Paula invariably qualified a dogmatic statement as a possibility in her own mind; but something of this--man reaching a moment of choice--had always appealed to her as a fundamental verity. Man must conquer not only his body, but his brain, with its subtle dreams of power, a more formidable conflict, before the soul assumes supremacy in the mind, and man's progress to the Uplands becomes a conscious and glorious ascent. "You put it with wonderful clearness, Madame Nestor," she said. "I am an old woman who has thought of these things until they are clear. This is the real battle of man, beside which victory over mere appetites of the body is but a boyish triumph. The intellect hungers for power and possession; to hold the many inferior intellects in its own despotic destiny. Against this glittering substance of attraction is the still intangible faith of the soul--an awful moment of suspense. God or Mammon--choose ye!... Listen, Paula, to New York below--treading the empty mill of commerce----" "New York has not chosen yet?" "No, dear, but hundreds, thousands, are learning in preparation for that moment of choice--the falseness and futility of material possessions." "That is a good thought--an incorruptible kind of optimism!" Paula exclaimed.... "You think this Bellingham has made the evil choice?" "Yes. Long ago." "Yet to have arisen to the moment of choosing, you say he must have conquered the flesh." "Yes." "But you depict him--I find him--Desire Incarnate!" "Exactly, Paula, because he has reverted. _The animal controls his mind, not the soul._ Bellingham is retracing his way back to chaos, with a human brain, all lit with magic! Out of the gathered knowledge of the ages, he has drawn his forces, which to us are mystery. He uses these secret forces of Nature to prolong his own life--which is all he has. The mystic cord is severed within him. He is a body, nothing but a body--hence the passion to endure. Out of the craft of the past, he has learned--who knows how long ago?--to replenish his own vitality with that of others. He gives nothing, but drains all. Ah, Paula, this I know too well. He is kin with those creatures of legend, the _loup-garou_, the vampire. I tell you he is an insatiable sponge for human magnetism." "Past all doubt, can't Bellingham turn back?" Paula asked tensely. "With all his worldly knowledge, and knowing his own doom, can he not turn back--far back, a lowly-organized soul, but on the human way?" Hopelessness, anywhere, was a blasting conception to her.