"Quite another man, does he?"

"Yes. It's very trying for the Hardings naturally. If it continues I
think there will have to be a change. I don't think things can go on as
they are. My friend Sophia won't be able to stand it."

"You mean--the contrast?"

"Between her husband and Mr. Chichester. She's very highly strung and
quite worships her husband; though, between you and me, _I_ think rather
in the slave spirit. But some women are like that. They can't admire a
man unless he beats them. Not that Mr. Harding ever dreamed of doing such
a thing to Sophia, of course. But his will had to be law in everything.
You know the type of man! It's scarcely my idea of what a clergyman
should be. I think a man who professes to direct the souls of others
should be more gentle and unselfish, especially to his wife. Another
quail? Well, really, I think perhaps I will. They are so absurdly small
this season, aren't they? There's scarcely anything on them."

So that minute fraction of the world that knew of the existence of the
Hardings began to utter itself concerning them, and Malling was fortified
in his original belief which he had expressed to Professor Stepton.

Among his many experiments made in connection with psychical research
those which had interested him the most had been those in which the
mystery of the human will had seemed to be deeply involved. Malling was
essentially a psychologist. And man was to him the great mystery, because
man contained surely something that belonged to, that was lent to, man,
as it were, by another, the mind beyond, the _anima mundi_. When Malling