‘How easily you quarrel.’
‘I do not quarrel.’
‘Then perhaps it’s I. If that is so, then, at once, the quarrel’s ended,—pouf! it’s done. Mr Lindon, I fear, because, politically, we differ, regards me as anathema. Has he put some of his spirit into you?—You are a wiser man.’
‘I am aware that you are an adept with words. But this is a case in which words only will not serve.’
‘Then what will serve?’
‘I am myself beginning to wonder.’
‘And I.’
‘As you so courteously suggest, I believe I am wiser than Lindon. I do not care for your politics, or for what you call your politics, one fig. I do not care if you are as other men are, as I am,—not unspotted from the world! But I do care if you are leprous. And I believe you are.’
‘Atherton!’
‘Ever since I have known you I have been conscious
