If we are to have any Utopia at all, we must have a clear common purpose, and a great and steadfast movement of will to override all these incurably egotistical dissentients. Something is needed wide and deep enough to float the worst of egotisms away. The world is not to be made right by acclamation and in a day, and then for ever more trusted to run alone. It is manifest this Utopia could not come about by chance and anarchy, but by co-ordinated effort and a community of design, and to tell of just land laws and wise government, a wisely balanced economic system, and wise social arrangements without telling how it was brought about, and how it is sustained against the vanity and self-indulgence, the moody fluctuations and uncertain imaginations, the heat and aptitude for partisanship that lurk, even when they do not flourish, in the texture of every man alive, is to build a palace without either door or staircase. I had not this in mind when I began. Somewhere in the Modern Utopia there must be adequate men, men the very antithesis of our friend, capable of self-devotion, of intentional courage, of honest thought, and steady endeavour. There must be a literature to embody their common idea, of which this Modern Utopia is merely the material form; there must be some organisation, however slight, to keep them in touch one with the other. Who will these men be? Will they be a caste? a race? an organisation in the nature of a Church? ... And there came into my mind the words of our acquaintance, that he was not one of these "voluntary noblemen." At first that phrase struck me as being merely queer, and then I began to realise certain possibilities that were wrapped up in it. The animus of our chance friend, at any rate, went to suggest that here was his antithesis. Evidently what he is not, will be the class to contain what is needed here. Evidently. Section 4 I was recalled from my meditations by the hand of the blond-haired man upon my arm. I looked up to discover the botanist had gone into the inn. The blond-haired man was for a moment almost stripped of pose. "I say," he said. "Weren't you listening to me?" "No," I said bluntly. His surprise was manifest. But by an effort he recalled what he had meant to say. "Your friend," he said, "has been telling me, in spite of my sustained interruptions, a most incredible story." I wondered how the botanist managed to get it in. "About that woman?" I said. "About a man and a woman who hate each other and can't get away from each other." "I know," I said. "It sounds absurd." "It is." "Why can't they get away? What is there to keep them together? It's ridiculous. I----" "Quite." "He _would_ tell it to me." "It's his way." "He interrupted me. And there's no point in it. Is he----" he hesitated, "mad?" "There's a whole world of people mad with him," I answered after a pause.