"Perhaps it should be so," he replied, setting his cane a-dancing. "Perhaps that is the prime demand I have to make of you in the name of a higher life. Let me tell you a little fable apropos. Once upon a time there were two good old missionaries. To satisfy a strong spiritual craving they wanted to spread Christianity in Central Africa. There is really no need for such queer fish, but they do exist, and we must accept the fact. They took a small portable organ with them for enhancing the solemnity of their sermons. In the sweat of their brows and the encouraging heat of the tropics, they dragged it hundreds of miles into the interior, where dwelt the poor naked savages upon whom they had designs. There they set their organ down and began to play. But scarcely did the poor naked savages hear the first chords, when they took up their clubs and beat the good missionaries to death--on account of the spirits, of course, who resided in the chest. Life does the same to us if we attempt to play on the good old organ of our moral exactions." Lilly felt she could not cope with his superior intellect. Now he laid her arm in his without question, and she did not venture to withdraw it. They walked along lowering factory walls, amid whose dark masses a lantern now and then spread its milky circle of light. Scaffoldings stretched their bony arms to the sulphur-coloured sky, and from parallel streets came the intermittent clang of electric tram gongs. "Where are we going?" asked Lilly, anxiously. "We're going out of the way of society. And if I wanted to exploit the present conjuncture of circumstances I should profit by your being lost, your feeling that you need protection. But I'm not a calculating nature. In matters of emotion I'm like a child. I take whatever the heavens rain down on me. Aren't you the same way?" "I'm too heavy," replied Lilly, ready to bare her soul to him. "I'm full of scruples. I think a lot over everything." "The question is _what_ you think," he said gaily. She wanted to reply and talk to him--tell him all her thoughts. She felt like holding out her heart on her open palm, so that nothing should remain concealed from him. But shame before his great wisdom sealed her lips. "Why do you take the trouble to bother with a stupid thing like me?" she asked, to show him her humility at least. "Perhaps because I have a mission to fulfil in your life. 'Perhaps,' I say, because one can never be sure whether there is such a thing as reflex action of the emotions. Certain _moments psychologiques_ will teach us." Though his meaning was not at all clear to Lilly, a hesitating sense of happiness stole over her that so mighty a man should actually concern himself with her. "You are entirely in his power," she thought, "and you will be whatever he wants you to be." At that moment he drew her arm a little closer, and her pressure in response brought his hand for an instant on her breast.