ogether for a bad purpose, because they do not choose to be
interfered with, and yet call the thing honour for the sake of the
associations."

"Yes, I don't think it is necessarily a moral thing," said Rose, "but that
doesn't seem to me to matter. It is simply an obligation, pledged or
implied, that you will act in a certain way. It may conflict with a moral
obligation, and then you have to decide which is the greater obligation."

"Yes, that is perfectly true," said Father Payne, "and as long as you admit
that honour isn't in itself bound to be a good thing, that is all I want.
Lestrange seemed to use it as if you had only got to say that a motive was
honourable, to have it recognised by everyone as right. Take the case of
what are called 'national obligations.' A certain party in the State,
having secured a majority of votes, enters into some arrangement--a treaty,
let us say--without consulting the nation. Is that held to be for ever
binding on a nation till it is formally repealed? Is it dishonourable for a
citizen belonging, let us say, to the minority which is not represented by
the particular Government which makes the treaty, to repudiate it?"

"Yes, I think it may be fairly called dishonourable," said Rose; "there is
an obligation on a citizen to back up his Government."

"Then I should feel that honour is a very complicated thing," said Father
Payne. "If a citizen thinks a treaty dishonourable, and if it is also
dishonourable for him to repudiate it, it seems to me he is dishonourable
whatever he does. He is obliged to consent for the sake of honour to a
dishonourable thing being done. It seems to me perilously like a director
of a firm having to condone fraudulent practices, because it is
dishonourable to give his fellow-directors away. It is this conflict
between individual honour and public honour which puzzles me, and which
makes me feel that honour isn't a simple thing at all. A high conception of
private honour seems to me a very fine thing indeed. I mean by it a
profound hatred of anything false or cowardly or perfidious, and a loathing
of anything insincere or treacherous. That sort of proud and stainless
chivalry seems to me to be about the brightest thing we can discern, and
the furthest beauty we can recognise. But honour seems also, according to
you, to be a principle to which you can be committed by a majority of
votes, whether you approve of it or not; and then it seems to me a merely
detestabl