"Exactly," said the Lawyer.
"What's that?" asked the Violinist.
"Only the last three lines of a great little poem by a little great Irishman named Stephens—entitled 'What Satan Said.'"
"After all," said the Lawyer, "the Doctor is probably right. It all depends on one's point of view."
"And one's temperament," said the Violinist.
"And one's education," said the Critic.
Just here the Doctor came back,—and he came back his smiling self. He made a dash down the path to where the Journalist was evidently sulking, went up behind him, threw an arm over his shoulder, and led him back into the circle.
"See here," he said, "you are all my guests. I am unreasonably fond of you, even if we can't see Life from the same point of view. Man as an individual, and Man as a part of the Scheme are two different things. I asked you down here to enjoy yourselves, not to argue. I apologize—all my fault—unpardonable of me. Come now—we have decided to stay as long as we can—we are all interested. It is not every generation that has the honor to sit by, and watch two systems meet at the crossroads and dispute the passage to the Future. We'll agree not to discuss the ethics of the matter again. If the men marching out there to the frontier can agree to face the cannon—and there are as many opinions there as here—surely we can look on in silence."
And on that agreement we all went to bed.
But on the following day, as we sat in the garden after dinner, our attempts to "keep off the grass" were miserably visible. They cast a constraint on the party. Every topic seemed to lead to the forbidden enclosure. It was at a very critical moment that the Sculptor, sitting cross-legged on a bench, in a real Alma Tadema attitude, filled the dangerous pause with: