in the crystal sphere of the intellect she saw the world outside,
painted in few but distinct colours, small, comprehensible,
moving on a logical orbit. I never knew her posed for an
explanation. She had the contented atheism of a certain type of
French mind and found as much ease in it as another kind of sweet
woman does in her rosary and confessional.

"I cannot interest Brynhild," she said, when I knew her better.
"She has no affinity with science. She is simply a nature
worshipper, and in such places as this she seems to draw life
from the inanimate life about her. I have sometimes wondered
whether she might not be developed into a kind of bridge between
the articulate and the inarticulate, so well does she understand
trees and flowers. Her father was like that - he had all sorts of
strange power with animals and plants, and thought he had more
than he had. He could never realize that the energy of nature is
merely mechanical."

"You think all energy is mechanical?"

"Certainly. We shall lay our finger on the mainspring one day and
the mystery will disappear. But as for Brynhild - I gave her the
best education possible and yet she has never understood the
conception of a universe moving on mathematical laws to which we
must submit in body and mind. She has the oddest ideas. I would
not willingly say of a child of mine that she is a mystic, and
yet -"

She shook her head compassionately. But I scarcely heard. My eyes
were fixed on Brynhild, who stood apart, looking steadily out