The soldier, without taking his hands out of his pockets, but by a forward movement of his face showing that he was both sincere and just, re-replied: 

“Well, it must be a good sort of stupidity; it makes us the nation that we are.”

Shelton felt dazed.  The conversation buzzed around him; he heard the smiling prophet saying, “Altruism, altruism,” and in his voice a something seemed to murmur, “Oh, I do so hope I make a good impression!”

He looked at the soldier’s clear-cut head with its well-opened eyes, the tiny crow’s-feet at their corners, the conventional moustache; he envied the certainty of the convictions lying under that well-parted hair.

“I would rather we were men first and then Englishmen,” he muttered; “I think it’s all a sort of national illusion, and I can’t stand illusions.”

“If you come to that,” said the soldier, “the world lives by illusions.  I mean, if you look at history, you’ll see that the creation of illusions has always been her business, don’t you know.”

This Shelton was unable to deny.

“So,” continued the soldier (who was evidently a highly cultivated man), “if you admit that movement, labour, progress, and all that have been properly given to building up these illusions, that—­er—­in fact, they’re what you might call—­er—­the outcome of the world’s crescendo,” he rushed his voice over this phrase as if ashamed of it—­“why do you want to destroy them?”

Shelton thought a moment, then, squeezing his body with his folded arms, replied: 

“The past has made us what we are, of course, and cannot be destroyed; but how about the future?  It ’s surely time to let in air.  Cathedrals are very fine, and everybody likes the smell of incense; but when they ’ve been for centuries without ventilation you know what the atmosphere gets like.”

The soldier smiled.

“By your own admission,” he said, “you’ll only be creating a fresh set of illusions.”

“Yes,” answered Shelton, “but at all events they’ll be the honest necessities of the present.”

The pupils of the soldier’s eyes contracted; he evidently felt the conversation slipping into generalities; he answered: 

“I can’t see how thinking small beer of ourselves is going to do us any good!”

An “At Home!”

Shelton felt in danger of being thought unpractical in giving vent to the remark: 

“One must trust one’s reason; I never can persuade myself that I believe in what I don’t.”

A minute later, with a cordial handshake, the soldier left, and Shelton watched his courteous figure shepherding his wife away.

“Dick, may I introduce you to Mr. Wilfrid Curly?” said his cousin’s voice behind, and he found his hand being diffidently shaken by a fresh-cheeked youth with a dome-like forehead, who was saying nervously: 

“How do you do?  Yes, I am very well, thank you!”