"I do not. A few things are going on all the time--very few. The civilization of Babylon was pretty much the civilization of Rome; while Rome wasn't so very different from ourselves. There's a little levelling of the classes; but there's no longer a goal, either in heaven or hell. That means a soulless people." "But it marches all the same." "Where science leads it. There's the only clear thinking. What's the good of talking when men don't know why they're here, or what they are? When they had heaven and hell, they thought clearly enough. Your new gospel leads them into a morass. It couldn't very well lead them anywhere else. The things that go on evolve as we ourselves have evolved. All the politicians, parliaments, philosophers don't help them a jot. They were saying the same thing on the top of monoliths before the flood. We are driven--but we don't know why or whither unless we believe, as all but the fools have believed, by Almighty God." Bertie Morris helped himself to an orange salad. "Say, why don't you write all this?" "Because I've something better to do. My business is to make guns and to sell 'em." The journalist pricked up his ears. "There was some talk of a big contract of yours going through here. Is that right?" "Ah! you'd pay something to know--and a good many more. Did they couple d'Arny to the talk?" "Well, it's chiefly up to him. He's a lot of backers up against him in the Chambers. Jaurés says he's corrupt." "He'd have to be in his job. We're all corrupt, for that matter. I believe that Walpole's right. I'd buy any man body and soul for a price." "And women too--I don't think." Faber laughed. "No money is too much for a good woman," he said. III They followed the programme afterwards, driving right round the Bois and returning to the Jardin du Luxembourg. The day had fallen bitterly cold again, and a light snow whitened the trees in the famous avenues. Paris took a romantic mantle and covered her pretty shoulders daintily. Habitués fled to the cafés and ensconced themselves in warm corners; fur-clad women sank deep in the cushions of their motors; there were ridiculously dressed children scampering about the Bois and crying, "_Dieu, comme il fait froid_"--a fairy-like scene quite characteristic of a city which is rarely serious, and then tragically so. Through this Faber passed to his father's house. He had become silent and preoccupied--a man of few emotions, but of one which had never been absent from his life. His father! How often he had tried to create the living man from the insufficient pictures of that time!