here's one," he said. "The subconscious self—to talk more nonsense, as you say is practically unlimited by the material laws of the world. It is a sort of X-ray, a sort of wireless.… I can set my subconscious self to work, and I will, to prove its existence to you."

His voice sank a little, and Jessie saw that his eyes