“All ideas, all sentiments, all virtues, all sins, are in the cells of the brain,” he went on. “The soul plays on these cells with vibrating touches of light, just as you play on the notes of the piano, or as a typist fingers the keyboard of the machine. On the quality or characteristic of the soul depends the result. Youth is in the cells of the brain. Should the cells become dry and withered, it is because the soul has ceased to charge them with its energy. But when this is the case, it is possible--I say it is possible!--for science to step in. The spark can be re-energised,--the cells can be re-charged.” Diana caught her breath. Was he mad?--or sane with a sanity that realises a miracle? She gazed at him as though plunging her eyes into a well of mystery. He smiled strangely. “Poor lady of mature years!” he said. “You have heard me, have you not? Well, think upon what I have said! I am not mad, be assured!--I am temperate in reason and cool in blood. I am only a scientist, bent on defying that Angel at the gate of Eden with the flaming sword who ‘keeps the way of the Tree of Life,’ lest men should take and eat and live for ever! It would not do for men in the aggregate to live for ever, for most of them are little more than mites in a cheese,--but as the Prophet Esdras was told: ‘This present world is made for the many, but the world to come for the few.’ That ‘world to come’ does not mean a world _after_ death--but the world of _here_ and _now_--a world ‘for the few’ who know how to use _it_, and themselves!--a world where the same moonlight as this shines like a robe of woven pearl spread over all human ugliness and ignorance, leaving only God’s beauty and wisdom! Look at it once more!--make a picture of it in your mind!--and then--good-night!” She raised her eyes to the dense purple of the sky, and let them wander over the lovely gardens, drenched in silver glory--then extended her hand. “Thank you for all you have told me,” she said. “I shall remember it. Good-night!” CHAPTER XI