"Quite right, too!" cried Logan. "That shows how sound an artist's instinct is. He knows what is good for him because he is a free man. The others have to be told what is good for them because they don't know themselves and because, however unhappy they are, they don't know the way out. When you and I are unhappy we know that it is because we have lost touch with life, or because we have lost touch with art; either the flesh or the spirit is choked with thorns, and we set about plucking them out. When it is a question of saving your soul, what do morals matter?" Mendel had heard people talk about morals, and he knew that his own were supposed to be bad; but he was not certain what they were. Rather timidly he asked Logan, who gave his fat chuckle and replied:-- "Morals, my son? No one knows. They change about a hundred years after human practice. They are different in different times, places, and circumstances, and Sir Julius Fleischmann, like you and me, has none, because he can afford to do without them. . . . Well, I've done a good day's work and we've had a good dinner, and I must get back to my beautiful bed--unless you'd like to go to a music-hall." Mendel was loath to let his friend go, and, weary though he was, he said he would like the music-hall. Logan bought more cigars and they walked round to the Oxford and spent the evening in uneasy and flat conversation with two ladies of the town, one of whom said she knew Logan, though he swore he had never seen her before. When they were shaken off, he told Mendel mysteriously that she was a friend of a woman of whom he went in terror, who had been pursuing him for a couple of years. "Terrible! Terrible!" he said. "Like a wild beast. They're awful, these prostitutes, when they fall in love. It eats them up, body and soul." And he went on talking of women, and from what he said it appeared that he was beset by them. He described them lurking in the street for him, forcing their way into his studio, clamouring for love, love, love. "It makes me sick," he said. "I never yet met a woman who knew how to love. If a man has an enthusiasm for anything outside themselves, they plot and scheme with their damnable cunning to kill it. They want the carcase of a man, not the lovely life in it. And if they're decent they want babies, which is almost worse if you're hard up. No, boy; for God's sake don't take women seriously. If you can't do without them, hate 'em. They'll lick your boots for it. They feed on hatred, and will take it out of your hand." He talked in this strain until they reached the Tube station in Piccadilly Circus. It was unusually empty, and by the booking-office was standing a very pretty girl, big and upstanding. She had a wide mouth and curious slanting eyes, plump cheeks and a roguish tilt to her chin. She was well and neatly dressed, and Mendel judged her to be a shop-girl.