“You know, of course, that I have been prepared for your arrival here,”—­he said—­“by one of my students, Rafel Santoris.  He has been seeking you for a long time, but now he has found you he is hardly better off—­for you are a rebellious child and unwilling to recognise him—­is it not so?”

I felt a little more courageous now, and answered him at once.

“I am not unwilling to recognise any true thing,” I said—­“But I do not wish to be deceived—­or to deceive myself.”

He smiled.

“Do you not?  How do you know that you have not been deceiving yourself ever since your gradual evolvement from subconscious into conscious life?  Nature has not deceived you—­Nature always takes herself seriously—­but you—­have you not tried in various moods or phases of existence, to do something cleverer than Nature?—­to more or less outwit her as it were?  Come, come!—­don’t look so puzzled about it!—­you have only done what all so-called ‘reasonable’ human beings do, and think themselves justified in doing.  But now, in your present state,—­which is an advancement, and not a retrogression,—­ you have begun to gain a little wider knowledge, with a little deeper humility—­and I am inclined to have great patience with you!”

I raised my eyes and was reassured by his kindly glance.

“Now, to begin with,”—­he went on—­“you should know at once that we do not receive women here.  It is against our rule and Order.  We are not prepared for them,—­we do not want them.  They are never more than half souls!”

My heart gave an indignant bound,—­but I held my peace.  He looked straight at me, while with one hand he put together a few stray papers on his desk.

“Well, why do you not give me the obvious answer?” he queried—­“Why do you not say that if women are half souls, men are the same,—­and that the two halves must conjoin to make one?  Foolish child!—­you need not burn with suppressed offence at what sounds a slighting description of your sex—­it is not meant as such.  You are half souls,—­and the chief trouble with you is that you seldom have the sense to see it, or to make any endeavour to form the perfect and indivisible union,—­a sacred task which is left in your hands.  Nature is for ever working to bring the right halves together,—­man is for ever striving to scatter them apart—­and though it all comes right at the last, as it must, there is no need for delay involving either months or centuries.  You women were meant to be the angels of salvation, but instead of this you are the ruin of your own ‘ideals.’”

I could offer no contradiction to this, for I felt it to be true.

“As I have just said,” he went on—­“this is no place for women.  The mere idea that you should imagine yourself, capable of submitting to the ordeal of a student here is, on the face of it, incredible.  Only for Rafel’s sake have I consented to see you and explain to you how impossible it is that you should remain—­”