After that Gerald questioned the learned Fox-Spirit. She explained to him willingly enough the laws of Lytreia and described the basket they were found in, and she made it plain just how these laws were enforced by a committee of midwives and stonemasons. She spoke of the magic she had put upon Lytreia. She spoke of Tenjo, telling how in the prime of his youth he came to be called Tenjo of the Long Nose; and her statistics were remarkable. She talked then about the wind between the stars, and about the grandeur that was Greece, and about Hobson’s choice, and about Davey Jones’s locker, and about the cause of volcanoes, and about the curate’s egg, and about the best cures for baldness. For no information anywhere was hidden from the wisdom of Evaine, who knew all things, and who served all gods. “I perceive,” said Gerald, “that you have knowledge, and I like your reflections extremely. So do you speak yet further out of the stores of your omniscience!” He had been glancing all the while toward the veiled Mirror of the Two Truths. But he of course said never a word about this mirror. His present task was simply to lure on this cultured and malefic creature to her complete ruin. For the Fox-Spirit, as Gerald saw, was still about the brutish magic of the wu, which drives men mad, and she now spoke of more and yet more evil matters such as were very well adapted to incite Gerald to brutality. She spoke of the battle of life, and of the feast of reason, and of the irony of fate, and of the lap of luxury. She talked of the writing on the wall, and of the scroll of fame, and of the lexicon of youth, and of the cloud that had a silver lining. She touched upon the two seas, of troubles and of upturned faces. She discussed the durance that was vile, and the hours that were wee and sma’, and the consummation that was devoutly to be wished for, and the light that was dim and religious, and the heat which was not the humidity. She indicated the balm in Gilead, the place in the sun, and the safety in numbers. She afterward gave succinctly the recipes for making a mountain out of a molehill, a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and a virtue out of a necessity. For no evil phrase of any sort was hidden from the wisdom of Evaine, who knew all things, and who served all gods, and who was now intent to exercise upon Gerald the magic of the wu, which drives men mad. But Gerald only smiled, almost approvingly. This woman was reminding him more and more of Evelyn Townsend, and his pulses had not ever been calmer. “I perceive,” said Gerald, “that you have a great deal of knowledge, with the vocabulary of a dear friend to back it devastatingly. Therefore, ma’am, to avail myself of your knowledge alone may serve my divine ends much better than your really most flattering proffers in other fields.”