Brouillard's laugh was harshly derisive.
"I thought you'd say that. No qualifications asked for, no judicial weighing of the pros and cons—the evil of the evil, or the goodness of the good—just a plain, bigoted 'No.'"
Castner ran a hand through his thick shock of dark hair and looked away from the scoffer.
"Extenuating circumstances—is that what you mean? There are no such things in the court of conscience—the enlightened conscience. Right is right and wrong is wrong. There is no middle ground of accommodation between the two. You know that as well as I do, Brouillard."
"Well, then, how about the choice between two evils? You'll admit that there are times——"
Castner was shaking his head. "That is a lying proverb. No man is ever compelled to make that choice. He only thinks he is."
"That is all you know about it!" was the bitter retort. "What can you, or any man who sets himself apart as you do, know about the troubles and besetments of ordinary people? You sit on the bank of the river and see the water go by; what do you know about the agonies of the fellow who is fighting for breath and life out in the middle of the stream?"
"That is a fallacy, too," was the calm reply. "I am a man as other men, Brouillard. My coat makes no difference, as you have allowed at other times when we have been thrown together. Moreover, nobody sits on the bank in these days. What are your two evils?"
Brouillard tilted back in his chair and pointedly ignored the direct question.
"Theories," he said half contemptuously. "And they never fit. See here, Castner; suppose it was clearly your duty, as a man and a Christian and to subserve some good end, to plant a thousand pounds of dynamite in the basement of this building and fire it. Would you do it?"