The new-comer started slightly, and Turnbull replied to the question on his face.

“Oh, yes,” he said, “I am science!”

“I congratulate you heartily,” answered the other, “I am Doctor Quayle.”

Turnbull’s eyes did not move, but he realized that the man in the panama hat had lost all his ease of a landed proprietor and had withdrawn to a distance of thirty yards, where he stood glaring with all the contraction of fear and hatred that can stiffen a cat.

* * *

MacIan was sitting somewhat disconsolately on a stump of tree, his large black head half buried in his large brown hands, when Turnbull strode up to him chewing a cigarette.  He did not look up, but his comrade and enemy addressed him like one who must free himself of his feelings.

“Well, I hope, at any rate,” he said, “that you like your precious religion now.  I hope you like the society of this poor devil whom your damned tracts and hymns and priests have driven out of his wits.  Five men in this place, they tell me, five men in this place who might have been fathers of families, and every one of them thinks he is God the Father.  Oh! you may talk about the ugliness of science, but there is no one here who thinks he is Protoplasm.”

“They naturally prefer a bright part,” said MacIan, wearily.  “Protoplasm is not worth going mad about.”

“At least,” said Turnbull, savagely, “it was your Jesus Christ who started all this bosh about being God.”

For one instant MacIan opened the eyes of battle; then his tightened lips took a crooked smile and he said, quite calmly: 

“No, the idea is older; it was Satan who first said that he was God.”

“Then, what,” asked Turnbull, very slowly, as he softly picked a flower, “what is the difference between Christ and Satan?”

“It is quite simple,” replied the Highlander.  “Christ descended into hell; Satan fell into it.”

“Does it make much odds?” asked the free-thinker.

“It makes all the odds,” said the other.  “One of them wanted to go up and went down; the other wanted to go down and went up.  A god can be humble, a devil can only be humbled.”

“Why are you always wanting to humble a man?” asked Turnbull, knitting his brows.  “It affects me as ungenerous.”

“Why were you wanting to humble a god when you found him in this garden?” asked MacIan.

“That was an extreme case of impudence,” said Turnbull.

“Granting the man his almighty pretensions, I think he was very modest,” said MacIan.  “It is we who are arrogant, who know we are only men.  The ordinary man in the street is more of a monster than that poor fellow; for the man in the street treats himself as God Almighty when he knows he isn’t.  He expects the universe to turn round him, though he knows he isn’t the centre.”

“Well,” said Turnbull, sitting down on the grass, “this is a digression, anyhow.  What I want to point out is, that your faith does end in asylums and my science doesn’t.”