.
We had never surpassed it.

"But the Greek ideal could not have been the right one, or Greece would
not so utterly have disappeared," suggested Mr. Allway. "Unless you
reject the law of the survival of the fittest."

He had no qualms about arguing with his uncle.

"So did Archimedes disappear," he answered with a smile. "The nameless
Roman soldier remained. That was hardly the survival of the fittest."

He thought it the tragedy of the world that Rome had conquered Greece,
imposing her lower ideals upon the race. Rome should have been the
servant of Greece: the hands directed by the brain. She would have made
roads and harbours, conducted the traffic, reared the market place. She
knew of the steam engine, employed it for pumping water in the age of the
Antonines. Sooner or later, she would have placed it on rails, and in
ships. Rome should have been the policeman, keeping the world in order,
making it a fit habitation. Her mistake was in regarding these things as
an end in themselves, dreaming of nothing beyond. From her we had
inherited the fallacy that man was made for the world, not the world for
man. Rome organized only for man's body. Greece would have legislated
for his soul.

They went into the drawing-room. Her father asked her to sing and Arthur
opened the piano for her and lit the candles. She chose some ballads and
a song of Herrick's, playing her own accompaniment while Arthur turned
the leaves. She had a good voice, a low contralto. The room was high
and dimly lighted. It looked larger than it really was. Her father sat
in his usual chair beside the fire and listened with half-closed eyes.
Glancing now and then across at him, she was reminded of Orchardson's
picture. She was feeling sentimental, a novel sensation to her. She
rather enjoyed it.

She finished with one of Burns's lyrics; and then told Arthur that it was
now his turn, and that she would play for him. He shook his head,
pleading that he was out of practice.

"I wish it," she said, speaking low. And it pleased her that he made no
answer but to ask her what he should sing. He had a light tenor voice.
It was wobbly at first, but improved as he went on. They ended with a
duet.

The next morning she went into town with them. She never seemed to have
any time in London, and wanted to do some shopping. They joined her
again for lunch and afterwards, at her father's suggestion, she and
Arthur went for a walk. They