the smoke from his cigar, and smiling a
little.

"I remember a young fellow at the College," he said, "who used to talk
a good deal about Prometheus, and the grand work of liberating humanity,
by stealing new and ever new fire from Olympus."

"That was me--yes," said Peer with a laugh. "As a matter of fact, I was
only quoting Ferdinand Holm."

"You don't believe in all that now?"

"It strikes me that fire and steel are rapidly turning men into beasts.
Machinery is killing more and more of what we call the godlike in us."

"But, good heavens, man! Surely a man can be a Christian even if . . ."

"Christian as much as you like. But don't you think it might soon be
time we found something better to worship than an ascetic on a cross?
Are we to keep on for ever singing Hallelujah because we've saved our
own skins and yet can haggle ourselves into heaven? Is that religion?"

"No, no, perhaps not. But I don't know . . ."

"Neither do I. But it's all the same; for anyhow no such thing as
religious feeling exists any longer. Machinery is killing our longings
for eternity, too. Ask the good people in the great cities. They spend
Christmas Eve playing tunes from The Dollar Princess on the gramophone."

Langberg sat for a while watching the other attentively. Peer sat
smoking slowly; his face was flushed with the wine, but from time to
time his eyes half-closed, and his thoughts seemed to be wandering in
other fields than these.

"And what do you think of doing now you are home again?" asked his
companion at last.

Peer opened his eyes. "Doing? Oh, I don't know. Look about me first of
all. Then perhaps I may find a cottar's croft somewhere and settle down
and marry a dairymaid. Here's luck!"

The gardens were full now of people in light summer dress, and in the
luminous evening a constant ripple of laughter and gay voices came up
to them. Peer looked curiously at the crowd, all strangers to him, and
asked his companion the names of some of the people. Langberg pointed
out one or two celebrities--a Cabinet Minister sitting near by, a famous
explorer a little farther off. "But I don't know them personally," he
added. "Can't afford society on that scale, of course."

"How beautiful it is here!" said Peer, looking out once more at the
yellow shimmer of light above the fjord. "And how good it is to be home
again!"

Chapter II

He sat in the train on his way up-country, and from the carriage window
watched farms