“You say you are out of love with life,” he began. “And this, only because you have been spared the common lot of women--the so-called ‘love’ which would have tied you to one man to be the drudge of his coarse passions till death. Well!--I admit it is the usual sort of thing life offers to the female sex,--but to be ‘out of love’ with the stupendous and beautiful work of God because this commonest of commonplace destinies has been denied you, is--pardon my _brusquerie_,--mere folly and unreasoning sentiment. However, I am taking you at your word,--you are ‘out of love’ with life, and you are not afraid of death. Therefore, to me you are not a woman--you are a ‘subject’:--you put it very clearly just now when you said that I need you as the vivisector needs the animal he experiments upon--that is perfectly correct. I repeat, that for my purpose, you are not a woman,--you are simply an electric battery.” She looked up, amazed--then laughed as gaily as a child. “An electric battery!” she echoed. “Oh, dear, oh, dear! I have imagined myself as many things, but never _that_!” “And yet that is what you really _are_,” he said, unmoved by her laughter. “It is what we all are, men and women alike. Our being is composed of millions of cells, charged with an electric current which emanates from purely material sources. We make electricity to light our houses with--and when the battery is dry we say the cells need recharging--a simple matter. Youth was the light of _your_ house of clay--but the cells of the battery are dry--they must be recharged!” She sat silent for a moment, gazing at him as though seeking to read his inmost thought. His dark, fine eyes met hers without flinching. “And you,--you propose to recharge them?” she said, slowly and wonderingly. “I not only propose to do it--I have already begun the work!” he answered. “You want me to be straightforward--come, then!--give me the same confidence! Can you honestly say you _see_ no difference and _feel_ no difference in yourself since yesterday?” She gave a quick sigh. “No, I cannot!” she replied. “I _do_ see and feel a change in myself! This morning I was almost terrified at the sense of happiness which possessed me!--happiness for nothing but just the joy of living!--it overwhelmed me like a wave!” She stretched out her arms with a gesture of indefinable yearning--“Oh, it seemed as if I had all the world in my hands!--the light, the air, the mere facts of breathing and moving were sufficient to make me content!--and I was overcome by the fear of my own joy! That is why I determined to ask you plainly what it means, and what I am to expect from you!”