"They are," said Brun, laughing. "You see, Christopher, as I've often said to you before, you're a sentimentalist--people matter to you; you're concerned in their individual good or bad luck. Now none of that is worth anything to me. I observe from the outside--always. What I want to see is less muddle, more brain, less waste of time, more progress. I believe the loosing of the Tiger is going to bring that about. That's why I welcome it--I don't care one little damn about your individual--let him be sacrificed every time for the general wisdom. Your Duchess, she was good for her age. Now she is against progress. She vanishes. That crowd of to-night has swept her away.... There'll be a chaos here for a time--people like the Ruddards will mix things up; a woman like Mrs. Strode will destroy as many good people as she can. But the time will come; out of that crowd that we got into to-night a world, ruled by brain, by common sense, by understanding, not by sentiment and confusion, will arise.... May I not be with the good God!" "'Sentiment and confusion,'" said Christopher, smiling. "That's me, I suppose." "Well, you _are_ sentimental," said Brun. "You're stuffed with it." "Do you yourself ..." asked Christopher, "is there no one--no one in the world--who matters to you?" "Nobody," said Brun. "No one in the world. I think I like you better than anybody; you're the honestest man I know and yet one of the most wrong-headed. Yes, I like you very much; but it would not be true to say that it would leave any great blank in my life if you were to die. Women! Yes, there have been women! But--thank the good God! for the moment only. The Heart--no--The Brain--yes----" "Well, then," said Christopher, "that's all clear enough. It isn't very wonderful that we differ. People are to me everything. Love the only power in the world to make change, to work miracles; I don't mean only sensual love, or even sexual love, but simply the love of one human being for another, the love that leads to thinking more of your neighbour than yourself--self-denial. "Self-denial; the only curb for your Tiger, Brun. I've been watching it in a piece of private history, all this last year and a half. There might have been the most horrible mess; self-denial saved it all the time. You'll say that all this is so vague and loose that it's worth nothing." "Not at all," said Brun politely. "Go ahead."