Part 13

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--”