after all, you _can_ trust?"

"I don't know. You see, Alice's feeling tells her it's all right to
play like that, and _my_ feeling tells me it's all wrong."

"You can trust _your_ feelings."

"Why mine more than hers?"

"Because _your_ feelings are the feelings of a beautifully sane and
perfectly balanced person."

"How can you possibly tell? You don't know me."

"I know your type."

"My type isn't me. You can't tell by that."

"You can if you're a physiologist."

"Being a physiologist won't tell you anything about _me_."

"Oh, won't it?"

"It can't."

"Why not?"

"How can it?"

"You think it can't tell me anything about your soul?"

"Oh--my soul----" Her shoulders expressed disdain for it.

"Do you dislike my mentioning it? Would you rather we didn't talk
about it? Perhaps you're tired of having it talked about?"

"No; my poor soul has never done anything to get itself talked about."

"I only thought that as your father, perhaps, specialises in souls--"

"He doesn't specialise in mine. He knows nothing about it."

"The specialist never does. To know anything--the least little
thing--about the soul, you must know everything--everything you _can_
know--about the body. So that you're wrong even about your soul. Being
a physiologist tells me that your sort of body--a transparently clean
and strong and utterly unconscious body--goes with a transparently
clean and strong and utterly unconscious soul."

"Utterly unconscious?"

He was silent a moment and then answered:

"Utterly unconscious."

They walked on in silence till they came in sight of the marshes and
the long gray line of Upthorne Farm.

"That's where I met you once," he said. "Do you remember? You were
coming out of the door as I went in."

"You seem to have been always meeting me."

"Always meeting you. And then---always missing you. Just when I
expected most to find you."

"If we go much farther in this direction," said Gwenda, "we shall meet
Papa."

"Well--I suppose some day I shall have to meet him. Do you realise
that I've never met him yet?"

"Haven't you?"

"No. Always I've been on the point of meeting him, and always some
malignant fate has interfered."

She smiled. He loved her smile.

"Why are you smiling?"

"I was only wondering whether the fate was really so malignant."

"You mean that if he met me he'd dislike me?"

"He always _has_ disliked anybody we like. You see, he's a very funny
father."

"All