ey
enjoyed it, and seen them foaming at the mouth, kicking against
death--and I can't say it particularly staggered my belief in my Maker.
But when it comes to the women, somehow it seems more polite not to
believe in him than to believe that he does these damnable things on
purpose."

Stanistreet closed his eyes to shut out the sight of Tyson and his
eternal cigar, and the slow monotonous movement of his lips. His friend's
theological views were not exactly the supreme interest of the moment.

"Down there in the desert" (Tyson seemed to dream as he raised his eyes
to the great map of the Soudan that hung above the chimney-piece), "where
there's no end to the sand and the sky, and man's nothing and woman less
than nothing, this curious belief in the infinite seems the natural
thing; it simply possesses you. You know the feeling? But here it gets
crowded out somehow; it's too big for these little houses we've got to
live in, and work in, and die in. It's beastly business thinking, though.
I fancy old Tennyson got very near the mark--

"'Perplexed in faith, but _pure in deeds_.
At last he beat his music out;
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half--'"

There was a sharp bitter cry, stifled in the instant of its utterance,
and Tyson started to his feet. His mouth worked convulsively. "My God!
I don't care who's responsible for this filthy world. Nobody but a fiend
could take that little thing and torture her so. Think of it, Louis!"

"I'm trying not to think of it. It's damnable as you say, but--other
women have to stand it."

"Other women!" Tyson flung the words out like an execration that throbbed
with his scorn and loathing of the sex. Other women! By an act of his
will he had put his wife on a high pedestal for the moment--made her
shine, for the moment, white and fair above the contemptible herd, her
obscure multitudinous sisterhood. Other women! The phrase had an
undertone of dull passionate self-reproach that was distinctly audible
to Stanistreet's finer ear. Stanistreet knew many things about
Tyson--knew, for instance, the cause that but for this would have taken
him up to town; and Tyson knew that he knew.

If it came to that, Stanistreet too had some grounds for self-reproach.
He took up a book and tried to read; but the words reeled and staggered
and grew dim before him; he found himself listening to the ticking of the
clock, and the pulse of time became a woman's heart be