IX

Celia Howard had been, in a way, Philip's inspiration ever since the

days when they quarreled and made up on the banks of the Deer field. And

a fortunate thing for him it was that in his callow years there was a

woman in whom he could confide. Her sympathy was everything, even if

her advice was not always followed. In the years of student life

and preparation they had not often met, but they were constant and

painstaking correspondents. It was to her that he gave the running

chronicle of his life, and poured out his heart and aspirations.

Unconsciously he was going to school to a woman, perhaps the most

important part of his education. For, though in this way he might never

hope to understand woman, he was getting most valuable knowledge of

himself.

As a guide, Philip was not long in discovering that Celia was somewhat

uncertain. She kept before him a very high ideal; she expected him to be

distinguished and successful, but, her means varied from time to time.

Now she would have him take one path and now another. And Philip learned

to read in this varying advice the changes in her own experience. There

was a time when she hoped he would be a great scholar: there was no

position so noble as that of a university professor or president. Then

she turned short round and extolled the business life: get money, get a

position, and then you can study, write books, do anything you like

and be independent. Then came a time--this was her last year in

college--when science seemed the only thing. That was really a benefit

to mankind: create something, push discovery, dispel ignorance.

“Why, Phil, if you could get people to understand about ventilation, the

necessity of pure air, you would deserve a monument. And, besides--this

is an appeal to your lower nature--science is now the thing that pays.”

Theology she never considered; that was just now too uncertain in its

direction. Law she had finally approved; it was still respectable; it

was a very good waiting-ground for many opportunities, and it did not

absolutely bar him from literature, for which she perceived he had a

sneaking fondness.

Philip wondered if Celia was not thinking of the law for herself. She

had tried teaching, she had devoted herself for a time to work in a

College Settlement, she had learned stenography, she had talked of

learning telegraphy, she had been interested in women's clubs, in a

civic club, in the political education of women, and was now a professor

of economics in a girl's college.

It finally dawned upon Philip, who was plodding along, man fashion, in

one of the old ruts, feeling his way, like a true American, into the

career that best suited him, that Celia might be a type of the awakened

American woman, who does not know exactly what she wants. To be sure,

she wants everything. She has recently come into an open place, and she

is distracted by the many opportunities. She has no sooner taken up

one than she sees another that seems better, or more important in the

development of her sex, and she flies to that. But nothing, long, seems

the best thing. Perhaps men are in the way, monopolizing all the best

things. Celia had never made a suggestion of this kind, but Philip

thought she was typical of the women who push individualism so far as

never to take a dual view of life.

“I have just been,” Celia wrote in one of her letters, when she was

an active club woman, “out West to a convention of the Federation of

Women's Clubs. Such a striking collection of noble, independent women!

Handsome, lots of them, and dressed--oh, my friend, dress is still a

part of it! So different from a man's convention! Cranks? Yes, a few

left over. It was a fine, inspiring meeting. But, honestly, I could not

exactly make out what they were federating about, and what they were

going to do when they got federated. It sort of came over me, I am such

a weak sister, that there is such a lot of work done in this world with

no object except the doing of it.”

A more recent letter:--“Do you remember Aunt Hepsy, who used to keep

the little thread-and-needle and candy shop in Rivervale? Such a dear,

sweet, contented old soul! Always a smile and a good word for every

customer. I can see her now, picking out the biggest piece of candy in

the dish that she could afford to give for a little fellow's cent. It

never came over me until lately how much good that old woman did in the

world. I remember what a comfort it was to go and talk with her. Well, I

am getting into a frame of mind to want to be an Aunt Hepsy. There is

so much sawdust in everything--No, I'm not low-spirited. I'm just

philosophical--I've a mind to write a life of Aunt Hepsy, and let the

world see what a real useful life is.”

And here is a passage from the latest:--“What an interesting story your

friend--I hope he isn't you friend, for I don't half like him--has made

out of that Mavick girl! If I were the girl's mother I should want to

roast him over the coals. Is there any truth in it?

“Of course I read it, as everybody did and read the crawl out, and

looked for more. So it is partly our fault, but what a shame it is,

the invasion of family life! Do tell me, if you happen to see her--the

girl--driving in the Park or anywhere--of course you never will--what

she looks like. I should like to see an unsophisticated millionaire-ess!

But it is an awfully interesting problem, invented or not I'm pretty

deep in psychology these days, and I'd give anything to come in contact

with that girl. You would just see a woman, and you wouldn't know. I'd

see a soul. Dear me, if I'd only had the chance of that Scotch woman!

Don't you see, if we could only get to really know one mind and soul, we

should know it all. I mean scientifically. I know what you are thinking,

that all women have that chance. What you think is impertinent--to the

subject.”

Indeed, the story of Evelyn interested everybody. It was taken up

seriously in the country regions. It absorbed New York gossip for two

days, and then another topic took possession of the mercurial city; but

it was the sort of event to take possession of the country mind. New

York millionaires get more than their share of attention in the country

press at all times, but this romance became the subject of household

talk and church and sewing-circle gossip, and all the women were eager

for more details, and speculated endlessly about the possible character

and career of the girl.

Alice wrote Philip from Rivervale that her aunt Patience was very much

excited by it. “'The poor thing,' she said, 'always to have somebody

poking round, seeing every blessed thing you do or don't do; it would

drive me crazy. There is that comfort in not having anything much--you

have yourself. You tell Philip that I hope he doesn't go there often.

I've no objection to his being kind to the poor thing when they meet,

and doing neighborly things, but I do hope he won't get mixed up with

that set.' It is very amusing,” Alice continued, “to hear Patience

soliloquize about it and construct the whole drama.

“But you cannot say, Philip, that you are not warned (!) and you know

that Patience is almost a prophet in the way she has of putting things

together. Celia was here recently looking after the little house that

has been rented ever since the death of her mother. I never saw her look

so well and handsome, and yet there was a sort of air about her as if

she had been in public a good deal and was quite capable of taking care

of herself. But she was that way when she was little.

“I think she is a good friend of yours. Well, Phil, if you do ever

happen to see that Evelyn in the opera, or anywhere, tell me how she

looks and what she has on--if you can.”

The story had not specially interested Philip, except as it was

connected with Brad's newspaper prospects, but letters, like those

referred to, received from time to time, began to arouse a personal

interest. Of course merely a psychological interest, though the talk

here and there at dinner-tables stimulated his desire, at least, to see

the subject of them. But in this respect he was to be gratified, in the

usual way things desired happen in life--that is, by taking pains to

bring them about.

When Mr. Brad came back from his vacation his manner had somewhat

changed. He had the air of a person who stands on firm ground. He felt

that he was a personage. He betrayed this in a certain deliberation of

speech, as if any remark from him now might be important. In a way he

felt himself related to public affairs.

In short, he had exchanged the curiosity of the reporter for the

omniscience of the editor. And for a time Philip was restrained from

intruding the subject of the Mavick sensation. However, one day after

dinner he ventured:

“I see, Mr. Brad, that your hit still attracts attention.” Mr. Brad

looked inquiringly blank.

“I mean about the millionaire heiress. It has excited a wide interest.”

“Ah, that! Yes, it gave me a chance,” replied Brad, who was thinking

only of himself.

“I've had several letters about it from the country.”

“Yes? Well, I suppose,” said Brad, modestly, “that a little country

notoriety doesn't hurt a person.”

Philip did not tell his interlocutor that, so far as he knew, nobody in

the country had ever heard the name of Olin Brad, or knew there was such

a person in existence. But he went on:

“Certainly. And, besides, there is a great curiosity to know about the

girl. Did you ever see her?”

“Only in public. I don't know Mavick personally, and for reasons,” and

Mr. Brad laughed in a superior manner. “It's easy enough to see her.”

“How?”

“Watch out for a Wagner night, and go to the opera. You'll see where

Mavick's box is in the bill. She is pretty sure to be there, and her

mother. There is nothing special about her; but her mother is still

a very fascinating woman, I can tell you. You'll find her sure on a

'Carmen' night, but not so sure of the girl.”

On this suggestion Philip promptly acted. The extra expense of an

orchestra seat he put down to his duty to keep his family informed of

anything that interested them in the city. It was a “Siegfried” night,

and a full house. To describe it all would be very interesting to Alice.

The Mavick box was empty until the overture was half through. Then

appeared a gentleman who looked as if he were performing a public duty,

a lady who looked as if she were receiving a public welcome, and seated

between them a dark, slender girl, who looked as if she did not see the

public at all, but only the orchestra.

Behind them, in the shadow, a middle-aged woman in plainer attire. It

must be the Scotch governess. Mrs. Mavick had her eyes everywhere about

the house, and was graciously bowing to her friends. Mr. Mavick coolly

and unsympathetically regarded the house, quite conscious of it, but

as if he were a little bored. You could not see him without being aware

that he was thinking of other things, probably of far-reaching schemes.

People always used to say of Mavick, when he was young and a clerk in a

Washington bureau, that he looked omniscient. At least the imagination

of spectators invested him with a golden hue, and regarded him through

the roseate atmosphere that surrounds a many-millioned man. The girl had

her eyes always on the orchestra, and was waiting for the opening of

the world that lay behind the drop-curtain. Philip noticed that all the

evening Mrs. Mavick paid very little attention to the stage, except when

the rest of the house was so dark that she could distinguish little in

it.

Fortunately for Philip, in his character of country reporter, the Mavick

box was near the stage, and he could very well see what was going on

in it, without wholly distracting his attention from Wagner's sometimes

very dimly illuminated creation.

There are faces and figures that compel universal attention and

admiration. Commonly there is one woman in a theatre at whom all glances

are leveled. It is a mystery why one face makes only an individual

appeal, and an appeal much stronger than that of one universally

admired. The house certainly concerned itself very little about the shy

and dark heiress in the Mavick box, having with regard to her only a

moment's curiosity. But the face instantly took hold of Philip. He found

it more interesting to read the play in her face than on the stage. He

seemed instantly to have established a chain of personal sympathy with

her. So intense was his regard that it seemed as if she must, if there

is anything in the telepathic theory of the interchange of feeling,

have been conscious of it. That she was, however, unconscious of any

influence reaching her except from the stage was perfectly evident.

She was absorbed in the drama, even when the drama was almost lost in

darkness, and only an occasional grunting ejaculation gave evidence that

there was at least animal life responsive to the continual pleading,

suggesting, inspiring strains of the orchestra. In the semi-gloom

and groping of the under-world, it would seem that the girl felt that

mystery of life which the instruments were trying to interpret.

At any rate, Philip could see that she was rapt away into that other

world of the past, to a practical unconsciousness of her immediate

surroundings. Was it the music or the poetic idea that held her? Perhaps

only the latter, for it is Wagner's gift to reach by his creations

those who have little technical knowledge of music. At any rate, she was

absorbed, and so perfectly was the progress of the drama repeated in her

face that Philip, always with the help of the orchestra, could trace it

there.

But presently something more was evident to this sympathetic student

of her face. She was not merely discovering the poet's world, she was

finding out herself. As the drama unfolded, Philip was more interested

in this phase than in the observation of her enjoyment and appreciation.

To see her eyes sparkle and her cheeks glow with enthusiasm during the

sword-song was one thing, but it was quite another when Siegfried began

his idyl, that nature and bird song of the awakening of the whole being

to the passion of love. Then it was that Evelyn's face had a look

of surprise, of pain, of profound disturbance; it was suffused with

blushes, coming and going in passionate emotion; the eyes no longer

blazed, but were softened in a melting tenderness of sympathy, and her

whole person seemed to be carried into the stream of the great life

passion. When it ceased she sank back in her seat, and blushed still

more, as if in fear that some one had discovered her secret.

Afterwards, when Philip had an opportunity of knowing Evelyn Mavick, and

knowing her very well, and to some extent having her confidence, he used

to say to himself that he had little to learn--the soul of the woman was

perfectly revealed to him that night of “Siegfried.”

As the curtain went down, Mrs. Mavick, whose attention had not been

specially given to the artists before, was clapping her hands in a great

state of excitement.

“Why don't you applaud, child?”

“Oh, mother,” was all the girl could say, with heaving breast and

downcast eyes.

X

All winter long that face seemed to get between Philip and his work. It

was an inspiration to his pen when it ran in the way of literature,

but a distinct damage to progress in his profession. He had seen Evelyn

again, more than once, at the opera, and twice been excited by a passing

glimpse of her on a crisp, sunny afternoon in the Mavick carriage in

the Park-always the same bright, eager face. So vividly personal was

the influence upon him that it seemed impossible that she should not be

aware of it--impossible that she could not know there was such a person

in the world as Philip Burnett.

Fortunately youth can create its own world. Between the secluded

daughter of millions and the law clerk was a great gulf, but this did

not prevent Evelyn's face, and, in moments of vanity, Evelyn herself,

from belonging to Philip's world. He would have denied--we have a habit

of lying to ourselves quite as much as to others--that he ever dreamed

of possessing her, but nevertheless she entered into his thoughts and

his future in a very curious way. If he saw himself a successful lawyer,

her image appeared beside him. If his story should gain the public

attention, and his occasional essays come to be talked of, it was

Evelyn's interest and approval that he caught himself thinking about.

And he had a conviction that she was one to be much more interested

in him as a man of letters than as a lawyer. This might be true. In

Philip's story, which was very slowly maturing, the heroine fell in love

with a young man simply for himself, and regardless of the fact that he

was poor and had his career to make. But he knew that if his novel ever

got published the critics would call it a romance, and not a transcript

of real life. Had not women ceased to be romantic and ceased to indulge

in vagaries of affection?

Was it that Philip was too irresolute to cut either law or literature,

and go in, single-minded, for a fortune of some kind, and a place? Or

was it merely that he had confidence in the winning character of his

own qualities and was biding his time? If it was a question of making

himself acceptable to a woman--say a woman like Evelyn--was it not

belittling to his own nature to plan to win her by what he could make

rather than by what he was?

Probably the vision he had of Evelyn counted for very little in his

halting decision. “Why don't you put her into a novel?” asked Mr. Brad

one evening. The suggestion was a shock. Philip conveyed the idea pretty

plainly that he hadn't got so low as that yet. “Ah, you fellows think

you must make your own material. You are higher-toned than old Dante.”

The fact was that Philip was not really halting. Every day he was

less and less in love with the law as it was practiced, and, courting

reputation, he would much rather be a great author than a great lawyer.

But he kept such thoughts to himself. He had inherited a very good stock

of common-sense. Apparently he devoted himself to his office work, and

about the occupation of his leisure hours no one was in his confidence

except Celia, and now and then, when he got something into print, Alice.

Professedly Celia was his critic, but really she was the necessary

appreciator, for probably most writers would come to a standstill if

there was no sympathetic soul to whom they could communicate, while they

were fresh, the teeming fancies of their brains.

The winter wore along without any incident worth recording, but still

fruitful for the future, as Philip fondly hoped. And one day chance

threw in his way another sensation. Late in the afternoon of a spring

day he was sent from the office to Mavick's house with a bundle of

papers to be examined and signed.

“You will be pretty sure to find him,” said Mr. Sharp, “at home about

six. Wait till you do see him. The papers must be signed and go to

Washington by the night mail.”

Mr. Mavick was in his study, and received Philip very civilly, as the

messenger of his lawyers, and was soon busy in examining the documents,

flinging now and then a short question to Philip, who sat at the table

near him.

Suddenly there was a tap at the door, and, not waiting for a summons, a

young girl entered, and stopped after a couple of steps.

“Oh, I didn't know--”

“What is it, dear?” said Mr. Mavick, looking up a moment, and then down

at the papers.

“Why, about the coachman's baby. I thought perhaps--” She had a paper in

her hand, and advanced towards the table, and then stopped, seeing that

her father was not alone.

Philip rose involuntarily. Mr. Mavick looked up quickly. “Yes,

presently. I've just now got a little business with Mr. Burnett.”

It was not an introduction. But for an instant the eyes of the young

people met. It seemed to Philip that it was a recognition. Certainly the

full, sweet eyes were bent on him for the second she stood there, before

turning away and leaving the room. And she looked just as true and sweet

as Philip dreamed she would look at home. He sat in a kind of maze

for the quarter of an hour while Mavick was affixing his signature and

giving some directions. He heard all the directions, and carried away

the papers, but he also carried away something else unknown to the

broker. After all, he found himself reflecting, as he walked down the

avenue, the practice of the law has its good moments!

What was there in this trivial incident that so magnified it in

Philip's mind, day after day? Was it that he began to feel that he had

established a personal relation with Evelyn because she had seen him?

Nothing had really happened. Perhaps she had not heard his name, perhaps

she did not carry the faintest image of him out of the room with her.

Philip had read in romances of love at first sight, and he had personal

experience of it. Commonly, in romances, the woman gives no sign of it,

does not admit it to herself, denies it in her words and in her conduct,

and never owns it until the final surrender. “When was the first moment

you began to love me, dear?” “Why, the first moment, that day; didn't

you know it then?” This we are led to believe is common experience with

the shy and secretive sex. It is enough, in a thousand reported cases,

that he passed her window on horseback, and happened to look her way.

But with such a look! The mischief was done. But this foundation was too

slight for Philip to build such a hope on.

Looking back, we like to trace great results to insignificant, momentary

incidents--a glance, a word, that turned the current of a life. There

was a definite moment when the thought came to Alexander that he

would conquer the world! Probably there was no such moment. The great

Alexander was restless, and at no initial instant did he conceive his

scheme of conquest. Nor was it one event that set him in motion. We

confound events with causes. It happened on such a day. Yes, but it

might have happened on another. But if Philip had not been sent on that

errand to Mavick probably Evelyn would never have met him. What

nonsense this is, and what an unheroic character it makes Philip! Is it

supposable that, with such a romance as he had developed about the girl,

he would not some time have come near her, even if she had been locked

up with all the bars and bolts of a safety deposit?

The incident of this momentary meeting was, however, of great

consequence. There is no such feeder of love as the imagination. And

fortunate it was for Philip that his romance was left to grow in the

wonder-working process of his own mind. At first there had been merely

a curiosity in regard to a person whose history and education had been

peculiar. Then the sight of her had raised a strange tumult in his

breast, and his fancy began to play about her image, seen only at a

distance and not many times, until his imagination built up a being of

surpassing loveliness, and endowed with all the attractions that the

poets in all ages have given to the sex that inspires them. But this

sort of creation in the mind becomes vague, and related to literature

only, unless it is sustained by some reality. Even Petrarch must

occasionally see Laura at the church door, and dwell upon the veiled

dreamer that passed and perhaps paused a moment to regard him with sad

eyes. Philip, no doubt, nursed a genuine passion, which grew into an

exquisite ideal in the brooding of a poetic mind, but it might in

time have evaporated into thin air, remaining only as an emotional and

educational experience. But this moment in Mr. Mavick's library had

given a solid body to his imaginations, and a more definite turn to his

thought of her.

If, in some ordinary social chance, Philip had encountered the heiress,

without this previous wonderworking of his imagination in regard to

her, the probability is that he would have seen nothing especially to

distinguish her from the other girls of her age and newness in social

experience. Certainly the thought that she was the possessor of

uncounted millions would have been, on his side, an insuperable barrier

to any advance. But the imagination works wonders truly, and Philip

saw the woman and not the heiress. She had become now a distinct

personality; to be desired above all things on earth, and that he should

see her again he had no doubt.

This thought filled his mind, and even when he was not conscious of

it gave a sort of color to life, refined his perceptions, and gave him

almost sensuous delight in the masterpieces of poetry which had formerly

appealed only to his intellectual appreciation of beauty.

He had not yet come to a desire to share his secret with any confidant,

but preferred to be much alone and muse on it, creating a world which

was without evil, without doubt, undisturbed by criticism. In this so

real dream it was the daily office work that seemed unreal, and the

company and gossip of his club a kind of vain show. He began to frequent

the picture-galleries, where there was at least an attempt to express

sentiment, and to take long walks to the confines of the city-confines

fringed with all the tender suggestions of the opening spring. Even the

monotonous streets which he walked were illumined in his eyes, glorified

by the fullness of life and achievement. “Yes,” he said again and again,

as he stood on the Heights, in view of the river, the green wall of

Jersey and the great metropolis spread away to the ocean gate, “it is a

beautiful city! And the critics say it is commonplace and vulgar.”

Dear dreamer, it is a beautiful city, and for one reason and another a

million of people who have homes there think so. But take out of it one

person, and it would have for you no more interest than any other

huge assembly of ugly houses. How, in a lover's eyes, the woman can

transfigure a city, a landscape, a country!

Celia had come up to town for the spring exhibitions, and was lodging at

the Woman's Club. Naturally Philip saw much of her, indeed gave her all

his time that the office did not demand. Her company was always for him

a keen delight, an excitement, and in its way a rest. For though

she always criticised, she did not nag, and just because she made no

demands, nor laid any claims on him, nor ever reproached him for want of

devotion, her society was delightful and never dull. They dined together

at the Woman's Club, they experimented on the theatres, they visited the

galleries and the picture-shops, they took little excursions into

the suburbs and came back impressed with the general cheapness and

shabbiness, and they talked--talked about all they saw, all they had

read, and something of what they thought. What was wanting to make this

charming camaraderie perfect? Only one thing.

It may have occurred to Philip that Celia had not sufficient respect for

his opinions; she regarded them simply as opinions, not as his.

One afternoon, in the Metropolitan Picture-Gallery, Philip had been

expressing enthusiasm for some paintings that Celia thought more

sentimental than artistic, and this reminded her that he was getting

into a general way of admiring everything.

“You didn't use, Philip, to care so much for pictures.”

“Oh, I've been seeing more.”

“But you don't say you like that? Look at the drawing.”

“Well, it tells the story.”

“A story is nothing; it's the way it's told. This is not well told.”

“It pleases me. Look at that girl.”

“Yes, she is domestic. I admit that. But I'm not sure I do not prefer

an impressionistic girl, whom you can't half see, to such a thorough

bread-and-butter miss as this.”

“Which would you rather live with?”

“I'm not obliged to live with either. In fact, I'd rather live with

myself. If it's art, I want art; if it's cooking and sewing, I want

cooking and sewing. If the artist knew enough, he'd paint a woman

instead of a cook.”

“Then you don't care for real life?”

“Real life! There is no such thing. You are demonstrating that. You

transform this uninteresting piece of domesticity into an ideal woman,

ennobling her surroundings. She doesn't do it. She is level with them.”

“It would be a dreary world if we didn't idealize things.”

“So it would. And that is what I complain of in such 'art' as this. I

don't know what has got into you, Phil. I never saw you so exuberant.

You are pleased with everything. Have you had a rise in the office? Have

you finished your novel?”

“Neither. No rise. No novel. But Tweedle is getting friendly. Threw

an extra job in my way the other day. Do you think I'd better offer my

novel, when it is done, to Tweedle?”

“Tweedle, indeed!”

“Well, one of our clients is one of the great publishing firms, and

Tweedle often dines with the publisher.”

“For shame, Phil!”

Philip laughed. “At any rate, that is no meaner than a suggestion of

Brad's. He says if I will just weave into it a lot of line scenery, and

set my people traveling on the great trunk, stopping off now and then at

an attractive branch, the interested railroads would gladly print it and

scatter it all over the country.”

“No doubt,” said Celia, sinking down upon a convenient seat. “I begin to

feel as if there were no protection for anything. And, Phil, that great

monster of a Mavick, who is eating up the country, isn't he a client

also?”

“Occasionally only. A man like Mavick has his own lawyers and judges.”

“Did you ever see him?”

“Just glimpses.”

“And that daughter of his, about whom such a fuss was made, I suppose

you never met her?”

“Oh, as I wrote you, at the opera; saw her in her box.”

“And--?”

“Oh, she's rather a little thing; rather dark, I told you that; seems

devoted to music.”

“And you didn't tell what she wore.”

“Why, what they all wear. Something light and rather fluffy.”

“Just like a man. Is she pretty?”

“Ye-e-s; has that effect. You'd notice her eyes.” If Philip had been

frank he would have answered,

“I don't know. She's simply adorable,” and Celia would have understood

all about it.

“And probably doesn't know anything. Yes, highly educated? I heard that.

But I'm getting tired of 'highly educated'; I see so many of them. I've

been making them now for years. Perhaps I'm one of them. And where am

I? Don't interrupt. I tell you it is a relief to come across a sweet,

womanly ignoramus. What church does she go to?”

“Who?”

“That Mavick girl.”

“St. Thomas', I believe.”

“That's good--that's devotional. I suppose you go there too, being

brought up a Congregationalist?”

“At vespers, sometimes. But, Celia, what is the matter with you? I

thought you didn't care--didn't care to belong to anything?”

“I? I belong to everything. Didn't I write you reams about my studies in

psychology? I've come to one conclusion. There are only two persons in

the world who stand on a solid foundation, the Roman Catholic and the

Agnostic. The Roman Catholic knows everything, the Agnostic doesn't know

anything.”

Philip was never certain when the girl was bantering him; nor, when she

was in earnest, how long she would remain in that mind and mood. So he

ventured, humorously:

“The truth is, Celia, that you know too much to be either. You are what

they call emancipated.”

“Emancipated!” And Celia sat up energetically, as if she were now really

interested in the conversation. “Become the slave of myself instead

of the slave of somebody else! That's the most hateful thing to be,

emancipated. I never knew a woman who said she was emancipated who

wasn't in some ridiculous folly or another. Now, Phil, I'm going to tell

you something. I can tell you. You know I've been striving to have a

career, to get out of myself somehow, and have a career for myself.

Well, today--mind, I don't say tomorrow”--(and there was a queer little

smile on her lips)--“I think I will just try to be good to people and

things in general, in a human way.”

“And give up education?”

“No, no. I get my living by education, just as you do, or hope to do, by

law or by letters; it's all the same. But wait. I haven't finished what

I was going to say. The more I go into psychology, trying to find out

about my mind and mind generally, the more mysterious everything is. Do

you know, Phil, that I'm getting into the supernatural? You can't help

running into it. For me, I am not side-tracked by any of the nonsense

about magnetism and telepathy and mind-reading and other psychic

imponderabilities. Isn't it queer that the further we go into science

the deeper we go into mystery?

“Now, don't be shocked, I mean it reverently, just as an illustration.

Do you think any one knows really anything more about the operation in

the world of electricity than he does about the operation of the Holy

Ghost? And yet people talk about science as if it were something they

had made themselves.”

“But, Celia--”

“No, I've talked enough. We are in this world and not in some other, and

I have to make my living. Let's go into the other room and see the

old masters. They, at least, knew how to paint--to paint passion and

character; some of them could paint soul. And then, Phil, I shall be

hungry. Talking about the mind always makes me hungry.”