“It is unimaginable what shall come to pass when God deserts His own.”

“No need for imaginings.  Look at Jerusalem and observe the fact.  And if we be abandoned, what fealty do we owe to a God that deserts us?  If you believe or not you are lost.  Let us go out and live.”

“If God has deserted us,” she said scornfully, “how shall we be happier elsewhere than here?”

“Every god to its own country.  The Olympians are a jovial lot.  I have seen Joy’s very self in heathendom.”

She moved away but he rose and followed her.

“Whoever you are,” he said in another tone, “your heritage of innocence and earnestness is plain as an open scroll upon your face.  Nothing in all the world so appeals to the generosity in the heart of a man as the purity of the woman who is pure.  I have said that I am your friend.  I do not hold it against you that you doubt that word.  Nothing remains but the deed to confirm it.  This place is lost—­as good as a heap of ashes and splintered rock, this hour!  Come away!  I’ll sacrifice the treasure to protect you!”

“Philadelphus,” she said gravely, “we were sent hither to succeed or to suffer the penalty of our failure.  My father died that we might have this opportunity.  We must use it, or perish with it!”

He shook his head and walked away a step or two.

“You have not the true meaning of life,” he said.  “Indeed how few of us understand!  Obstacles are not an incentive toward attaining impossible things.  They are barriers set up by the kindly disposed gods to inform man that he is opposing destiny when he aspires to things he should not have.  We were not made to fling ourselves against mighty opposition throughout the little daylight we have; to wound ourselves, to deny ourselves, to alienate that winsome sprite Pleasure, to attain something which was not intended for us by the signs of the obstructions placed in our paths.  Who are we that we should achieve mightily!  What are we when the gods have done with us, but a handful of dust!  Who saves himself from age and unloveliness and ultimate imbecility, by all the superhuman efforts he may exert!  A pest on the first morose man that made dismal endeavor a virtue!”

She looked at him with amazement, though until that hour she believed that this man could astonish her no more.

“Misfortune comes often enough without our knocking at her door,” he continued.  “Mankind is the only creature with conceit enough to seek to emulate the gods.  It is wrong to think that to be moral is to be miserable.  Nature’s scheme for us, faithfully fulfilled, is always pleasurable.  We have only to recognize it, and receive its benefits.  Nothing on earth is luckier than man, if he but knew it.  A murrain on ambition!  Let us be glad!”