Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/375

 idea that, though it has long been common to oriental thought, is new to the western civilizations. What relation, after all, is the son to the father? See how sublimely Miss Branch herself answers that passionate question:

"If thou came out of the moon and star I plucked thee forth by my desire. I can hold thee burning in my hand! It was my hand that shaped the fire!"

Astro rose, and, as was his custom when absorbed in any subject, began to walk up and down the room. His keen dark eyes stared straight in front of him without looking at the priceless decorations of the studio. His hands were clasped behind his back across his red silken robe. His turban nodded as he spoke. Valeska watched him eagerly. These philosophic moods, alternating with the active eager phases of his mind, when he was pursuing the track of some almost insoluble mystery, fascinated her. It was at such times, she thought, that he betrayed his real self.

"There's the purely transcendental side," he said. "But the materialistic miracle is as marvelous, the fact that protoplasm is immortal, that characteristics, physical and mental, are handed down in the infinitesimal cell that persists from generation to generation in the id and the biophore. Tricks of speech and gesture, abnormal formations of the organs of the body, temper, emotion,—all transmitted in that tiny primordial atom! What has science done but induce us to believe the impossible?"

A bronze clock in the anteroom pealed out the hour of ten, preceded by the Westminster chime of four