Mr. Delmer looked puzzled for a moment, then committed himself, without sufficient preliminary thought, to a doubtful statement, "Human love ought to be free," which raised a cheer. "Free love," Dixon returned promptly, "has never, surely, been advocated by the best thinkers of Church or State," and while Mr. Delmer blushed, partly at his own carelessness, partly at the delicacy of the subject, and partly because Pansy Ponsonby was standing at his elbow, Dixon added, "Love, like anything else, wants regulating, organising, turning to the best uses. Otherwise, we become, surely, no better than the other animals...." "Isn't he just terribly fierce," observed Pansy in her smiling contralto, to the world at large. Mr. Delmer said uncomfortably, "You mistake me, sir. I was not advocating lawless love. I am merely maintaining that love--if we must use the word--should not be shackled by laws relating to things which are of less importance than itself, such as the cultivation of the intelligence." "_Is_ it of less importance?" Dixon challenged him. "The greatest of these three," began the vicar, inaptly, because he was flustered. "Quite so," said Dixon; "but St. Paul, I think, doesn't include intelligence in his three. St. Paul, I believe, was able enough himself to know how much ability matters in the progress of religion. And, if we are to quote St. Paul, he, of course, was no advocate of matrimony, but I think, when carried out at all, he would have approved of its being carried out on the best possible principles, not from mere casual impulse and desire.... Freedom," continued Dixon, with the dreamy and kindled eye which always denoted with him that he was on a pet topic, "what _is_ freedom? I beg--I do beg," he added hastily, "that no one will tell me it is mastery of ourselves. I have heard that before. It is no such thing. Mastery of ourselves is a fine thing; freedom is, or would be if anyone ever had such a thing, an absurdity, a monstrosity. It would mean that there would be nothing, either external or internal, to prevent us doing precisely what we like. No laws of nature, of morality, of the State, of the Church, of Society...." Dr. Cross caught Kitty's eye behind him. "He's off," she murmured. "We must stop him."