Paul rounded on him eagerly. "But I do," he insisted. "To be honest, it is an utter mystery to me how you do not. I can't conceive of it at all. I know we've never discussed the point before--it hasn't seemed to me worth discussion, the existence of God, I mean--but I want to now." "Ahl And why now?" "Because, impossible as it seems to me in your or anybody's case, that your cousin should say 'There is no god' utterly staggers me." "When did she say that?" Paul told him. He smoked thoughtfully. "Humph," he said at last, dubiously, "but I doubt if Ursula is as much an atheist as an agnostic. She probably put it that way because her god, whatever she thinks, has nothing worth mentioning in common with any idea of God in your mind." Paul regarded him for a moment in troubled silence, weighing his words. Then he sighed. "It is utterly beyond me," he said. "How, in the face of things as they are, you or anyone can fail to believe in a Creator, an Inspirer, a Supporter, I do not see. It may be old-fashioned, but even _Paley's Evidences_ seem good enough to me. Allow evolution if you like, allow anything, you've got to get back to _something_. There must have been a beginning, even if it was all the most tenuous of spiral nebulæ. Well, who made that?" "I haven't the remotest notion," said Manning. "Well, but...." "Yes?" "Well, if God didn't create it, how did it come? What other hypothesis is possible? It's not conceivable, thinkable even at all, that matter is eternal. Why, eternity, backwards or forwards, is unthinkable." "Exactly. Yet you ascribe this unthinkable attribute to God." Paul knit his brows. "One must," he objected. "No," said Manning, sitting up sharply, "that's exactly where you're wrong. One most emphatically must not." Complete bewilderment settled down on Paul. He made a characteristic little gesture at last. "I suppose I haven't the intelligence necessary to follow you," he said almost bitterly. "Paul," said Manning, "you have, that's the rub. More, I shouldn't be in the least surprised if you did. You've been God-ridden all your life, obsessed, bound, but you've broken steadily away from the chains. It seems inevitable to me that sooner or later you will break with this also. If I've said nothing much so far, it's because, in a way, I'm not interested. I like you too much to want to see you rot up your life with Roman Catholicism or any arrant nonsense of that sort, but I've always thought you had better keep your God till--till----" He hesitated. Then: "Possibly till the right person came along to deliver you." "You mean your cousin, I suppose," Paul said slowly. "Indeed I do not," replied Manning quickly. "I had no idea you two would seriously broach the subject. But it is interesting that it has come that way. You're in good hands, though Ursula keeps more of the cargo than I can carry." "Precious little, I should think," retorted Paul.