“Something to say, I suppose; or at least the desire to define and illuminate ... from one’s own point of view, of course.” “Then why ... Julian?” Something in the way she said the name convinced me she had forgotten who he was if she had ever known. “The apostasy; the last stand of paganism against Christianity.” She looked truly interested, for the first time. “They killed him, didn’t they?” “No, he died in battle. Had he lived longer he might at least have kept the Empire divided between the old gods and the new messiah. Unfortunately his early death was their death, the end of the gods.” “Except they returned as saints.” “Yes, a few found a place in Christianity, assuming new names.” “Mother of God,” she murmured thoughtfully. “An unchristian concept, one would have thought,” I added, though the beautiful illogic had been explained to me again and again by Catholics: how God could and could not at the same time possess a mother, that gleaming queen of heaven, entirely regnant in those days. “I have often thought about these things,” she said, diffidently. “I’m afraid I’m not much of a student but it fascinates me. I’ve been out in California for the past few years, working. I was on a fashion magazine.” The note was exactly right: she knew precisely what that world meant and she was neither apologetic nor pleased. We both resisted the impulse to begin the names again, threading our way through the maze of fashion, through that frantic world of the peripheral arts. “You kept away from Vedanta?” A group of transplanted English writers at this time had taken to oriental mysticism with great eagerness, an atonement no doubt for their careers as movie writers. Swamis and temples abounded among the billboards and orange trees; but since it was _the_ way for some it was, for those few at least, honorable. “I came close.” She laughed. “But there was too much to read and even then I always felt that it didn’t work for us, for Americans, I mean. It’s probably quite logical and familiar to Asiatics, but we come from a different line, with a different history; their responses aren’t ours. But I did feel it was possible for others, which is a great deal.” “Because so much is really _not_ possible?” “Exactly. But then I know very little about these things.” She was direct: no implication that what she did not know either did not exist or was not worth the knowing, the traditional response in the fashionable world. “Are you working now?” She shook her head. “No, I gave it up. The magazine sent somebody to take my place out there (I didn’t have the 'personality’ they wanted) and so I came on to New York where I’ve never really been, except for week ends from school. The magazine had some idea that I might work into the New York office, but I was through. I have worked.” “And had enough?”