"But how? How can you have knowledge not in your
head?" she asked, quite unable to interpret his phrases.
"In the blood," he answered; "when the mind and the known world is drowned in darkness — everything must go — there must be the deluge. Then you find yourself a palpable body of darkness, a demon — "
"But why should I be a demon?" she asked.
" ’Woman wailing for her demon lover' — " he quoted. "Why, I don't know."
Hermione roused herself as from a death — annihilation.
"He is such a dreadful satanist, isn't he?" she drawled to Ursula, in a queer resonant voice, that ended in a shrill little laugh of pure ridicule. The two women were jeering at him, jeering him into nothingness. The laugh of the sneering, shrill, triumphant female sounded from Hermione, jeering him as if he were a neuter.
"No," he said. "You are the real devil who won't let life exist."
She looked at him with a long, slow look, malevolent, supercilious.
"You know all about it, don't you?" she said, with slow, cold, cunning mockery.
"Enough," he replied, his face fixing fine and clear, like steel. A horrible despair, and at the same time a sense of release, liberation, came over Hermione. She turned with a pleasant intimacy to Ursula.
"You are sure you will come to Breadalby?" she said, urging.
"Yes, I should like to very much," replied Ursula.
Hermione looked down at her, gratified, reflecting, and strangely absent, as if possessed, as if not quite there.
"I'm so glad," she said, pulling herself together. "Some time in about a fortnight. Yes? — I will write to you here, at the school, shall I? — Yes. — And you'll be sure to come? —
Yes. — I shall be so glad. Good-bye. — Goo-ood-bye. — "
Hermione held out her hand and looked into the eyes of the other woman. She knew Ursula as an immediate rival, and the knowledge strangely exhilarated her. Also she was taking leave. It always gave her a sense of strength, advan-
