ms were little by little putting themselves together in
Lamberti's imagination, though the latter had only once spoken with
Cecilia of one or two coincidences, he would have said, provided that he
chose to be frank with a mere girl, that no one knows much about
telepathy, and that modern science does not deny what it cannot explain,
as the science of the nineteenth century did, but collects and examines
facts, only requiring to be persuaded that they are really facts and not
fictions. No one, he would have said, would build a theory on one
instance; he would write down the best account of the case which he
could find, and would then proceed to look for another. Since wireless
telegraphy was possible, the specialist would not care to seek a reason
why telepathy should not be a possibility, too. If it were, it explained
thoroughly what was going on between Cecilia and Lamberti; if it were
not, there must be some other equally satisfactory explanation, still to
be found. The attitude of science used to be extremely aggressive, but
she has advanced to a higher stage; in these days she is serene. Men of
science still occasionally come into conflict with the official
representatives of different beliefs, but science herself no longer
assails religion. Lamberti's specialist professed no form of faith,
wherefore he would rather not have been called upon to answer all three
of Kant's questions: What can I know? What is it my duty to do? What may
I hope? But it by no means followed that his answers, if he gave any,
would have been shocking to people who knew less and hoped more than he
did.

Cecilia thought much, but she followed no such form of reasoning to
convince herself that her experiences were all scientifically possible;
on the contrary, the illusion she loved best was the one which science
and religion alike would have altogether condemned as contrary to faith
and revolting to reason, namely, her cherished belief that she had
really once lived as a Vestal in old days, and had died, and had come
back to earth after a long time, irresistibly drawn towards life after
having almost attained to perfect detachment from material things.

Her meeting with Lamberti, and, most of all, her one short conversation
with him, had greatly strengthened her illusion. He had come back, too,
and they understood each other. But that should be all.

Then she took up Nietzsche again, not because every one read _Thus spake
Zarathushthra_, or