“Then how can you maintain that a man is able to create eternal laws?”
“Idiot!” thought Yourii, agreeably convinced that the other was infinitely less intelligent than he, and would never be able to comprehend what was as plain and clear as noonday.
“Supposing it were so,” rejoined Von Deitz, nettled, in his turn. “The future will nevertheless have Christianity as its basis. It has not perished, but, like seed in the soil …”
“I was not talking about that,” said Yourii, confused somewhat, and thus the more vexed, “what I meant to say …”
“No, excuse me, but that’s what you said….”
“If I said no, then I meant no! How absurd you are!” interrupted Yourii, rendered more furious by the thought that this stupid Von Deitz should for a moment presume to think himself the cleverer. “I meant to say …”
“That may be. I am sorry if I misunderstood you.” Von Deitz shrugged his narrow shoulders, with an air of condescension, as much as to say that he had got the best of the argument.
This was not lost upon Yourii, whose fury almost choked him.
“I do not deny that Christianity has played an enormous part …”
“Ah! now you contradict yourself,” exclaimed Von Deitz, more triumphant than ever, being intensely pleased to feel how incomparably superior he was to Yourii, who obviously had not the remotest conception of what was so neatly and definitely set out in his own brain.