ing-room. The incident of Mr. Clutterbuck passed
totally from my mind, and I began to reflect on certain problems arising
out of the visit of the Home Secretary.

CHAPTER XVIII

IMMORTAL LOVE

On the same afternoon Miss Annot paid me a visit. I was still sitting in
the waiting-room, and Sarakoff was with me. My mind had been deeply
occupied with the question of the larger beliefs that we hold. For it
had come to me with peculiar force that law and order, and officials
like the Home Secretary, are concerned only with the small beliefs of
humanity, with the burdensome business of material life. As long as a
man dressed properly, walked decently and paid correctly, he was
accepted, in spite of the fact that he might firmly believe the world
was square. No one worried about those matters. We judge people
ultimately by how they eat and drink and get up and sit down. What they
say is of little importance in the long run. If we examine a person
professionally, we merely ask him what day it is, where he is, what is
his name and where he was born. We watch him to see if he washes,
undresses and dresses, and eats properly. We ask him to add two and two,
and to divide six by three, and then we solemnly give our verdict that
he is either sane or insane.

The enormity of this revelation engrossed me with an almost painful
activity of thought.

I gazed across at Sarakoff and wondered what appalling gulf divided our
views on supreme things. What view did he really take of women? Did he
or did he not think that the planets and stars were inhabited? Did he
believe in the evolution of the soul like Mr. Thornduck?

A kind of horror possessed me as I stared at him and reflected that
these questions had never entered my consciousness until that moment. I
had lived with him and dined with him and worked with him, and yet
hitherto it would have concerned me far more if I had seen him tuck his
napkin under his collar or spit on the carpet.... What laughable little
folk we were! I, who had always seen man as the last and final
expression of evolution, now saw him as the stumbling, crawling,
incredibly stupid, result of a tentative experiment--a first step up a
ladder of infinitive length.

Whilst I was immersed in the humiliation of these thoughts Miss Annot
entered. She wore a dark violet coat and skirt and a black hat. I
noticed that her complexion, usually somewhat muddy, was perfectly
clear, though of a marble pallor. We gr