The Judge laughed with a note of cynical humour.  “I can understand why he should feel that the chief obstacle to loving humanity is human nature.”

“He’s dead right, too.  It is so easy to be a philosopher—­or a philanthropist—­in a desert.  I’ve felt like that ever since I came home.”

But the Judge had grown serious, and there was no merriment in his voice when he answered:  “I may be wrong, of course, and, thank God, my mind hasn’t yet got too stiff with age to change; but I’ve a reluctant belief deep down in me that this fellow Vetch has got hold of something that is going to count.  I don’t pretend to know what it is; an idea, a feeling, merely an undeveloped instinct for truth, or expediency, if you like it better.  Of course it is all crude and raw.  It needs cultivation and direction; but it’s there—­the vital principle, even if we don’t recognize it when we see it.  All the same,” he concluded in a lighter tone, “I’m glad you are going into the fight.  We can’t hurt a principle by fighting it, you know.”

Then he passed on his way; and the transient enthusiasm which had illuminated Stephen’s mind drifted away like clouds of blown smoke.  How could he fight with any heart when there seemed to him nothing on either side that was worth fighting for—­nothing except the unselfish patriotism of John Benham?  He remembered the fervour, the exaltation with which he had gone to France that first year of the war.  The belief in a righteous cause which would bring peace on earth and good will toward men; the belief in a human fellowship which would grow out of sacrifice; the belief in a fairer social order which would flower from the bloodstained memories of the battlefields,—­what was there left of these romantic illusions to-day?  Was it true, as Vetch had once said, that organized killing, even in a just cause, must bring its spiritual punishment?  Could the lust of blood be changed by a document into the love of one’s brother?  “I gave my youth in that war,” he thought, “and I won from it—­what?  Disillusionment.”  With the reflection he felt again the exhaustion of the nerves, the infirmity of purpose against which he had struggled ever since his return.  “If there were only something worth fighting for, worth believing in!  If I could only believe earnestly, or desire passionately—­anything!”

Just as Corinna had longed for perfection, for something to worship, he found himself longing now for a cause, for any cause, even a lost one, to which he could give himself.  He wanted facts, deeds, certainties.  He was suffocated by shams and insincerities—­and phrases.