There was a long silence, and the boat swayed once with some unseen stir of the water.
Jocelyn said suddenly—
“Do you believe in free will?”
Nielsen put down his cup, a little surprised at the sudden question, and threw away the end of his cigarette; it floated gently away from them, and stuck in some driftweed.
“Yes,” he said, “and—no.”
Jocelyn waited. He cleared his throat.
“That is a verry difficult question, but I think it is like this, don’t you know. One to another of us, has frree will; that is, you know, in our social relations. Looked at from the—er—the narrow point of view, there is of course frree will, yes—frree will, and we make use of it, as we are weak or strrong. But,” and he spread his hands, and looking fixedly at the bank, “there is quite another point of view, don’t you see, equally trrue; of course, we are all at the ends of long chains of—er—of circumstance. Whatever we do, you know, is only what comes out of that—it is all settled before, so that, of course, in that sense there is no frree will. For instance, my dear young lady, if you choose to do something unexpected, it is rreally the expected thing you are doing all the time, because the chains of your circumstances and your tempérrament would not permit you to do otherwise. I am afrraid I do not explain what I mean verry well.”
Jocelyn did not speak, she leaned forward with her chin on her hand gazing downwards.
Nielsen, with a puzzled look, rubbed his hands softly together. “Of course,” he began again, “that is a verry brroad view, too brroad for everyday wear; it is——”
Jocelyn, without looking up, interrupted him—