"I wonder, is Salvation the same for every one? Perhaps for one man Salvation is research and thought, and for another expression in art, and for another nursing lepers. Provided he does it in the spirit. He has to do it in the spirit...." There came a silence as though some difficulty baffled him, and he was feeling back to get his argument again. "This flame that arises out of life, that redeems life from purposeless triviality, _isn't_ life. Let me get hold of that. That's a point. That's a very important point." Something had come to him. "I've never talked of this to Marjorie. I've lived with her nine years and more, and never talked of religion. Not once. That's so queer of us. Any other couple in any other time would have talked religion no end.... People ought to." Then he stuck out an argumentative hand. "You see, Marjorie _is_ life," he said. "She took me." He spoke slowly, as though he traced things carefully. "Before I met her I suppose I wasn't half alive. No! Yet I don't remember I felt particularly incomplete. Women were interesting, of course; they excited me at times, that girl at Yonkers!--H'm. I stuck to my work. It was fine work, I forget half of it now, the half-concealed intimations I mean--queer how one forgets!--but I know I felt my way to wide, deep things. It was like exploring caves--monstrous, limitless caves. Such caves!... Very still--underground. Wonderful and beautiful.... They're lying there now for other men to seek. Other men will find them.... Then _she_ came, as though she was taking possession. The beauty of her, oh! the life and bright eagerness, and the incompatibility! That's the riddle! I've loved her always. When she came to my arms it seemed to me the crown of life. Caves indeed! Old caves! Nothing else seemed to matter. But something did. All sorts of things did. I found that out soon enough. And when that first child was born. That for a time was supreme.... Yes--she's the quintessence of life, the dear greed of her, the appetite, the clever appetite for things. She grabs. She's so damned clever! The light in her eyes! Her quick sure hands!... Only my work was crowded out of my life and ended, and she didn't seem to feel it, she didn't seem to mind it. There was a sort of disregard. Disregard. As though all that didn't really matter...." "_My dear!_" whispered Marjorie unheeded. She wanted to tell him it mattered now, mattered supremely, but she knew he had no ears for her. His voice flattened. "It's perplexing," he said. "The two different things."