The Spiritualist Read Online Free PDF Page B

discussed philosophy with my father, or, more often, played chess at the table overlooking the narrow street.
    One night, as I took his white bishop, he smiled and said, “You are damnably good at this for a woman!”
    I smiled back at him. “One of my many skills.”
    “I honestly believe you’re playing to win.”
    “Of course I am. What other reason is there?”
    He moved a pawn. “Well, most women I know would never dare to best a man. Don’t you know we’re supposed to be the superior chess players?”
    “Should I hide my skill then? Even if it meant I was insulting you?”
    “How so?”
    “It would mean I thought you stupid enough to not see I was pretending. And it would mean you were that stupid, for believing a win was your right simply because you’re a man.”
    He laughed. “Oh, I would love to see you among society, Miss Graff. How they would blink!”
    “Somehow I don’t think they’d quite appreciate me.” I glanced at my father, who was across the room, supposedly acting as our chaperone, but so immersed in his book I doubted he would notice if Peter leaned across the table to kiss me, which I could not help wishing he would do. Still, I lowered my voice to keep my father from hearing. “Papa says the upper ten expect their women to be demure and unclever.”
    “I think most of them are. Or at least they pretend to be.”
    “I guess they wouldn’t take to me then. I don’t think I could be demure. Mama says intelligence in a woman frightens men, but I couldn’t abide not being respected for my mind. It’s a terrible flaw, isn’t it? I suppose any man would think so.” I spoke honestly, but nervously too, in the hope that I had not misjudged him, and Peter did not disappoint me. He looked at me with an expression that seemed to light a fire within me.
    “If a man feels threatened by your intellect, it’s his flaw, not yours. I don’t think most of my fellows know how invigorating it is to have a real conversation with a woman instead of listening to her go on about gewgaws.”
    “I don’t even know what a gewgaw is.”
    “You see?” Peter’s smile was broad. “You are a rare creature indeed, Miss Graff. If they could only meet you! I think they’d find you as refreshing as I do.”
    “I hope you still feel that way after I beat you.” I moved my rook into place, lifting the pawn he’d just set there. “Checkmate.”
    His laughter was golden and sweet, and Papa rose and put aside his book and went into the kitchen for a drink of water, and Peter put his hand on mine, and I linked my fingers with his and felt charming and beautiful and alive. Peter made me believe that my ambition and intelligence and desire to be respected were things to appreciate, instead of the faults I knew they were, and as the months passed, I fell in love with him—or at least, I fell in love with who I thought he was. I harbored dreams of him carrying me off to live uptown. I dreamed that what he said was true, that the upper ten would embrace me, that I would charm his family and they would grow to love me, and Peter and I would have children and be romantically in love for the rest of our lives.
    Even clever girls can be fools sometimes. In my heart, I knew those things could never come true, but I grew more and more daring nonetheless. I would touch his hand, or brush against him. I said such outrageously suggestive things that they made me blush even as I said them. All in the hopes that he would suddenly go down on his knee and proclaim his undying love.
    And then, one day, I was coming back from running an errand for my father. It was May, and the days were warm and growing hot. The spring had set my mind into a whirl—the rich perfume of flowers, bees buzzing around pollen-laden stamens, dogs mating in the streets—it seemed the world around me was consummating its love, and I felt bothered and irritable. I was short-tempered and hot as I came hurrying back to the brick building on lower