Certain human expressions, meaning one thing to the philosopher and quite another thing to the populace, were always fascinating to Wolf. His mind began to dwell now upon the actual syllables of this phrase, “immortal souls,” until by a familiar transformation those formidable sounds took on a shadowy personality of their own⁠—took on the shape, in fact, of Christie Malakite⁠—and in that shape went wavering away over the fields like a thin spiral cloud! “These quaint words, used by the men of old time,” he said to himself, “to describe what we all feel, have more in them than people have any idea of. I must tell Christie that!” And then it occurred to him how impossible it would be to explain to any living intelligence the faltering thoughts that had ended by his invocation of the “soul” of a tiny London garden and his embodying it in the wraith of the daughter of Mr. Malakite!