Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/110

 father, quiescent, amused. She seems to belong to a different race.

She is so intense. Gunnar appeared to be a little more at his ease. She lives so hard in mind and spirit. Will she burn out?

I, too, have asked myself that question, Campaspe replied soberly, but only a prophet could answer it.

A prophet! Gunnar grasped the word, as though startled by a new idea. How can one go about becoming a prophet?

Campaspe turned her eyes casually towards his face as she responded, It is the easiest and the most difficult state of being in the world to achieve. All it requires is an unceasing reliance on one's own instincts. If you become strong enough to create this magic current, in time it becomes quite possible to understand other people even when they don't understand themselves. But, she sighed, looking back across the river, how few there are who possess the essential forces of purpose and character to bring about this condition.

I know very well now what you mean, Gunnar said, and I think you must be a wise woman.

Some days I wonder if I am; Campaspe apparently was musing aloud. There are hours when I feel that a philosophy of life is unsupportable, that the only people who really live are those who blunder and stumble blindly through.

No, not that! the young man cried vehemently.