"If you want to know what I think about life," said Ronder, "it's just this--that we mustn't take ourselves too seriously, that we must work our utmost at the thing we're in, and give as little trouble to others as possible." Falk nodded his head. "Yes, that's very simple. If you'll forgive my saying so, that's the sort of thing any one says to cover up what he really feels. That's not what _you_ really feel. Anyway it accounts for simply nothing at all. If that's all there is in life----" "I don't say that's all there is in life," interrupted Ronder softly, "I only say that that does for a start--for one's daily conduct I mean. But you've got to rid your head of illusions. Don't expect poetry and magic for ever round the corner. Don't dream of Utopias--they'll never come. Mind your own daily business." "Play for safety, in fact," said Falk. Ronder coloured a little. "Not at all. Take every kind of risk if you think your happiness depends upon it. You're going to serve the world best by getting what you want and resting contented in it. It's the discontented and disappointed who hang things up." Falk smiled. "You're pushing on to me the kind of philosophy that I'd like to follow," he said. "I don't believe in it for a moment nor do I believe it's what you really think, but I think I'm ready to cheat myself if you give me encouragement enough. I don't want to do any one any harm, but I must come to a conclusion about life and then follow it so closely that I can never have any doubt about any course of action again. When I was a small boy the Cathedral used to terrify me and dominate me too. I believed in God then, of course, and I used to creep in and listen, expecting to hear Him speak. That tomb of the Black Bishop seemed to me the place where He'd most likely be, and I used to fancy sometimes that He did speak from the heart of that stone. But I daresay it was the old Bishop himself. "Anyway, I determined long ago that the Cathedral has a life of its own, quite apart from any of us. It has more immortality in one stone of its nave than we have in all our bodies." "Don't be too sure of that," Ronder said. "We have our immortality--a tiny flame, but I believe that it never dies. Beauty comes from it and dwells in it. We increase it or diminish it as we live." "And yet," said Falk eagerly, "you were urging, just now, a doctrine of what, if you'll forgive my saying so, was nothing but selfishness. How do you reconcile that with immortality?"