a bit of guessing." As he talked, the
earth became a living being--or rather a being with a living skin,--and
manure no longer dirty stuff, but a symbol of regeneration and of the
birth of life from life. "So it goes on for ever!" she cried excitedly.
He replied: "Not for ever. In time the fire at the centre will cool, and
nothing can go on then."

He advanced into love with open eyes, slowly, heavily, just as he had
advanced across the drawing room carpet. But this time the bride did not
observe his tread. She was listening to her husband, and trying not to
be so stupid. When he was close to her--so close that it was difficult
not to take her in his arms--he spoke to Mr. Failing, and was at once
turned out of Cadover.

"I'm sorry," said Mr. Failing, as he walked down the drive with his hand
on his guest's shoulder. "I had no notion you were that sort. Any one
who behaves like that has to stop at the farm."

"Any one?"

"Any one." He sighed heavily, not for any personal grievance, but
because he saw how unruly, how barbaric, is the soul of man. After all,
this man was more civilized than most.

"Are you angry with me, sir?" He called him "sir," not because he was
richer or cleverer or smarter, not because he had helped to educate him
and had lent him money, but for a reason more profound--for the reason
that there are gradations in heaven.

"I did think you--that a man like you wouldn't risk making people
unhappy. My sister-in-law--I don't say this to stop you loving her;
something else must do that--my sister-in-law, as far as I know, doesn't
care for you one little bit. If you had said anything, if she had
guessed that a chance person was in--this fearful state, you would
simply--have opened hell. A woman of her sort would have lost all--"

"I knew that."

Mr. Failing removed his hand. He was displeased.

"But something here," said Robert incoherently. "This here." He struck
himself heavily on the heart. "This here, doing something so unusual,
makes it not matter what she loses--I--" After a silence he asked, "Have
I quite followed you, sir, in that business of the brotherhood of man?"

"How do you mean?"

"I thought love was to bring it about."

"Love of another man's wife? Sensual love? You have understood
nothing--nothing." Then he was ashamed, and cried, "I understand nothing
myself." For he remembered that sensual and spiritual are not easy words
to use; that there are, perhaps, not two Aphrodites