“Splendid subject for a poem, Mrs. Tillotson!” cried Ralbeck. “I will put it in music, the schema thus--The wronged cry for justice! They rise! Staccato! Spare not! Fortissimo! Triumph! Victory! Allegro-mezzoforte!” And Berry rumpled his hair and murmured: “Peace and coffee at Mrs. Tillotson's afterwards. Andante. It's rather nice.” And Mrs. Tillotson poured coffee from her patent coffee-pot, saying sternly that Mr. Aidee never countenanced crime; she could not bring herself either to countenance crime. “This is important,” she said. “We must take a position. We must insist to Mr. Aidee on a position.” She drew herself up and paused. “People will ask our position.” Alberta opened her soft blue eyes widely. “Will you write a poem about Wood and Hicks, really?” “My dear, what is your opinion?” Mrs. Tillotson asked. “Scrumptious!” said Alberta. Mrs. Tillotson hesitated. “I will consult Mr. Aidee. The Assembly must take a position.” It was Mrs. Tillotson's latest theory that she was the power behind the throne. Genius must be supported, guided, controlled. She referred to Chateaubriand and Madame Récamier, a reference furnished her by Berry. “Countenance crime!” cried Ralbeck. “Everybody countenances crime.” Alberta opened her eyes a shade wider. “Except crimes of technique,” Berry murmured softly. “You don't countenance a man who sings off the key. Curious! I do.” “Art has laws,” declared Mrs. Tillotson. “Society has laws. Crime is the breach of necessary laws.” “Necessary, Mrs. Tillotson! You touch the point.” Berry stirred himself. “But we sing in tune or out of tune by nature; just so love and hate by nature. Or if we learn to love, or to sing in tune, it is by example, and not by fear or compulsion, that we learn. Most crimes are crimes of technique, the breach, not of natural laws, but of artificial laws. An unnecessary law is an initial crime. The breach of it is a consequent crime. 'Love one another' is the law most systematic, beautiful, inclusive. Really, all other laws than that are technical.” “G-gorry!” stammered Ted Secor. “Bu-but, you see, Hicks----” “Did Hicks love Wood?” said Berry, and fixed on Teddy his glassy-eyed and smiling stare. “He was wrong, Hicks was wrong.” “G-gorry, no! He didn't love Wood!” Ted Secor found it hard work, this keeping one's gaze fixed on higher things, for the stars all seemed to be erratic stars. He was not clever himself; they were all cleverer here than he. He was nearly as idle as Berry, and more ignorant than Ralbeck, whose knowledge extra-musical was less than moderate; he was as useless as possible; his limbs were large and his head small; Mrs. Tillotson scared him; Alberta ordered and he obeyed; but he had decided instincts, and he knew that Berry was cleverer than Ralbeck, that Mrs. Tillotson posed, that Alberta carried himself around somehow in her diminutive pocket, and finally, that his own staying powers on the whole were rather good.