them," replied Pan; "it has hypnotised them so
that they have conceived virtue as repression and self-sacrifice as an
honourable thing instead of the suicide which it is."

"Indeed," said the Philosopher; "this is very interesting, and if it is
true the whole conduct of life will have to be very much simplified."

"Life is already very simple," said Pan; "it is to be born and to die,
and in the interval to eat and drink, to dance and sing, to marry and
beget children."

"But it is simply materialism," cried the Philosopher.

"Why do you say 'but'?" replied Pan.

"It is sheer, unredeemed animalism," continued his visitor.

"It is any name you please to call it," replied Pan.

"You have proved nothing," the Philosopher shouted.

"What can be sensed requires no proof."

"You leave out the new thing," said the Philosopher. "You leave out
brains. I believe in mind above matter. Thought above emotion. Spirit
above flesh."

"Of course you do," said Pan, and he reached for his oaten pipe.

The Philosopher ran to the opening of the passage and thrust Caitilin
aside. "Hussy," said he fiercely to her, and he darted out.

As he went up the rugged path he could hear the pipes of Pan, calling
and sobbing and making high merriment on the air.

CHAPTER XI

"SHE does not deserve to be rescued," said the Philosopher, "but I will
rescue her. Indeed," he thought a moment later, "she does not want to be
rescued, and, therefore, I will rescue her."

As he went down the road her shapely figure floated before his eyes as
beautiful and simple as an old statue. He wagged his head angrily at the
apparition, but it would not go away. He tried to concentrate his mind
on a deep, philosophical maxim, but her disturbing image came between
him and his thought, blotting out the latter so completely that a moment
after he had stated his aphorism he could not remember what it had been.
Such a condition of mind was so unusual that it bewildered him.

"Is a mind, then, so unstable," said he, "that a mere figure, an
animated geometrical arrangement can shake it from its foundations?"

The idea horrified him: he saw civilisation building its temples over a
volcano...

"A puff," said he, "and it is gone. Beneath all is chaos and red
anarchy, over all a devouring and insistent appetite. Our eyes tell
us what to think about, and our wisdom is no more than a catalogue of
sensual stimuli."

He would have been in a state of deep dejection