Egotism is always annoyed at egotisms. An
egotist always sees the egotism of other people. The egotism of those
round him, jump at him, they get on his nerves! He has to love people
who are far, far away! You see my point? Well, I've been trying to make
him take on a small bit of war work!"

"And will he take it?" asked May.

"I don't know," said Bingham; "I've just left him, a prey to conflicting
passions."

May was silent.

"Are you going back to King's?" asked Bingham.

She and Bingham were walking along, just as she and Boreham had been
walking along the same street, past these same colleges not an hour ago.
Was she going back to the Lodgings? Yes, she thought, in fact she knew
she was going back to the Lodgings.

"May I see you to the Lodgings?" asked Bingham.

There seemed no alternative but to say "Yes."

"There are many things I should like to talk over with you, Mrs.
Dashwood," said Bingham, stepping out cheerfully. "I should like to roam
the universe with you."

"I'm afraid you would find me very ignorant," said May.

"I would present you with facts. I would sit at your feet and hold them
out for your inspection, and you, from your throne above, would
pronounce judgment on them."

"It is the ignorant people who always do pronounce judgment," said May.
"So that will be all right. You spoke of Mr. Boreham preaching. Well,
I've just been preaching. It's a horrid habit."

Bingham gave one of his surprising and most cultured explosions of
laughter. May turned and looked at him with her eyebrows very much
raised.

"I am laughing at myself," he explained. "I thought to buy things too
cheaply."

May looked away, pondering on the meaning of his words. At last the
meaning occurred to her.

"You mean you wanted to flatter me, and--and I began to talk about
something else. Was that what made you laugh?" she asked.

"That's it," said Bingham. "I wanted to flatter you because it is a
pleasure to flatter you, and I forgot what a privilege it was."

"Ah!" said May, quietly.

"Cheap, cheap, always cheap!" said Bingham. "Cheapness is the curse of
our age. The old Radical belief in the right to buy cheaply, that poison
has soaked into the very bone of politics. It has contaminated our
religion. The pulpit has decided in favour of cheap salvation."

May looked round again at Bingham's moonlit profile.

"No more hell!" he said, "no more narrow way, no more strait gate to
heaven! On the contrary, we bawl