"I must say it looked like it."
"Very well. Is Miss King Mrs. Lorimer, or is she not?"
"I don't know."
"I proved to you yesterday evening that she is. I proved it in a way
that left no possible room for doubt in your mind, if you are honest
with yourself and look facts plainly in the face. I am not going into
the proof again, because it's a very exhausting thing and I've had a
hard day. Besides, if it didn't convince you the first time, it
wouldn't the second. Trains of reasoning aren't like advertisements.
You come to believe that a certain kind of pill will prevent your going
bald because you've seen statements to that effect ten thousand times.
It's the cumulative weight of repeated assertion which compels belief
in that case. But the kind of belief which depends on reasoning is
quite different. If you've the sort of intellect which cannot grasp
the proof which Euclid gives of one of his propositions, no number of
repetitions of it will help you in the least. That's a curious
psychological law, but it is a law. Therefore it would be the merest
waste of time for me to demonstrate to you again that Mrs. Lorimer and
Miss King are the same person.
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