"Advised him, I mean."
"You dislike her?"
"I! No. How can one dislike a painted rag? How can one dislike a pink and white shell that holds nothing?"
"Every body holds a soul. Every human shell holds its murmur of the great sea."
"The body of Cuckoo then contains a soul that's cankered with disease, moth-eaten with corruption, worn away to an atom not bigger than a grain of dust. I would not call it a soul at all."
He spoke with more than a shade of excitement, and the gay expression of his face had changed to an uneasy anger. The doctor observed it, and rejoined quietly:
"How can you answer for another person's soul? We see the body, it is true. But are we to divine the soul from that—wholly and solely?"
"The soul! Let us call it the will."
"Why?"
"The will of man is the soul of man. It is possible to judge the will by the body. The will of such a woman as Cuckoo Bright is a negative quantity. Her body is the word 'weakness,' written in flesh and blood for all to read."