“In the vulgar acceptance of the word, yes,” smiled Herold. “Do you think that the human brain is always aware of the working of the divine spirit?” “If it's as you say, it's uncanny,” said Risca, unconvinced. Yet when Sir Oliver and Julia both assured him that Stella never doubted his luxurious happiness, and that the ordering of the picture was due to no subtle suggestion, he had to believe them. “You always make the mistake, John, of thinking Stellamaris mortal,” said Herold, at the supper-table, for, on receipt of the young men's telegram, the Blounts had deferred their dinner to the later hour of supper. “You are utterly wrong,” said he. “How can she be mortal when she talks all day to winds and clouds and the sea-children in their cups of foam? She's as elemental as Ariel. When she sleeps, she's really away on a sea-gull's back to the Isles of Magic. That's why she laughs at the dull, clumsy old world from which she is cut off in her mortal guise. What are railway-trains and omnibuses to her? What would they be to you, John, if you could have a sea-gull's back whenever you wanted to go anywhere? And she goes to places worth going to, by George! What could she want with Charing Cross or the Boulevard des Italians? Fancy the nymph Syrinx at a woman writers' dinner!” “I don't know what you 're talking about, Walter,” said Lady Blount, whose mind was practical. “Syrinx,” said Sir Oliver, oracularly (he was a little, shrivelled man, to whose weak face a white moustache and an imperial gave a false air of distinction)--“Syrinx,” said he, “was a nymph beloved of Pan,--it's a common legend in Greek mythology,--and Pan turned her into a reed.” “And then cut the reed up into Pan-pipes,” cried Herold, eagerly, “and made immortal music out of them--just as he makes immortal music out of Stellamaris. You see, John, it all comes to the same thing. Whether you call her Ariel, or Syrinx, or a Sprite of the Sea, or a Wunderkind whose original trail of glory-cloud has not faded into the light of common day, she belongs to the Other People. You must believe in the Other People, Julia; you can't help it.” Lady Blount turned to him severely. Despite her affection for him, she more than suspected him of a pagan pantheism, which she termed atheistical. His talk about belief in spirits and hobgoblins irritated her. She kept a limited intelligence together by means of formulas, as she kept her scanty reddish-gray hair together by means of a rigid false front. “I believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost,” she said, with an air of cutting reproof. Sir Oliver pushed his plate from him, but not the fraction of a millimetre beyond that caused by the impatient push sanctioned by good manners. “Don't be a fool, Julia!” “I don't see how a Christian woman declaring the elements of her faith can be a fool,” said Lady Blount, drawing herself up.