the tenements of immortal souls.
This is true of men but is not always true of women. Such women are not
strictly mortal: they are feminine animals and their place in the scheme
will be discussed later. To speak of their sins is to misuse the word.
They are sinless, as the serpent and the upas tree are sinless...."

Paul had discovered that his vast scheme might not be compassed in a
single book. _The Gates_ was the first drama of a trilogy. In it he
outlined the universal truth of which the churches had lost sight or
which they had chosen to obscure. He offered a glimpse of the shrine but
laid down no doctrine nor did he seek to impose a new philosophy upon
the world. In his second book he proposed to furnish proofs of the
claims advanced in the first, and in his third to draw deductions from
the foregoing. In this he had made Euclid his model. Upon the necessity
for a hierarchy and a mystic ritual he insisted. He maintained that
orthodox Christianity had lost its hold upon Europe, touched upon causes
and indicated how the world upheaval was directly due to the failing
power of the churches. He proposed to remodel religion upon a system
earlier than but not antagonistic to that of Christ. His claim that the
systems of Hermes, Krishna, Confucius, Moses, Orpheus and Christ were
based upon a common primeval truth he supported by an arresting array of
historical facts. All of them had taught that man is re-incarnated, and
because Western thought had been diverted from this truth and the
fallacies of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory substituted for simple Rebirth,
Western thought had become chaotic. The figure of the Pope and the
maintenance of a celibate priesthood had prolonged the life of the
Church of Rome because, in Paul's opinion, these were survivals of that
mysticism upon which the remote hierarchies were builded. "No religion
in the world's history has held such absolute sway over a people as that
of Ancient Egypt; no figure living in the memory of man has such majesty
of awe as that of the royal high-priest of Amen Ra...."

* * * * *

On the day that _The Gates_ was published, Yvonne came down late to
breakfast, a gossamer study all filmy lace, with the morning sun in her
hair. The windows were open, and a hint of spring lent zest to every
joy, the loamy fragrance of nascent plant life stealing into the room
from the little garden. Tulips decorated the sideboard, for Yvonne loved
tulips