‘I’m still seeking,’ admitted Sheila.
‘You’ll never find it,’ remarked Hypatia, with calm certainty, ‘in the direction you are looking in.’
‘No?’ said Sheila good-humouredly.
‘Well, you’ll have plenty of chance here of inspecting every fad,’ said Hypatia. ‘They’re a lively set, our neighbours. There’s almost every shade of belief and unbelief possible to the human mind represented here, you’ll remember, and every shade has its club or church or soap-box.’
‘Even your shade?’ interposed Sheila.
‘Yes. Though that’s altogether different,’ Hypatia retorted. ‘Still I can understand that you think it just one more little sect and nothing else. When you are in science you will see everything more clearly.’
‘I shall see that there’s nothing to see at all,’ said Sheila. ‘Isn’t that your fundamental doctrine?’
‘True, matter does not exist, if that’s what you mean,’ said Hypatia. ‘That is perhaps Our Leader’s greatest discovery. God is All-Good, the very Principle of Goodness, and man is His reflection. Sin, disease, and death——’
‘Exist in the reflection but not in the reflector,’ remarked Sheila. ‘Are your people of the same way of thinking?’
‘Oh no.’ Hypatia shook her head. ‘Mother’s trying to understand, but Father’s making no attempt at all.’