“I must go out for a walk,” said the Doctor, rising.
The Altruist followed, and Janet would have gone, but the Lad looked at her entreatingly.
“Oh, don’t go!” he begged, with no perception of the fact that his remark was embarrassing. “I have so many things to say to you.”
To my great surprise the girl smiled and lingered. When Janet chose to be gracious, she was very gracious indeed.
I kindly took up my notes to make out the minutes of the meeting, and my young friends seated themselves by the window.
“You all looked rather blue when I came in,” remarked the Lad.
“We were,” said Janet. “We had been talking of the future of the human soul as argued by Tennyson, and assumed by Browning, and ignored by Swinburne. You see, we can’t decide whether to teach the lower classes doubt or conviction.”
The Lad was too much in earnest to notice the irony.
“I don’t see why you are all so troubled about a life beyond this,” he said. “Immortality isn’t the question, is it, while we have this world on our hands?”
“It is at least very human,” the girl answered, “as we cannot conduct this life properly, to ask for another and a larger one to spoil.”