Virginius now rose, and began pacing back and forwards upon the rock-crowned hill-top. The wind still cried in misery, and big drops of rain fell upon the earth.
For some time silence prevailed, till at last Virginius broke it.
“Genius, I am going to make a request; I am going to ask you to look at me.”
“That is easily done. I have fulfilled it.”
“No. I am going to ask you to look at me. When I am most silent, look at me most.”
“That is precisely where the difficulty comes. Plucritus is so essentially interesting and fascinating that he attracts attention entirely to himself.”
“You will see less of his fascination in the future. You have thwarted him and he dislikes you. You see you are not working as an immaterial power.”
“What a topsy-turvy rendering,” said Genius, and he laughed. “No, I am working in the concrete—with a child. The child has a mind so pliant that it bends to my slightest whim most unconsciously.”
“That child also, besides having a mind, has what, in this world, they honour with the name of soul.”
“Oh, yes, but that’s the unknown quantity over which one half the world stumbles blindly and the other half develops itself into a superstitious bigot.”