“It isn't a fair question, is it? Only you talked about darkness, and the only way—so I thought—”
“Quite a fair question. My answer is, of course: 'All three'; but the point is rather: Does one wish to make even an attempt to define God to oneself? Frankly, I don't! I'm content to feel that there is in one some kind of instinct toward perfection that one will still feel, I hope, when the lights are going out; some kind of honour forbidding one to let go and give up. That's all I've got; I really don't know that I want more.”
Nedda clasped her hands.
“I like that,” she said; “only—what is perfection, Mr. Cuthcott?”
Again he emitted that deep little sound.
“Ah!” he repeated, “what is perfection? Awkward, that—isn't it?”
“Is it”—Nedda rushed the words out—“is it always to be sacrificing yourself, or is it—is it always to be—to be expressing yourself?”
“To some—one; to some—the other; to some—half one, half the other.”
“But which is it to me?”
“Ah! that you've got to find out for yourself. There's a sort of metronome inside us—wonderful, sell-adjusting little machine; most delicate bit of mechanism in the world—people call it conscience—that records the proper beat of our tempos. I guess that's all we have to go by.”