tion would go on
so marvellously, with a new start, non-human. Man is one of the
mistakes of creation--like the ichthyosauri. If only he were gone
again, think what lovely things would come out of the liberated
days;--things straight out of the fire.'

'But man will never be gone,' she said, with insidious, diabolical
knowledge of the horrors of persistence. 'The world will go with him.'

'Ah no,' he answered, 'not so. I believe in the proud angels and the
demons that are our fore-runners. They will destroy us, because we are
not proud enough. The ichthyosauri were not proud: they crawled and
floundered as we do. And besides, look at elder-flowers and
bluebells--they are a sign that pure creation takes place--even the
butterfly. But humanity never gets beyond the caterpillar stage--it
rots in the chrysalis, it never will have wings. It is anti-creation,
like monkeys and baboons.'

Ursula watched him as he talked. There seemed a certain impatient fury
in him, all the while, and at the same time a great amusement in
everything, and a final tolerance. And it was this tolerance she
mistrusted, not the fury. She saw that, all the while, in spite of
himself, he would have to be trying to save the world. And this
knowledge, whilst it comforted her heart somewhere with a little
self-satisfaction, stability, yet filled her with a certain sharp
contempt and hate of him. She wanted him to herself, she hated the
Salvator Mundi touch. It was something diffuse and generalised about
him, which she could not stand. He would behave in the same way, say
the same things, give himself as completely to anybody who came along,
anybody and everybody who liked to appeal to him. It was despicable, a
very insidious form of prostitution.

'But,' she said, 'you believe in individual love, even if you don't
believe in loving humanity--?'

'I don't believe in love at all--that is, any more than I believe in
hate, or in grief. Love is one of the emotions like all the others--and
so it is all right whilst you feel it But I can't see how it becomes an
absolute. It is just part of human relationships, no more. And it is
only part of ANY human relationship. And why one should be required
ALWAYS to feel it, any more than one always feels sorrow or distant
joy, I cannot conceive. Love isn't a desideratum--it is an emotion you
feel or you don't feel, according to circumstance.'

'Then why do you care about people at all?' she asked, 'if you don't
be