water, flow into the pipe, and so are thrown up again in
fresh-shaped drops. But I cannot explain why there should be this
Eternal Energy, ever expressing itself in fresh individual shapes, this
Eternal Working Artist, instead of nothing at all--just empty dark for
always; except indeed that it must be one thing or the other, either all
or nothing; and it happens to be this and not that, the all and not the
nothing."

He stopped speaking, and his big eyes, which had fixed themselves on
Fort's face, seemed to the latter not to be seeing him at all, but
to rest on something beyond. The man in khaki, who had risen and was
standing with his hand on his wife's shoulder, said:

"Bravo, monsieur; Jolly well put from the artist's point of view. The
idea is pretty, anyway; but is there any need for an idea at all?
Things are; and we have just to take them." Fort had the impression of
something dark and writhing; the thin black form of his host, who had
risen and come close to the fire.

"I cannot admit," he was saying, "the identity of the Creator with the
created. God exists outside ourselves. Nor can I admit that there is no
defnite purpose and fulfilment. All is shaped to His great ends. I think
we are too given to spiritual pride. The world has lost reverence; I
regret it, I bitterly regret it."

"I rejoice at it," said the man in khaki. "Now, Captain Fort, your turn
to bat!"

Fort, who had been looking at Noel, gave himself a shake, and said: "I
think what monsieur calls expression, I call fighting. I suspect the
Universe of being simply a long fight, a sum of conquests and defeats.
Conquests leading to defeats, defeats to conquests. I want to win while
I'm alive, and because I want to win, I want to live on after death.
Death is a defeat. I don't want to admit it. While I have that instinct,
I don't think I shall really die; when I lose it, I think I shall." He
was conscious of Noel's face turning towards him, but had the feeling
that she wasn't really listening. "I suspect that what we call spirit
is just the fighting instinct; that what we call matter is the mood
of lying down. Whether, as Mr. Pierson says, God is outside us, or, as
monsieur thinks, we are all part of God, I don't know, I'm sure."

"Ah! There we are!" said the man in khaki. "We all speak after our
temperaments, and none of us know. The religions of the world are just
the poetic expressions of certain strongly marked temperaments. Monsieur
was a po