“It’s awfully interesting.  I do so want to hear about ‘the Land.’  I only know a little about sweated workers, because I see something of them.”

“It’s all of a piece,” said Mr. Cuthcott; “not politics at all, but religion—­touches the point of national self-knowledge and faith, the point of knowing what we want to become and of resolving to become it.  Your father will tell you that we have no more idea of that at present than a cat of its own chemical composition.  As for these good people here to-night—­I don’t want to be disrespectful, but if they think they’re within a hundred miles of the land question, I’m a—­I’m a Jingo—­more I can’t say.”

And, as if to cool his head, he leaned out of the window.

“Nothing is nicer than darkness, as I said just now, because you can only see the way you must go instead of a hundred and fifty ways you might.  In darkness your soul is something like your own; in daylight, lamplight, moonlight, never.”

Nedda’s spirit gave a jump; he seemed almost at last to be going to talk about the things she wanted, above all, to find out.  Her cheeks went hot, she clenched her hands and said resolutely: 

“Mr. Cuthcott, do you believe in God?”

Mr. Cuthcott made a queer, deep little noise; it was not a laugh, however, and it seemed as if he knew she could not bear him to look at her just then.

“H’m!” he said.  “Every one does that—­according to their natures.  Some call God it, some him, some her, nowadays—­that’s all.  You might as well ask—­do I believe that I’m alive?”

“Yes,” said Nedda, “but which do you call God?”

As she asked that, he gave a wriggle, and it flashed through her:  ’He must think me an awful enfant terrible!’ His face peered round at her, queer and pale and puffy, with nice, straight eyes; and she added hastily: 

“It isn’t a fair question, is it?  Only you talked about darkness, and the only way—­so I thought—­”

“Quite a fair question.  My answer is, of course:  ‘All three’; but the point is rather:  Does one wish to make even an attempt to define God to oneself?  Frankly, I don’t!  I’m content to feel that there is in one some kind of instinct toward perfection that one will still feel, I hope, when the lights are going out; some kind of honour forbidding one to let go and give up.  That’s all I’ve got; I really don’t know that I want more.”

Nedda clasped her hands.

“I like that,” she said; “only—­what is perfection, Mr. Cuthcott?”

Again he emitted that deep little sound.

“Ah!” he repeated, “what is perfection?  Awkward, that—­isn’t it?”

“Is it”—­Nedda rushed the words out—­“is it always to be sacrificing yourself, or is it—­is it always to be—­to be expressing yourself?”

“To some—­one; to some—­the other; to some—­half one, half the other.”