"Boston is amusing," she was saying, in her pleasantly emphatic way, "but it's so erratic, don't you know. My nerves always begin to ache after I've been there a few weeks. They are so fond of fads, Clare, those clever Bostonians! They take up everything, you know, and always go to extremes."
"It's American history now, is it not?" I asked.
"Yes," answered Gwen, gazing at the fire musingly. "That's coming in again. But they're perfectly crazy about theosophy just at present. You'd be amazed, Clare, to discover how much I know about Nirvana and adepts and metempsychosis, and all that kind of thing. Several of my most intimate friends have become vegetarians and live mostly on baked beans. It's awfully funny--they take it all so seriously."
"And what do you really think of it, Gwen?" I asked, nervously.
"Think of what, of which, my dear? Of living on beans, do you mean?"
"No. Beans are only a side issue, or, to speak with Tom's scientific accuracy, a side dish. What do you think, for instance, of reincarnation?"
"I don't know what to think about it, Clare," she answered, reflectively, pushing her dainty little feet toward the fire and gazing into my face with earnest eyes. "Do you know, there are times when I really imagine that there's something in it! Of course, it's absurd in a way, but it does solve a great many problems, does it not? It conforms beautifully to the laws of evolution and the conservation of energy, and there are so many things that can't be explained by any other theory! But it always makes me shudder to think of it. Imagine, Clare, being born again in Turkey, for example. Wouldn't it be shocking?"
I laughed, rather hysterically.
"The whole subject is too silly for any use," I managed to say, in a superior kind of way. "It does very well for Boston, of course, but it will never have much of a run here in New York."
"What a narrow way of looking at it, Clare!" exclaimed Gwendolen, protestingly. "Of course, I'm not a theosophist, but I'm broad-minded enough to realize that what's true in Benares or Boston must be true in New York. If reincarnation is really going on in this world, I can't believe that any exception is made in favor of our Knickerbocker families."