"But YOU--you--if you were in the Brazen City--"
"If!" he repeated, emphatically.
"If--yes! if"--she said--"If you were there, love did not hold YOU?"
"No!"
There was a silence. The sunshine burned down on the ancient grey flagstones of the cloister, and two gorgeous butterflies danced over the climbing roses that hung from the arches in festal wreaths of pink and white. A luminance deeper than that of the sun seemed to encircle the figures standing together--the one so elfin, light and delicate,--the other invested with a kind of inward royalty expressing itself outwardly in stateliness of look and bearing. Something mysteriously suggestive of super-humanity environed them; a spirit and personality higher than mortal. After some minutes Aloysius spoke again-"The city is not a 'Brazen' City"--he said--"It has been called so by travellers who have seen its golden towers glistening afar off in a sudden refraction of light lasting but a few seconds. Gold often looks like brass and brass like gold, in human entities as in architectural results." He paused--then went on slowly and impressively--"Surely you remember,-you MUST remember, that it is written 'The city lieth four-square, and the length is as large as the breadth. The wall thereof is according to the measure of a man--that is, of the Angel. And the city is of pure gold.' Does that give you no hint of the measure of a man, that is, of the Angel?--of the 'new heavens and the new earth,' the old things being passed away? Dear child, you have studied deeply--you have adventured far and greatly!--continue your quest, but do not forget to take your guiding Light, the Faith which half the world and more ignores!"
She sprang to him impulsively and caught his hands.
"Oh, you must help me!" she cried--"You must teach me--I want to know what YOU know!--"
He held her gently and with reverent tenderness.
"I know no more than you,"--he answered--"you work by Science--I, by Faith, the bed-rock from Which all science proceeds--and we arrive at the same discoveries by different methods. I am a poor priest in the temple of the Divine, serving my turn--but I am not alone in service, for in every corner of the habitable globe there is one member of our 'City' who communicates with the rest. One!--but enough! To-day's commercial world uses old systems of wireless telegraphy and telephony which were known and done with thousands of years ago--but 'we' have the sound-ray--the light which carries music on its wings and creates form as it goes."