As Dr. Martineau waited for his companion to speak, a falling star streaked the deep blue above them.

“I can’t believe in a God,” said Sir Richmond.

“Something after the fashion of a God,” said the doctor insidiously.

“No,” said Sir Richmond.  “Nothing that reassures.”

“But this loneliness, this craving for companionship....”

“We have all been through that,” said Sir Richmond.  “We have all in our time lain very still in the darkness with our souls crying out for the fellowship of God, demanding some sign, some personal response.  The faintest feeling of assurance would have satisfied us.”

“And there has never been a response?”

“Have you ever had a response?”

“Once I seemed to have a feeling of exaltation and security.”

“Well?”

“Perhaps I only persuaded myself that I had.  I had been reading
William James on religious experiences and I was thinking very much of
Conversion.  I tried to experience Conversion....”

“Yes?”

“It faded.”

“It always fades,” said Sir Richmond with anger in his voice.  “I wonder how many people there are nowadays who have passed through this last experience of ineffectual invocation, this appeal to the fading shadow of a vanished God.  In the night.  In utter loneliness.  Answer me!  Speak to me!  Does he answer?  In the silence you hear the little blood vessels whisper in your ears.  You see a faint glow of colour on the darkness....”

Dr. Martineau sat without a word.

“I can believe that over all things Righteousness rules.  I can believe that.  But Righteousness is not friendliness nor mercy nor comfort nor any such dear and intimate things.  This cuddling up to Righteousness!  It is a dream, a delusion and a phase.  I’ve tried all that long ago.  I’ve given it up long ago.  I’ve grown out of it.  Men do—­after forty.  Our souls were made in the squatting-place of the submen of ancient times.  They are made out of primitive needs and they die before our bodies as those needs are satisfied.  Only young people have souls, complete.  The need for a personal God, feared but reassuring, is a youth’s need.  I no longer fear the Old Man nor want to propitiate the Old Man nor believe he matters any more.  I’m a bit of an Old Man myself I discover.  Yes.  But the other thing still remains.”

“The Great Mother of the Gods,” said Dr. Martineau—­still clinging to his theories.

“The need of the woman,” said Sir Richmond.  “I want mating because it is my nature to mate.  I want fellowship because I am a social animal and I want it from another social animal.  Not from any God—­any inconceivable God.  Who fades and disappears.  No....

“Perhaps that other need will fade presently.  I do not know.  Perhaps it lasts as long as life does.  How can I tell?”

He was silent for a little while.  Then his voice sounded in the night, as if he spoke to himself.  “But as for the God of All Things consoling and helping!  Imagine it!  That up there—­having fellowship with me!  I would as soon think of cooling my throat with the Milky Way or shaking hands with those stars.”