“On the whole, I think our system does very well,” said the Englishman, carefully measuring the horseradish. “A mean between two extremes is apt to be satisfactory in results. If we don’t produce a Marcus Aurelius or a Seneca, neither do we produce a Nero or a Phocas. We may have lost patriotism, but we have gained humanity, which is better. If we have lost chivalry, we have acquired decency; and if we have ceased to be picturesque, we have become cleanly, which is considerably more to be desired.” “I have never felt the romanticism of the Middle Ages,” remarked the girl in black. “When I read of the glories of the Crusaders, I can’t help remembering that a knight wore a single garment for a lifetime, and hacked his horse to pieces for a whim. Just as I never think of that chivalrous brute, Richard the Lion-Hearted, that I don’t see him chopping off the heads of his prisoners.” “Oh, I don’t think that any of us are sighing for a revival of the Middle Ages,” returned the journalist. “The worship of the past has for its devotees people who have known only the present.” “Which is as it should be,” commented the lawyer. “If man were confined to the worship of the knowable, all the world would lapse into atheism.” “Just as the great lovers of humanity were generally hermits,” added the girl in black. “I had an uncle who used to say that he never really loved mankind until he went to live in the wilderness.” “I think we are drifting from the point,” said the alienist. “Was it not: Can the saving of a human life ever prove to be an immoral act? I once held that it could.” “Did you act upon the theory?” asked the lawyer, with rising interest. “I maintain that no proposition can be said to exist until it is translated into action. Otherwise it is in an embryonic state merely.” The alienist laid down his fork and leaned forward. He was a notable-looking man of some thirty-odd years, who had made a sudden leap into popularity through several successful cases. He had a nervous, muscular face, with singularly penetrating eyes and hair of a light sandy colour. His hands were white and well shaped. “It was some years ago,” he said, bending a scintillant glance round the table. “If you will listen—” There followed a stir of assent, accompanied by a nod from the young woman on the Captain’s right. “I feel as if it would be a ghost story,” she declared. “It is not a story at all,” returned the alienist, lifting his wineglass and holding it against the light. “It is merely a fact.” Then he glanced swiftly round the table as if challenging attention.