“What do they mean?” she asked. “Are they talking about the soul?”
“In a sense, yes,” returned John. “But the soul, apparently, has no exact individuality of its own; at least, not a lasting individuality. It is a spark, an atom, of the Great Whole, which when it has developed to its utmost, and finished all its work, including possible return in the body to the earth as a teacher, will eventually receive its reward by becoming merged and absorbed in the Divine Whole from whence it proceeded. Apparently, also, if a soul refuses to develop, it can eventually be extinguished, or what is equivalent to being extinguished.”
“It doesn’t seem exactly a pleasant creed,” said she meditative. “Absorption or extinction, as the two final alternatives, are not what one might term precisely satisfactory to contemplate. It is certainly nicer to believe that one retains one’s individuality.”
“That,” John assured her, “is merely our unconquerable egotism.”
“Then,” she retorted smiling, “let us hope that it is an egotism your friend will shortly acquire.”
There was a little silence. Monsieur le Chèvre had been, for the moment, forgotten. Certainly his own quiet self-effacement was conducive to their forgetfulness of him. They were almost at the gate before she spoke again.
“I suppose,” she remarked tentatively, “your friend is not perverting you to his theories.”
“I trust not,” said John solemnly. And then he added, “I am a Catholic.”
“Oh!” The ejaculation held the tiniest note of pleasure. Then, after a second’s pause. “You know that we have a chapel at the Castle.”
They had gained the lane by now. Antony, who had felt the full responsibility of defence to rest on his shoulders from the moment John’s attention had been occupied by a wholly unintelligible—and probably, in Antony’s eyes, unintelligent—conversation, heaved a deep sigh.