"His charity is divine," Millicent said. "It is Christ-like, if you like."
"It is true charity, for it is love, love for everything which God has created."
"He is so happy that he can afford to love almost everything and everyone."
"He is happy because he loves them."
"I don't believe he has ever heard of hell," Millicent said. "His religion's all heaven and beauty and love."
"Hell!" exclaimed Margaret. "But surely," she paused, "surely we're not primitives, we don't need the fear of such impossible cruelties to keep us from doing wrong? His great saint, or reformer, Akhnaton, had no hell in his religion, and he lived, as you know, centuries before David. Even Akhnaton realized that human beings create their own hells. The other hell, of fire and brimstone, which terrorized the ignorant people into obedience and order, belongs to the same category as the crocodile god and the wicked cat-goddess Pasht, of Egypt. It was necessary in its day."
"You and Michael live on such a high plane!"
"Oh no, we don't. You know Michael is very human—that is why he is so understanding, so forgiving."
"He will never forgive me—that would be expecting too much. But I had to come and tell you all that I know about his treasure. I have only just heard—I saw it in the Egyptian monthly Archaeological Report—that Michael never had the glory of discovering the Akhnaton chambers in the hills."
"You didn't know that when I saw you in Cairo?"