Cairns laughed at his joy.  Bedient suddenly leaned forward and regarded him intently through the vague light.  “David,” he said, “you’re looking fit and happy, and I’m very glad to see you.”  This was a way of Bedient’s at unexpected moments....  “Do you know, it’s a marvellous life you live,” he went on, “looking inward upon the great universe of ideas constantly, balancing thought against thought, seeking the best vehicle, and weighing the effects—­for or against the Ultimate Good——­”

“It appears that you had to come up here—­to show me——­”

“It’s good of you to say so, David, but you had to be Cairns and not New York!  A woman would have shown you——­”

Cairns had met before, in various ways, Bedient’s unwillingness to identify himself with results of his own bringing about.  Beth had long realized his immaturity, yet she had not spoken.  Cairns saw this now.

“A woman would have shown me——?” he repeated.

“That the way to heaven is always against the crowd,” Bedient finished....  “A few days after I came to New York, you joined me at the Club.  You said you couldn’t work; that you found your mind stealing away from the pages before you.  I knew you were getting closer to real work then.  David, when you find yourself stealing mentally away to follow some pale vision or shade of remembrance, don’t jerk up, thinking you must get back to work.  Why, you’re nearer real work in following the phantoms than mere gray matter ever will unfold for you.  Creating is a process of the depths; the brain is but the surface of the instrument that produces.  How wearisome music would be, if we knew only the major key!  How terrible would be sunlight, if there were no night!  Out of darkness and the deep minor keys of the soul come those utterances vast and flexible enough to contain reality.”

“Why don’t you write, Andrew?” Cairns asked.

“New York has brought one thought to my mind with such intensity, that all others seem to have dropped back into the melting-pot,” Bedient answered.

“And that one?”

“The needs of women.”

“I have heard your tributes to women——­”

“I have uttered no tributes to women, David!” Bedient said, with uncommon zeal.  “Women want no tributes; they want truth....  The man who can restore to woman those beauties of consciousness which belong to her—­which men have made her forget—­just a knowledge of her incomparable importance to the race, to the world, to the kingdom of heaven—­and help woman to make men see it; in a word, David, the man who can make men see what women are, will perform in this rousing hour of the world—­the greatest good of his time!”

“Go on, it is for me to listen!”