Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 5.pdf/361

Rh like the German story," said Mrs. Bunting. "Oom—what is it?"

"Undine?"

"Exactly—yes. And it really seems these poor creatures are Immortal, Mr. Melville—at least within limits—creatures born of the elements and resolved into the elements again—and just as it is in the story—there's always a something—they have no Souls! No Souls at all! Nothing! And the poor child feels it. She feels dreadfully. But in order to get souls, Mr. Melville, you know they have to come into the world of men. At least so they believe down there. And so she has come to Folkestone. To get a soul. Of course that's her great object, Mr. Melville, but she's not at all fanatical or silly about it. Any more than we are. Of course we—people who feel deeply"

"Of course," said my cousin Melville, with, I know, a momentary expression of profound gravity, drooping eyelids and a hushed voice. For my cousin does a good deal with his soul, one way and another.

"And she feels that if she comes to earth at all," said Mrs. Bunting, "she must come among nice people and in a nice way. One can understand her feeling like that. But imagine her difficulties! To be a mere cause of public excitement, and silly paragraphs in the silly season, to be made a sort of show of, in fact—she doesn't want any of it," added Mrs. Bunting, with the emphasis of both hands.

"What does she want?" asked my cousin Melville.

"She wants to be treated exactly like a human being, to be a human being, just like you or me.