She paused, astonished.
‘Ah, yes,’ he went on, ‘I hoped too much! What right had I to expect that you would understand me? What right, still more, to expect that you would stoop, any more than the rest of the world, to speak to me, as if I could become anything better than the wild hog I seem? Oh yes!—the chrysalis has no butterfly in it, of course! Stamp on the ugly motionless thing! And yet—you look so beautiful and good!—are all my dreams to perish, about the Alrunen and prophet-maidens, how they charmed our old fighting, hunting forefathers into purity and sweet obedience among their Saxon forests? Has woman forgotten her mission—to look at the heart and have mercy, while cold man looks at the act and condemns? Do you, too, like the rest of mankind, think no-belief better than misbelief; and smile on hypocrisy, lip-assent, practical Atheism, sooner than on the unpardonable sin of making a mistake? Will you, like the rest of this wise world, let a man’s spirit rot asleep into the pit, if he will only lie quiet and not disturb your smooth respectabilities; but if he dares, in waking, to yawn in an unorthodox manner, knock him on the head at once, and “break the bruised reed,” and “quench the smoking flax”? And yet you churchgoers have “renounced the world”!’
‘What do you want, in Heaven’s name?’ asked Argemone, half terrified.
‘I want you to tell me that. Here I am, with youth, health, strength, money, every blessing of life but one; and I am utterly miserable. I want some one to tell me what I want.’
‘Is it not that you want—religion?’
‘I see hundreds who have what you call religion, with whom I should scorn to change my irreligion.’
‘But, Mr. Smith, are you not—are you not wicked?—They tell me so,’ said Argemone, with an effort, ‘And is that not the cause of your disease?’
Lancelot laughed.
‘No, fairest prophetess, it is the disease itself. “Why am I what I am, when I know more and more daily what I could be?”—That is the mystery; and my sins are the fruit, and not the root of it. Who will explain that?’
Argemone began,—