ole body of meaning
in the old Egyptian symbolism rushed over him with a force that shook
his heart. Memory came so marvellously with it.

"If the Power floods down into our minds with sufficient strength for
actual form, to note the outline of such form, and from your drawing
model it later in permanent substance. Then we should have means of
evoking it at will, for we should have its natural Body--the form it
built itself, its signature, image, pattern. A starting-point, you see,
for more--leading, she hopes, to a complete reconstruction."

"It might take actual shape--assume a bodily form visible to the eye?"
repeated Henriot, amazed as before that doubt and laughter did not break
through his mind.

"We are on the earth," was the reply, spoken unnecessarily low since no
living thing was within earshot, "we are in physical conditions, are we
not? Even a human soul we do not recognise unless we see it in a
body--parents provide the outline, the signature, the sigil of the
returning soul. This," and he tapped himself upon the breast, "is the
physical signature of that type of life we call a soul. Unless there is
life of a certain strength behind it, no body forms. And, without a
body, we are helpless to control or manage it--deal with it in any way.
We could not know it, though being possibly _aware_ of it."

"To be aware, you mean, is not sufficient?" For he noticed the italics
Vance made use of.

"Too vague, of no value for future use," was the reply. "But once obtain
the form, and we have the natural symbol of that particular Power. And a
symbol is more than image, it is a direct and concentrated expression of
the life it typifies--possibly terrific."

"It may be a body, then, this symbol you speak of."

"Accurate vehicle of manifestation; but 'body' seems the simplest word."

Vance answered very slowly and deliberately, as though weighing how much
he would tell. His language was admirably evasive. Few perhaps would
have detected the profound significance the curious words he next used
unquestionably concealed. Henriot's mind rejected them, but his heart
accepted. For the ancient soul in him was listening and aware.

"Life, using matter to express itself in bodily shape, first traces a
geometrical pattern. From the lowest form in crystals, upwards to more
complicated patterns in the higher organisations--there is always first
this geometrical pattern as skeleton. For geometry lies at the root of
all possibl