"Well, well," said Fillery gently, half stirred, half amused by the odd language. "You may be right. But mental history has always shown a desire for something new after each separate collapse. Signs and wonders are a recurrent hunger, remember. In the days of Abraham, of Paul, of Moses it was the same."
"Questions to-day," replied the other, "are based on an immense accumulated knowledge unknown to Moses or to Abraham's time. The phenomenon, I grant you, is the same, but—the shock, the dislocation, the shattering upheaval comes in the twentieth century upon minds grounded in deep scientific wisdom. It was formerly a shock to the superstitious ignorance of intuitive feeling merely. To-day it is organized scientific knowledge that meets the earthquake."
"You mentioned gaps and lapses," said Fillery, deeply interested, but still half professionally, perhaps, in spite of his preoccupations. "You think, perhaps, those gaps——?" One eye watched the inner studio. The unstable in him gained more and more the upper hand.
"I mean," replied Father Collins, now fairly launched upon his secret hobby, evidently his qualification for membership in the Society, "I mean, Edward Fillery, that the time is ripe, if ever, for a new revelation. If Man is the only type of being in the universe, well and good. We see his finish plainly, for the war has shown that progress is a myth. Man remains, in spite of all conceivable scientific knowledge, a savage, of low degree, irredeemable, and intellect, as a reconstructive force, but of small account."
"It seems so, I admit."
"But if"—Father Collins said it as calmly as though he spoke of some new food or hygienic treatment merely—"if mankind is not the only life in the universe, if, for instance, there exist—and why not?—other evolutionary systems besides our own somewhat trumpery type—other schemes and other beings—perhaps parallel, perhaps quite different—perhaps in more direct contact with the sources of life—a purer emanation, so to say——"
He hesitated, realizing perhaps that in speaking to a man of Edward Fillery's standing he must choose his words, or at least present his case convincingly, while aware that his inability to do so made him only more extravagant and incoherent.
"Yes, quite so," Fillery helped him, noting all the time the suppressed intensity, the half-concealed conviction of an idée fixe behind the calmness, while the balance of his own attention remained concentrated on the group about LeVallon. "If, as you suggest, there are other types of life——" He spoke encouragingly. He had noticed the slovenly streak spread and widen, breaking down, as it were, the structure of the face. He was aware also of the increasing insecurity in himself.
"Now is the moment," cried the other; "now is the time for their appearance."
He turned as though he had hit a target unexpectedly.