At this Baron Kolár, looking down upon him, answered: "you speak, sir, very like a child; you are a man with a mind made up chiefly of theories acquired in your study, or acquired from other prigs and theorists who are foreigners to the agoras of men. Is not this scheme of mine modelled on the incident of the alp? But in that case no 'wanton impulses' lifted their head——"
"Ah, I think so," said Langler.
"But you annoy me, Mr Langler," said the baron. "Understand that on the final death of 'faith' to-morrow the people will remain precisely where they stood before the miracles, when 'faith' was already dead, and this because they are moral by habit and heredity. Wasn't this just the work in evolution which God designed 'faith' to do—to make men moral by heredity? for they would hardly, I think, have become so without the goad of 'hell,' and so on. Descartes, a theorist like you, was assured that God cannot be a deceiver; but God does nothing but deceive for His creatures' good, and, housed in His motley, the zebra-herd browses hidden and grey in the grey of the morning. At first two hells were needed; but by the date of the Reformation purgatory could be dispensed with in the highest nations; by the date of the abolition of hanging for sheep-stealing men could do without any hell at all. The Church was thus an excellent crutch, which humanity is now able to hurl away and burn; for men, thanks to her, are now as hardened in good conduct as they were once naturally heinous, and crime would now be quite irksome to the host of them, as swimming is to a frog that was lately a swimming tadpole. But do not trouble your head about any such questions at all: just sign me that paper now."
"I regret that I do not quite see with you, Baron Kolár," answered Langler stiffly, with downcast eyes, while I, wooing at his ear, whispered, "ah, but Emily, Aubrey, you forget!"
"But will he not sign?" asked the baron.
"No, sir," said Langler.
Baron Kolár groaned.
"It seems a pity, Mr Langler," he said, "that you are quite so gallant a man. Nature, after all, is a cannibal tigress that devours her fairest offspring...." saying which, he now reached aside, and pressed an electric button.
It was now that I cast myself down at the man's feet, grasping him so that he could not escape me, gasping to him: "but you cannot hurt him, cannot touch him, she will go crazy, is not strong, it is your fault, you should not have done to her what you twice did; she is expecting him to-night, never hoped in her heart to see him again, but we made her hope against hope, and now that he is almost at home—see, these are her telegrams, read them, mad with haste, and it is useless to plead with him, he is infected with some moral crotchet, but you will find a way for us, I cast myself upon your mighty heart like a child, not for myself, nor for him, but for her, whom you have so horribly wronged ..." and, as I so pleaded, the man's hand lifted, and was about to come upon me: was it a half-blow? a half-caress? I am not even now sure; but when, just then, someone rapped at the door in answer to his summons, he called out in Italian, "never mind, I will ring again when I want you"; and to me he said: "give me the telegrams."
His demand for them surprised me. I handed them to him in a mass as I had snapped them out of my pocket, whereupon he took out his spectacles, wiped them, adjusted them upon his nose, and holding the telegrams away from his eyes close to the grimy light, perused them patiently, while I waited with legs that could hardly any more uphold my weight. One by one he let the leaves of paper fall down, having read them, and read the next; but the last two he tossed away without reading, and turned off to pace the floor.