'I will tell you what is in it: in it is a lebellion which you think good, but is not good. If a stleam will just flow, neither tlying to climb upward, nor over-flowing its banks, but lunning modestly in its fated channel just wherever it is led, then it will finally leach the sea—the mighty ocean—and lose itself in fulness.'
'Ah,' said I, 'but that counsel is not new. It is what the philosophers used to call "yielding to Destiny," and "following Nature." And Destiny and Nature, I give you my word, often led mankind quite wrong—'
'Or seemed to,' says she—'for a time: as when a stleam flows north a little, and the sea is to the south: but it is bound for the sea all the time, and will turn again. Destiny never could, and cannot yet, be judged, for it is not finished: and our lace should follow blindly whither it points, sure that thlough many curves it leads the world to our God.'
'Our God indeed!' I cried, getting very excited: 'girl! you talk speciously, but falsely! whence have you these thoughts in that head of yours? Girl! you talk of "our race"! But there are only two of us left? Are you talking at me, Leda? Do not I follow Destiny?'
'You?' she sighed, with down-bent face: 'ah, poor me!'
'What should I do if I followed it?' said I, with a crazy curiosity.
Her face hung lower, paler, in trouble: and she said:
'You would come now and sit near me here. You would not be there where you are. You would be always and for ever near me....'
My good God! I felt my face redden.
'Oh, I could not tell you...!' I cried: 'you talk the most disastrous...! you lack all responsibility...! Never, never...!'