“There is the old caste that speaks. Tradition against the new world of ideas. Of course there will always be that conflict.... That is a wonderful phrase, ‘the pestilential doctrine of the brotherhood of man.’ I must make a note of it.”
“Shame on you, Doctor,” said Fortune. “You are always jotting down notes about us. I shall find myself docketed as ‘English gentleman grade 3; full-blooded, inclined to obesity, humourous, strain of insanity due to in-breeding, rare.’”
Dr. Small laughed in a high treble, and then was serious.
“I’m noting down everything. My own psychology, which alarms me; facts, anecdotes, scenes, words. I want to find a law somewhere, the essential thing in human nature. After the war—if there is any afterwards—I want to search for a way out of the jungle. This jungle civilisation. There must be daylight somewhere for the human race.”
“If you find it,” said Brand, earnestly, “tell me, Doctor.”
“I will,” said Dr. Small, and I remembered that pledge afterwards, when he and Brand were together in a doomed city, trying to avert the doom, because of that impulse which urged them to find a little daylight beyond the darkness.
Young Clatworthy jerked his chair on the polished boards and looked anxiously at the Colonel, who was discoursing on the origins of art, religion, sex, the perception of form.
Colonel Lavington grinned at him.
“All right, Cyril. I know you have got a rendezvous with some girl. Don’t let us keep you from your career of infamy.”
“As a matter of fact, sir, I met a sweet little thing yesterday——” Clatworthy knew that his reputation as an amorist did not displease the Colonel, who was a romantic, and loved youth.