t as for me, I have too
many cares and too much work to do. And then, as I told you, I am too
old. These ideas are too new for me. A man's intelligence is capable
of holding only a certain quantum of new, creative ideas. When that
amount is exhausted, whatever the progress around you may be, one
refuses to see it and help it on. I am incapable of carrying on a
discussion to fruitful lengths. I am incapable of the audacity of
being logical. I confess to you, my boy, I have not the strength to be
right."

"My dear doctor," said the young man in a tone of reproach, meeting his
older colleague's sincerity with equal sincerity, "you have publicly
declared your disapproval of the men who publicly fought the idea of
patriotism. The influence of your name has been used against them."

The old man straightened himself, and his face coloured.

"I will not stand for our country's being endangered."

I did not recognise him any more. He dropped from his great thoughts
and was no longer himself. I was discouraged.

"But," the other put in, "what you just said--"

"That is not the same thing. The people you speak of have defied us.
They have declared themselves enemies and so have justified all
outrages in advance."

"Those who commit outrages against them commit the crime of ignorance,"
said the young man in a tremulous voice, sustained by a kind of vision.
"They fail to see the superior logic of things that are in the process
of creation." He bent over to his companion, and, in a firmer tone,
asked, "How can the thing that is beginning help being revolutionary?
Those who are the first to cry out are alone, and therefore ignored or
despised. You yourself just said so. But posterity will remember the
vanguard of martyrs. It will hail those who have cast a doubt on the
equivocal word 'fatherland,' and will gather them into the fold of all
the innovators who went before them and who are now universally
honoured."

"Never!" cried the old man, who listened to this last with a troubled
look. A frown of obstinacy and impatience deepened in his forehead,
and he clenched his fists in hate. "No, that is not the same thing.
Besides, discussions like this lead nowhere. It would be better, while
we are waiting for the world to do its duty, for us to do ours and tell
this poor woman the truth."

CHAPTER X

The two women were alone beside the wide open window. In the full,
wise light of the autumn sun, I saw