Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/82

 "You feel better, don't you?" he remarked, looking at her with gay friendliness. "I'm not going to ask you anything about it yet. Perhaps, later, you 'll tell me. For the present, we 're going to play that we 've been friends for a thousand years, through all sorts of incarnations, as it were. I really believe we have, don't you?"

She smiled back at him with as frank a friendliness as his own.

"According to the theosophists," she said, "our souls have recognized each other. They always do, through any number of incarnations, if they are really congenial and friendly. They recognize their enemies of past incarnations, too, and so, when you meet a man and take what you think is an unreasonable dislike to him, it simply means that you and he have had some trouble in another life and that the soul has recognized its enemy. You were kind to me a thousand years ago, and I remember it." "It's a refreshing theory," said her companion, gratefully. "It lessens the strain on one's mind. When you find yourself loathing a fellow you can accept the condition as