about the life of
plants. Not only that, I should be met with incredulity and
ridicule--'a woman! a WOMAN dares to assume knowledge superior to
ours!' and so forth. No, no! Let the wise men try their steam air-ships
and spoil the skies by smoke and vapour, so that agriculture becomes
more and more difficult, and sunshine an almost forgotten
benediction!--let them go their own foolish way till they learn wisdom
of themselves--no one could ever teach them what they refuse to learn,
till they tumble into a bog or quicksand of dilemma and have to be
forcibly dragged out."

"By a woman?" hinted Don Aloysius, with a smile.

She shrugged her shoulders carelessly.

"Very often! Marja Sklodowska Curie, for example, has pulled many
scientists out of the mud, but they are not grateful enough to
acknowledge it. One of the greatest women of the age, she is allowed to
remain in comparative obscurity,--even Anatole France, though he called
her a 'genius,' had not the generosity or largeness of mind to praise
her as she deserves. Though, of course, like all really great souls she
is indifferent to praise or blame--the notice of the decadent press,
noisy and vulgar like the beating of the cheap-jack's drum at a country
fair, has no attraction for her. Nothing is known of her private
life,--not a photograph of her is obtainable--she has the lovely
dignity of complete reserve. She is one of my heroines in this
life--she does not offer herself to the cheap journalist like a
milliner's mannequin or a film face. She will not give herself
away--neither will I!"

"But you might benefit the human race"--said Rivardi--"Would not that
thought weigh with you?"

"Not in the least!"--and she smiled--"The human race in its present
condition is 'an unweeded garden, things rank and gross in nature
possess it merely,' and it wants clearing. I have no wish to benefit
it. It has always murdered its benefactors. It deludes itself with the
idea that the universe is for IT alone,--it ignores the fact that there
are many other sharers in its privileges and surroundings--presences
and personalities as real as itself. I am almost a believer in what the
old-time magicians called 'elementals'--especially now."

Don Aloysius rose from his chair and put aside his emptied coffee-cup.
His tall fine figure silhouetted more densely black by the whiteness of
the moon-rays had a singularly imposing effect.

"Why especially now?" he asked, almost imperatively--"W