She shook her head.
"Hush!" she softly breathed—"I want to hear!"
Just then Mr. Harland spoke again.
"I am sorry!" he said—"I have wronged you and I apologise. But you can hardly wonder at my disbelief, considering your appearance, which is that of a much younger man than your actual years should make you."
The rich voice of Santoris gave answer.
"Did I not tell you and others long ago that for me there is no such thing as time, but only eternity? The soul is always young,—and I live in the Spirit of youth, not in the Matter of age."
Catherine turned her eyes upon me in wide-open amazement.
"He must be mad!" she said.
I made no reply either by word or look. We heard Mr. Harland talking, but in a lower tone, and we could not distinguish what he said. Presently Santoris answered, and his vibrant tones were clear and distinct.
"Why should it seem to you so wonderful?" he said—"You do not think it miraculous when the sculptor, standing before a shapeless block of marble, hews it out to conformity with his inward thought. The marble is mere marble, hard to deal with, difficult to shape,—yet out of its resisting roughness the thinker and worker can mould an Apollo or a Psyche. You find nothing marvellous in this, though the result of its shaping is due to nothing but Thought and Labour. Yet when you see the human body, which is far easier to shape than marble, brought into submission by the same forces of Thought and Labour, you are astonished! Surely it is a simpler matter to control the living cells of one's own fleshly organisation and compel them to do the bidding of the dominating spirit than to chisel the semblance of a god out of a block of stone!"