uddenly as he had begun.

"You needn't be afraid," answered Courtier, "that I take you for an
average specimen. You're at one end, and I at the other, and we probably
both miss the golden mark. But the world is not ruled by power, and the
fear which power produces, as you think, it's ruled by love. Society is
held together by the natural decency in man, by fellow-feeling. The
democratic principle, which you despise, at root means nothing at all but
that. Man left to himself is on the upward lay. If it weren't so, do
you imagine for a moment your 'boys in blue' could keep order? A man
knows unconsciously what he can and what he can't do, without losing his
self-respect. He sucks that knowledge in with every breath. Laws and
authority are not the be-all and end-all, they are conveniences,
machinery, conduit pipes, main roads. They're not of the structure of
the building--they're only scaffolding."

Miltoun lunged out with the retort

"Without which no building could be built."

Courtier parried.

"That's rather different, my friend, from identifying them with the
building. They are things to be taken down as fast as ever they can be
cleared away, to make room for an edifice that begins on earth, not in
the sky. All the scaffolding of law is merely there to save time, to
prevent the temple, as it mounts, from losing its way, and straying out
of form."

"No," said Miltoun, "no! The scaffolding, as you call it, is the
material projection of the architect's conception, without which the
temple does not and cannot rise; and the architect is God, working
through the minds and spirits most akin to Himself."

"We are now at the bed-rock," cried Courtier, "your God is outside this
world. Mine within it."

"And never the twain shall meet!"

In the silence that followed Miltoun saw that they were in Leicester
Square, all quiet as yet before the theatres had disgorged; quiet yet
waiting, with the lights, like yellow stars low-driven from the dark
heavens, clinging to the white shapes of music-halls and cafes, and a
sort of flying glamour blanching the still foliage of the plane trees.

"A 'whitely wanton'--this Square!" said Courtier: "Alive as a face; no
end to its queer beauty! And, by Jove, if you went deep enough, you'd
find goodness even here."

"And you'd ignore the vice," Miltoun answered.

He felt weary all of a sudden, anxious to get to his rooms, unwilling to
continue this battle of words, that