“That,” he said, “is devil’s advocacy.  I admit no individual as judge in his own case.”

“Ah!  Now we’re coming to it.  By the way, shall we get out of this heat?”

They were no sooner in the cooler street, than the voice of Courtier began again: 

“Distrust of human nature, fear—­it’s the whole basis of action for men of your stamp.  You deny the right of the individual to judge, because you’ve no faith in the essential goodness of men; at heart you believe them bad.  You give them no freedom, you allow them no consent, because you believe that their decisions would move downwards, and not upwards.  Well, it’s the whole difference between the aristocratic and the democratic view of life.  As you once told me, you hate and fear the crowd.”

Miltoun eyed that steady sanguine face askance: 

“Yes,” he said, “I do believe that men are raised in spite of themselves.”

“You’re honest.  By whom?”

Again Miltoun felt rising within him a sort of fury.  Once for all he would slay this red-haired rebel; he answered with almost savage irony: 

“Strangely enough, by that Being to mention whom you object—­working through the medium of the best.”

“High-Priest!  Look at that girl slinking along there, with her eye on us; suppose, instead of withdrawing your garment, you went over and talked to her, got her to tell you what she really felt and thought, you’d find things that would astonish you.  At bottom, mankind is splendid.  And they’re raised, sir, by the aspiration that’s in all of them.  Haven’t you ever noticed that public sentiment is always in advance of the Law?”

“And you,” said Miltoun, “are the man who is never on the side of the majority?”

The champion of lost causes uttered a short laugh.

“Not so logical as all that,” he answered; “the wind still blows; and Life’s not a set of rules hung up in an office.  Let’s see, where are we?” They had been brought to a stand-still by a group on the pavement in front of the Queen’s Hall:  “Shall we go in, and hear some music, and cool our tongues?”

Miltoun nodded, and they went in.

The great lighted hall, filled with the faint bluefish vapour from hundreds of little rolls of tobacco leaf, was crowded from floor to ceiling.

Taking his stand among the straw-hatted throng, Miltoun heard that steady ironical voice behind him: 

“Profanum vulgus!  Come to listen to the finest piece of music ever written!  Folk whom you wouldn’t trust a yard to know what was good for them!  Deplorable sight, isn’t it?”

He made no answer.  The first slow notes of the seventh Symphony of Beethoven had begun to steal forth across the bank of flowers; and, save for the steady rising of that bluefish vapour, as it were incense burnt to the god of melody, the crowd had become deathly still, as though one mind, one spirit, possessed each pale face inclined towards that music rising and falling like the sighing of the winds, that welcome from death the freed spirits of the beautiful.