terical? It is as though something had been poured into one which
was too great, too much for our capacity. It is all true, I believe,
but I don't want it to come."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Oh! It seems somehow," she answered, "as though the whole balance of
life would be disturbed. Of course, I know that it is feasible enough.
For thousands of years men and women lived upon the earth, and never
dreamed that all around them existed a great force which only needed a
little humoring, a little understanding, to do the work of all the
world. Oh, it is easy to understand that we too carry with us some
psychical force corresponding to this! One feels it so often.
Premonitions come and go. We can't tell why, but they are there, and
they are true. One feels that sense at work at strange times.
Experiments have already shown us that it exists. But I wonder what
sort of a place the world will be when once it has yielded itself to
law."

"There has never been a time," Saton said thoughtfully, "when
knowledge has not been for the good of man."

She shook her head.

"I wonder," she said, "whether we realize what is for our good.
Knowledge, development, culture, may reach their zenith and pass
beyond. We may become debauched with the surfeit of these things. The
end and aim of life is happiness."

"The end and aim of life," he contradicted her, "is knowledge."

She laughed.

"I am a woman, you see," she said thoughtfully.

"And am I not a man?" he whispered.

She turned her head and looked at him. The trouble in her eyes
deepened. She felt the color coming and going in her cheeks. His eyes
seemed to stir things in her against which her whole physical self
rebelled. She rose abruptly to her feet.

"I must go," she said. "I have a thousand things to do this evening."

"To play at, you mean," he corrected her. "You don't really do very
much, do you? The women don't in your world."

"You are polite," she answered lightly. "Please to show me the way
out."

"In a moment," he said.

She was inclined to rebel. They had moved a little from the window,
and were standing in a darker part of the room. She felt his fingers
upon her wrist. She would have given the world to have been able to
wrench it away, but she could not. She stood there submissively, her
breath coming quickly, her eyes compelled to meet his.

"Stay for a moment longer," he begged. "I want to talk to you for a
little while about this."

"There is no time