“I will never believe that we shall be content to go on living in a slough of—­of——­”

“Provincialism!” said Mr. Paramor.  “You should take to gardening; it makes one recognise what you idealists seem to pass over—­that men, my dear friend, are, like plants, creatures of heredity and environment; their growth is slow.  You can’t get grapes from thorns, Vigil, or figs from thistles—­at least, not in one generation—­however busy and hungry you may be!”

“Your theory degrades us all to the level of thistles.”

“Social laws depend for their strength on the harm they have it in their power to inflict, and that harm depends for its strength on the ideals held by the man on whom the harm falls.  If you dispense with the marriage tie, or give up your property and take to Brotherhood, you’ll have a very thistley time, but you won’t mind that if you’re a fig.  And so on ad lib.  It’s odd, though, how soon the thistles that thought themselves figs get found out.  There are many things I hate, Vigil.  One is extravagance, and another humbug!”

But Gregory stood looking at the sky.

“We seem to have wandered from the point,” said Mr. Paramor, “and I think we had better go in.  It’s nearly eleven.”

Throughout the length of the low white house there were but three windows lighted, three eyes looking at the moon, a fairy shallop sailing the night sky.  The cedar-trees stood black as pitch.  The old brown owl had ceased his hooting.  Mr. Paramor gripped Gregory by the arm.

“A nightingale!  Did you hear him down in that spinney?  It’s a sweet place, this!  I don’t wonder Pendyce is fond of it.  You’re not a fisherman, I think?  Did you ever watch a school of fishes coasting along a bank?  How blind they are, and how they follow their leader!  In our element we men know just about as much as the fishes do.  A blind lot, Vigil!  We take a mean view of things; we’re damnably provincial!”

Gregory pressed his hands to his forehead.

“I’m trying to think,” he said, “what will be the consequences to my ward of this divorce.”

“My friend, listen to some plain speaking.  Your ward and her husband and George Pendyce are just the sort of people for whom our law of divorce is framed.  They’ve all three got courage, they’re all reckless and obstinate, and—­forgive me—­thick-skinned.  Their case, if fought, will take a week of hard swearing, a week of the public’s money and time.  It will give admirable opportunities to eminent counsel, excellent reading to the general public, first-rate sport all round.