"I don't know much about their souls," Tristram returned quietly. "I'm responsible for their bodies. It's quite enough. What do you mean to do?"
Meredith threw back his square head. There was something vivid and dominating about his personality at that moment which lifted mere fanatical rhetoric to real grandeur. In some such spirit Luther might have flung down his immortal challenge.
"Testify to my faith before Cæsar, Tristram."
"And who is Cæsar?"
"The people. When they go down to the river to worship their gods—at the Feast of Siva——"
Tristram got up, pushing his food from him.
"You must be mad," he said hotly. "What should we do, civilized though we are, if at Easter some Brahmin insulted Christ from our altar?"
Meredith met him without flinching.
"Yours is the wretched toleration of our age," he said. "There can be no righteous toleration of lies and wickedness."
"You know what will happen? There'll be rioting—bloodshed——"