entrance to the darkened gallery. "I haven't been there for some
time," she continued. "I've discovered something that I think
appeals more to my temperament. I have rather a leaning toward the
occult and the mystical, I'm afraid. Did you ever hear of the
Babists?"

"No," said Montague.

"Well, that's a religious sect--from Persia, I think--and they are
quite the rage. They are priests, you understand, and they give
lectures, and teach you all about the immanence of the divine, and
about reincarnation, and Karma, and all that. Do you believe any of
those things?"

"I can't say that I know about them," said he.

"It is very beautiful and strange," added the other. "It makes you
realize what a perplexing thing life is. They teach you how the
universe is all one, and the soul is the only reality, and so bodily
things don't matter. If I were a Babist, I believe that I could be
happy, even if I had to work in a cotton-mill."

Then Mrs. Winnie rose up suddenly. "You'd rather look at the
pictures, I know," she said; and she pressed a button, and a soft
radiance flooded the great vaulted gallery.

"This is our chief pride in life," she said. "My husband's object
has been to get one representative work of each of the great
painters of the world. We got their masterpiece whenever we could.
Over there in the corner are the old masters--don't you love to look