Suddenly he sprang up and began to walk the room. The effect on Harkness was strange--it was as though he were suddenly shut in there with an animal. So often in zoological gardens he had seen that haunting monotonous movement, that encounter with the bars of the cage and the indifferent acceptance of their inevitability, indifferent only because of endless repetition. Crispin, padding now up and down the long room, reminded Harkness of one of the smaller animals, the little jaguars, the half-wolf, half-fox; his head forward, his hands crossed behind his short thick back, his eyes, restless now, moving here, there about the room, his movements soft, almost furtive, every instinct towards escape. As he moved in the room half-clouded with light, the soft resolute step pervaded Harkness's sense, and soon the thick confined scent of a caged animal seemed to creep up to his nostrils and linger there. Furry--captive--danger hanging behind the plodding step, so that if a sudden release were to come. . . . And he sat there fixed in his seat as though nailed to it while the sweet voice continued: "And so, my dear Mr. Harkness, I have devoted my later years to the solution of this problem. "I feel, if I may say so, without too much arrogance, that I am intending to help poor human nature along the road to a better understanding of life. Poor, muddled human nature. Defeated always by Fear. Yes, Fear. And if they have surmounted Pain and stand with their foot on its body, what remains? It is gone, vanished. I myself am increasing my power every day. First one, then another. First through Pain. Then through Love. I love all the world, yes, everything in it, but first it must be taught, and it is so reluctant--so strangely reluctant--to receive its teaching. And I myself suffer because I am too tender-hearted. I should myself be superior to the suffering of others because I know how good it is for them to suffer. But I am not. Alas, no. It is only where my indignation is aroused, and aroused justly, that I can conquer my tenderness, and then--well then . . . I can make my important experiments. My daughter-in-law, for instance. . . ." He paused, not far from Harkness, and once again his hands made a curious motion in the air as though he were transcribing a bar of music. He stepped close to Harkness. His breath, scented curiously with a faint odour of orange, was in Harkness's face. He leaned forward, his hands were on Harkness's shoulders.