"Denzil Ardayre? No—What made you mention him now?"
"I shall be curious as to what you think of him, he is so like—your husband, you know."
The subject did not interest Amaryllis; she wanted to hear more of the
Russian's unusual views.
"You know London well, do you not?" she asked.
"Yes—I often came up from Oxford when I was there, and I have revisited it since. It is a sane place generally, but this year it would seem to be almost as déséquilibré as the rest of the world."
"You give me an uneasy feeling, as though you knew that something dreadful was going to happen. What is it? Tell me."
"One can only speculate how soon a cauldron will boil over, one cannot be certain in what direction the liquid will fly. The whole world seems feverish; the spirit of progress has awakened after hundreds of years of sleep, and is disturbing everything. In all boilings the scum rises to the top; we are at the period when this has occurred—we can but wait—and watch."
"If we had a new religion?"
"It will come presently, the reign of mystical make-believe is past."
"But surely it is mysticism and idealism which make ordinary things divine!"