“Art has laws,” declared Mrs. Tillotson. “Society has laws. Crime is the breach of necessary laws.”
“Necessary, Mrs. Tillotson! You touch the point.” Berry stirred himself. “But we sing in tune or out of tune by nature; just so love and hate by nature. Or if we learn to love, or to sing in tune, it is by example, and not by fear or compulsion, that we learn. Most crimes are crimes of technique, the breach, not of natural laws, but of artificial laws. An unnecessary law is an initial crime. The breach of it is a consequent crime. 'Love one another' is the law most systematic, beautiful, inclusive. Really, all other laws than that are technical.”
“G-gorry!” stammered Ted Secor. “Bu-but, you see, Hicks——”
“Did Hicks love Wood?” said Berry, and fixed on Teddy his glassy-eyed and smiling stare. “He was wrong, Hicks was wrong.”
“G-gorry, no! He didn't love Wood!” Ted Secor found it hard work, this keeping one's gaze fixed on higher things, for the stars all seemed to be erratic stars. He was not clever himself; they were all cleverer here than he. He was nearly as idle as Berry, and more ignorant than Ralbeck, whose knowledge extra-musical was less than moderate; he was as useless as possible; his limbs were large and his head small; Mrs. Tillotson scared him; Alberta ordered and he obeyed; but he had decided instincts, and he knew that Berry was cleverer than Ralbeck, that Mrs. Tillotson posed, that Alberta carried himself around somehow in her diminutive pocket, and finally, that his own staying powers on the whole were rather good.
The trolley car clattered, and crashed past outside, and stopped, and Alberta, looking through the bow-window, cried:
“Camilla Champney! She's coming in!”
While Mrs. Tillotson flushed and saw visions. Camilla was not frequent and familiar in her drawing-room. She had been there but once or twice, and then nearly a year before.
When Aidee entered, Ralbeck, Mrs. Tillotson, and Berry were arguing eagerly on the subject of rituals, Camilla's thrilled and thrilling interest seeming to act like a draught on excitable coals. Mrs. Tillotson appealed to Aidee. Berry argued the softening effect of rituals; they tended to substitute non-combative forces and habits, he said, in the place of combative opinion; the Catholics were wise who substituted ecclesiasticism for theology; opinion was quarrelsome; hence followed anger and hate; a ritual represented order, therefore habit, therefore peace; it induced these qualities in character; he thought Mrs. Tillotson might compose a ritual for the Assembly. Ralbeck shouted his scorn. Mrs. Tillotson did not seem pleased with Ralbeck for his scorn.
Aidee left the house with Ted, Alberta, and Camilla. Presently Ted and Alberta turned north toward Herbert Avenue and the region of large houses and broad lawns, and Aidee and Camilla walked down Franklin Street. The crowds increased as they drew nearer the business section—late afternoon crowds hurrying home.