ay home from the court.

"It was his heart was broken by all the trouble of it," said Flynn, "and
when the victory was his he didn't want it. If he'd lost his case he
wouldn't have done it. But it's a difficult thing to get into the head
of a jury, especially when it's a packed jury of black Protestants from
the North."

"We don't make nearly enough account, in our laws or our private lives,
of which of the two great divisions any deed falls into," said the
Parson.

"What divisions?" asked Flynn curiously.

"The divisions of what one may call the primary and secondary--I mean,
if a deed be born of itself, a pure creation, or whether it is the
result of a reaction. I have had more girls 'go wrong' after a religious
revival than at any other time. Pure reaction! I firmly believe reaction
is at the bottom of half the marriages and all the divorces of the
world."

"It's at the back of quite half the crime," assented Flynn, "and murder
should certainly be classified under that distinction."

"It's at the bottom of nearly all the decisive steps in a man's own
life," said Ishmael thoughtfully. He was thinking that his self-created
impulses seemed to have ceased with the death of his love for Blanche.
She and Cloom had both been passions born of their own inevitable
necessity. But his marriage came under the heading of "reaction" if ever
anything did. He wondered whether this new fire he felt beginning to
warm him did not partake of some quality of reaction also--reaction from
the dreams and undisciplined longings of adolescence which had served
him so badly. At the thought the glow died down, and greyness spread
over the vague budding schemes that had begun to swell life out.

"But one mustn't confuse the law of reactions with that of cause and
effect," the Parson went on, "which it is easy to do if you let yourself
think sloppily."

Dan pounced on the point eagerly. "No, indeed, or it's all reforms would
be only on the secondary plane, instead of which any reform worthy the
name is a pure impulse of creation. I don't believe any deed, public or
private, of the finest calibre can come under the head of the secondary
type."

"Perhaps not," said Boase, "but it's all the more important a
distinction. Both the foolish and the criminal deed are less blameworthy
if they are the result of some violent reaction, even if the fine deed
is the less unalloyed."

Thinking it over that night with his accustomed honesty, Ishmael