“He takes the view-point, no doubt, that if the present oligarchy in England were entirely destroyed, a new and happier epoch would begin at once.” “I’m sure Mr. Wone is opposed to every kind of violence,” threw in Lacrima. “Nonsense!” cried Mr. Quincunx abruptly. “He may not like violence because he’s afraid of it reacting on himself. But what he wants to do is to humiliate everyone above him, to disturb them, to prod them, to harass and distress them, and if possible to bring them down to his own level. He’s got his thumb on Lacrima’s friends over there,”--he waved his hand in the direction of Nevilton House,--“because they happen to be at the top of the tree at this moment. But if you or I were there, it would be just the same. It’s all jealousy. That’s what it is,--jealousy and envy! He wants to make every one who’s prosperous and eats meat, and drinks champagne, know what it is to live a dog’s life, as he has known it himself! I understand his feelings very well. We poor toads, who live in the mud, get extraordinary pleasure when any of you grand gentlemen slip by accident into our dirty pond. He sees such people enjoying themselves and being happy and he wants to stick a few pins into them!” “But why not, my good sir?” answered the American. “Why shouldn’t Wone use all his energy to crush Romer, just as Romer uses all his energy to crush Wone?” Lacrima sighed. “I don’t think either of you make this world seem a very nice place,” she observed. “A nice place?” cried Mr. Quincunx. “It’s a place poisoned at the root--a place full of gall and wormwood!” “In my humble opinion,” said the American, “it’s a splendid world. I love to see these little struggles and contests going on. I love to see the delicious inconsistencies and self-deceptions that we’re all guilty of. I play the game myself, and I love to see others play it. It’s the only thing I do love, except--” he added after a pause--“except my pictures.” “I loathe the game,” retorted the recluse, “and I find it impossible to live with people who do not loathe it too.” “Well--all I can say, my friend,” observed Dangelis, “is that this business of ‘renouncing,’ of which you talk, doesn’t appeal to me. It strikes me as a backing down and scurrying away, from the splendid adventure of being alive at all. What are you alive for,” he added, “if you are going to condemn the natural combative instinct of men and women as evil and horrible? They are the instincts by which we live. They are the motives that propel the whole universe.” “Mr. Wone would say,” interposed Lacrima, “and I’m not sure that I don’t agree with him, that the real secret of the universe is deeper than all these unhappy struggles. I don’t like the unctuous way he puts these things, but he may be right all the same.”