"
Somewhat later his musings led him to indulge in a broad laugh.
"Possibly," he said aloud, "she is a modern and fashionable Undine,
and has never yet received a woman's soul. The good Lord deliver
me from trying to awaken it, as did the knight of old in the story,
by swelling the long list of her victims. I can scarcely imagine
a more pitiable and abject creature than a man (once sane and
sensible) in thraldom to such a tantalizing semblance of a woman.
She would no more appreciate his devotion than the jackdaw the
pearl necklace it pecked at.
"I fear my Undine theory won't answer. Stanton says she has no heart,
and her face and manner confirm his words. But now I think of it,
the original Undine lived a long time ago--in the age of primeval
simplicity, when even cool-blooded water nymphs had hearts. One
is induced to think, in our age, that this organ will eventually
disappear with the other characteristics of ancient and undeveloped
man, and that the brain, or what stands for it, will become all in
all. In the first instance the woman's soul came in through the
heart; but I suppose that in the case of a modern Undine it could
enter most readily through the head.
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