.
But I had a tragic awakening...." She bent her head and quoted softly,
"'For the former things have passed away.'"

The orange ice was melting; she stirred it idly, watching it
dissolve.

"No," she said, "I had utterly misunderstood the scheme of things.
Divinity is not a sad, a solemn, a solitary autocrat demanding selfish
tribute, blind allegiance, inexorable self-abasement. It is not an
insecure tyrant offering bribery for the cringing, frightened
servitude demanded."

She looked up smilingly at the man: "Nor, within us, is there any soul
in the accepted meaning,--no satellite released at death to revolve
around or merge into some super-divinity. No!

"For I believe,--I _know_--that the body--every one's body--is
inhabited by a complete god, immortal, retaining its divine entity,
beholden to no other deity save only itself, and destined to encounter
in a divine democracy and through endless futures, unnumbered brother
gods--the countless divinities which have possessed and shall possess
those tenements of mankind which we call our bodies.... You do not, of
course, subscribe to such a faith," she added, meeting his gaze.

"Well----" He hesitated. She said:

"Autocracy in heaven is as unthinkable, as unbelievable, and as
obnoxious to me as is autocracy on earth. There is no such thing as
divine right, here or elsewhere,--no divine prerogatives for tyranny,
for punishment, for cruelty."

"How did you happen to embrace such a faith?" he asked, bewildered.

"I was sick of the scheme of things. Suffering, cruelty, death
outraged my common sense. It is not in me to say, 'Thy will be done,'
to any autocrat, heavenly or earthly. It is not in me to fawn on the
hand that strikes me--or that strikes any helpless thing! No! And the
scheme of things sickened me, and I nearly died of it----"

She clenched her hand where it rested on the table, and he saw her
face flushed and altered by the fire within. Then she smiled and
leaned back in her chair.

"In you," she said gaily, "dwells a god. In me a goddess,--a joyous
one,--a divine thing that laughs,--a complete and free divinity that
is gay and tender, that is incapable of tyranny, that loves all things
both, great and small, that exists to serve--freely, not for
reward--that owes allegiance and obedience only to the divine and
eternal law within its own godhead. And that law is the law of
love.... And that is my substitute for the scheme of things. Could you
subscri