And following an impulse which he could not resist, he made his way to the old Square.  But having reached the house, he nearly went away again.  While he stood hesitating with his hand on the bell, a girl and a soldier passed, appearing as if by magic out of the moonlit November mist, blurred and solid shapes embraced, then vanished into it again, leaving the sound of footsteps.  Fort jerked the bell.  He was shown into what seemed, to one coming out of that mist, to be a brilliant, crowded room, though in truth there were but two lamps and five people in it.  They were sitting round the fire, talking, and paused when he came in.  When he had shaken hands with Pierson and been introduced to “my daughter Gratian” and a man in khaki “my son-in-law George Laird,” to a tall thin-faced, foreign-looking man in a black stock and seemingly no collar, he went up to Noel, who had risen from a chair before the fire.  ‘No!’ he thought, ‘I’ve dreamed it, or Leila has lied!’ She was so perfectly the self-possessed, dainty maiden he remembered.  Even the feel of her hand was the same-warm and confident; and sinking into a chair, he said:  “Please go on, and let me chip in.”

“We were quarrelling about the Universe, Captain Fort,” said the man in khaki; “delighted to have your help.  I was just saying that this particular world has no particular importance, no more than a newspaper-seller would accord to it if it were completely destroyed tomorrow—­’’Orrible catastrophe, total destruction of the world—­six o’clock edition-pyper!’ I say that it will become again the nebula out of which it was formed, and by friction with other nebula re-form into a fresh shape and so on ad infinitum—­but I can’t explain why.  My wife wonders if it exists at all except in the human mind—­but she can’t explain what the human mind is.  My father-in-law thinks that it is God’s hobby—­but he can’t explain who or what God is.  Nollie is silent.  And Monsieur Lavendie hasn’t yet told us what he thinks.  What do you think, monsieur?” The thin-faced, big-eyed man put up his hand to his high, veined brow as if he had a headache, reddened, and began to speak in French, which Fort followed with difficulty.

“For me the Universe is a limitless artist, monsieur, who from all time and to all time is ever expressing himself in differing forms—­always trying to make a masterpiece, and generally failing.  For me this world, and all the worlds, are like ourselves, and the flowers and trees—­little separate works of art, more or less perfect, whose little lives run their course, and are spilled or powdered back into this Creative Artist, whence issue ever fresh attempts at art.  I agree with Monsieur Laird, if I understand him right; but I agree also with Madame Laird, if I understand her.  You see, I think mind and matter are one, or perhaps there is no such thing as either mind or matter, only growth and decay and growth again, for ever and ever; but always conscious