Paul raised his eyebrows. "No Green Ray on this or any other night, in my candid opinion."
The Reverend James looked puzzled. "I have often heard you mention this Green Ray, Miss Marjory, but I am not quite sure to what you allude."
"To a fiction of Jules Verne's, that is all," put in Paul, quickly.
"Nothing of the sort; people have seen it," corrected the girl, eagerly.
"Say they have seen it," murmured Paul, obstinately, and Marjory frowned.
"I will explain it to you, Mr. Gillespie," she went on, with assertion in her voice. "It is a green ray of light which shoots through the sea, just as the topmost curve of the sun touches the water. I watch for it often. I intend to watch for it till I see it, as others have done."
"And what good will it do to you when you have seen it?" asked Paul. They were speaking to each other, despite the pretence of general conversation; but it was so often.
"I haven't the least idea," she answered airily; "for all that, I look forward to seeing it as a great event in my life."
"Great events are dangerous; like some very valuable medicines, uncertain in their effects. Birth, for instance--you may be born a fool or a wise man. Marriage--a chance of the die--so I'm told. Death." He pointed dramatically upwards and downwards with a whimsical look on his anxious, gracious face.
"I deny it, I deny it altogether," cried the girl, forgetting herself and him in her eagerness. "You are either in existence before birth, or you are not. In the one case you must remain yourself, in the other you, being nonexistent, cannot suffer chance or change. It is the same with death. If there is no you to survive, death itself ceases to be since you are non-existent. If there is, you must remain yourself."