sorts of dissociations. Some persons break up into three or four separate and intermittent personalities. But Miss Manning is certainly interesting. I'd like to meet her, myself."
"And I'd like to know how poor Jensen's love-affair will turn out," said Valeska. "I'm sorry for him."
"I've no doubt he'll not only lose the girl he has fallen in love with, but he'll be asked to help in putting her out of existence."
"That's simply horrible! He said he'd do anything for her. I wonder if he'd do that? But it's all so mysterious and so impossible! Why, one might as well believe in witchcraft or magic it seems to me."
"It is just exactly what was called witchcraft in the old days. Now we understand it, and it is merely psychology."
Astro rose and pointed to the laboratory. "Do you remember the tree of Paracelsus?" he asked. Valeska nodded.
"It is like that. In the Middle Ages that experiment was nothing but pure magic. No common person could understand that the clear solution and the mass of crystals were different forms of the same thing,—sulphate of sodium and water. In the same way, no one understood that one person could appear at different times under different forms; it was enchantment. To-day we understand that one's personality is merely the sum of his qualities, emotions and functions. This solid person may break up into other combinations; part of his functions may become synthesized and have a volition of this new group's own character. We see it every day. When we lose our
