‘Bless you, he has been horsewhipped over and over again; I think he rather likes it, and whenever it occurs he publishes a full account in his own journal. Come, you’re no match for him, with his poisoned shafts. He’d find out the weak point in your armour at once. Come to the smoking-room, and have a cigar.’ As they crossed the room together, they heard the voice of Lagardère beginning again, with its usual drawling monotony-- ‘I say, Day, who’s the fire-eater with Crieff? He reminds me of a man who once threatened to thrash me at St. Petersburg. It began at a card-party, where four of us were playing--the Grand Duke Nicolas, Prince Necrolowski, old Gortschenkoff, and myself.’ They heard no more. Sutherland strode on to the smoking-room, which was almost empty, and threw himself into a seat. His face was convulsed, and his frame shook with agitation. ‘My dear Sutherland, you’re exciting yourself for nothing. What is Miss Vere to you?’ ‘She is this much,’ said Sutherland, ‘that if I thought it would serve her I would kill that man like a dog.’ ‘Kill Lagardère! Ridiculous! Why, he’s excellent fun.’ ‘Crieff, don’t talk like that--it’s not worthy of you. You know that man is a villain.’ ‘Upon my word, I don’t think so.’ ‘What!’ ‘He only talks as most men do when actresses are in question, and I assure you he is a man of experience.’ ‘Experience!’ echoed Sutherland bitterly. ‘Yes, he has rolled in the shambles like the rest of us; he has polluted his body and his soul, and because he knows pollution, he dares to speak of one who is perhaps a martyr, and is, to him, an angel to a devil. Well, you are right, he only talks like the rest. Crieff, when I think of what that man is, of what most of us are, I hate my life, I wish I had never been born.’ ‘If you go on like this, old fellow, I shall think you are in love.’ ‘With my own ideal, yes. With that woman, though she almost realises it, no.’ ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Crieff, earnestly. ‘You’re too good stuff to be wasted on an actress.5 ‘There again. You, too, sneer at one whose soul you cannot comprehend. Crieff, neither you nor I am worthy to tie that woman’s shoestrings. Grant that her life has been evil--I’ll not believe it, but assume it for the moment--what she has been society has made her. If she has fallen, it has been through the lusts of our accursed sex; and even now, her divine face, in its almost supernatural sorrow and sweetness, rebukes our lusts and puts our wicked experiences to shame. Oh, we men, we men! We who talk of purity, and seek it in our mothers and our wives! What are we? What are our lives? Sinks of foul passion, privileged by society and protected by the spirit of the law. I tell you, until a man’s life is as pure as he would have the life of the woman he loves, he has no right to throw one stone at the most fallen woman in the world.’