Yet these two, husband and wife after a fashion—­for they had entered into that terminable contract now recognised explicitly by the State—­these two were very far from sharing in the usual heavy dulness of mere materialists.  The world, for them, beat with one ardent life blossoming in flower and beast and man, a torrent of beautiful vigour flowing from a deep source and irrigating all that moved or felt.  Its romance was the more appreciable because it was comprehensible to the minds that sprang from it; there were mysteries in it, but mysteries that enticed rather than baffled, for they unfolded new glories with every discovery that man could make; even inanimate objects, the fossil, the electric current, the far-off stars, these were dust thrown off by the Spirit of the World—­fragrant with His Presence and eloquent of His Nature.  For example, the announcement made by Klein, the astronomer, twenty years before, that the inhabitation of certain planets had become a certified fact—­how vastly this had altered men’s views of themselves.  But the one condition of progress and the building of Jerusalem, on the planet that happened to be men’s dwelling place, was peace, not the sword which Christ brought or that which Mahomet wielded; but peace that arose from, not passed, understanding; the peace that sprang from a knowledge that man was all and was able to develop himself only by sympathy with his fellows.  To Oliver and his wife, then, the last century seemed like a revelation; little by little the old superstitions had died, and the new light broadened; the Spirit of the World had roused Himself, the sun had dawned in the west; and now with horror and loathing they had seen the clouds gather once more in the quarter whence all superstition had had its birth.

* * * * *

Mabel got up presently and came across to her husband.

“My dear,” she said, “you must not be downhearted.  It all may pass as it passed before.  It is a great thing that they are listening to America at all.  And this Mr. Felsenburgh seems to be on the right side.”

Oliver took her hand and kissed it.

II

Oliver seemed altogether depressed at breakfast, half an hour later.  His mother, an old lady of nearly eighty, who never appeared till noon, seemed to see it at once, for after a look or two at him and a word, she subsided into silence behind her plate.

It was a pleasant little room in which they sat, immediately behind Oliver’s own, and was furnished, according to universal custom, in light green.  Its windows looked out upon a strip of garden at the back, and the high creeper-grown wall that separated that domain from the next.  The furniture, too, was of the usual sort; a sensible round table stood in the middle, with three tall arm-chairs, with the proper angles and rests, drawn up to it; and the centre of it, resting apparently on a broad round column, held the dishes.  It was thirty years now since the practice of placing the dining-room above the kitchen, and of raising and lowering the courses by hydraulic power into the centre of the dining-table, had become universal in the houses of the well-to-do.  The floor consisted entirely of the asbestos cork preparation invented in America, noiseless, clean, and pleasant to both foot and eye.