tain--and I hark back to my old theme--that just as society has found
a means of preventing the man who is physically superior from taking
wealth without giving service in return, so must society find a means to
prevent men who are mentally superior from taking wealth without giving
service in return. The superior person, mark you, will still have an
advantage, in that his superiority will enable him to EARN more; we
shall merely stop him taking what he does not earn. That must come. I
think it will come soon. It is the next step in the social evolution of
the race."

She had drunk in his argument as one who hangs on every word, and her
wrapt face turned toward his seemed to glow and thrill him in return
with a sense of their spiritual oneness. She did not need to tell him
that Transley never talked to her like this. Transley loved her, if he
loved her at all, for the glory she reflected upon him; he was proud of
her beauty, of her daring, of her physical charm and self-reliance. The
deeper side of her mental life was to Transley a field unexplored; a
field of the very existence of which he was probably unaware. Grant
looked into her eyes, now close and responsive, and found within their
depths something which sent him to his feet.

"Zen!" he exclaimed. "The mystery of life is too much for me. Surely
there must be an answer somewhere! Surely the puzzle has a system to
it--a key which may some day be found! Or can it be just chaos--just
blind, driveling, senseless chaos? In our own lives, why should we be
stranded, helpless, wrecked, with the happiness which might have been
ours hung just beyond our reach? Is there no answer to this?"

"I suppose we disobeyed the law, back in those old days. We heard it
clearly enough, and we disobeyed. I allowed myself to be guided by
motives which were not the highest; you seemed to lack the enterprise
which would have won you its own reward. And as you have said, those who
violate the law must suffer for it. I have suffered."

She drew up her chin; he could see the firm muscles set beneath the
pink bloom of her flesh.... He had not thought of Zen suffering; all
his thought of her had been very grateful to his vanity, but he had not
thought of her suffering. He extended his hands and took hers within
them.

"I have sometimes wondered," he said, "why there is no second chance;
why one cannot wipe the slate clear of everything that has been and
start anew. What a world this might be