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 him, as though to see who it was had joined them; 'you mean a⁠—soul? Some kind of soul, alien to humanity, or to⁠—to any forms of living thing in the world today?' What she had been saying reached him somehow, it seemed, though he had not heard the words themselves. Still hesitating, he was yet so eager to hear. Already he felt she meant to include him in her purposes, and that in the end he must go willingly. So strong was her persuasion on his mind.

And he felt as if he knew vaguely what was coming. Before she answered his curious question⁠—prompting it indeed⁠—rose in his mind that strange idea of the Group-Soul: the theory that big souls cannot express themselves in a single individual, but need an entire group for their full manifestation.

He listened intently. The reflection that this sudden intimacy was unnatural, he rejected, for many conversations were really gathered into one. Long watching and preparation on both sides had cleared the way for the ripening of acquaintance into confidence⁠—how long he dimly wondered? But if this conception of the Group-Soul was not new, the suggestion Lady Statham developed out of it was both new and startling⁠—and yet always so curiously familiar. Its value for him lay, not in farfetched evidence that supported it, but in the deep belief which made it a vital asset in an honest inner life.

'An individual,' she said quietly, 'one soul expressed completely in a single person, I mean, is exceedingly rare. Not often is a physical instrument found perfect enough to provide it with adequate expression. In the lower ranges of