“I refuse to listen to another word,” Mr. Medlicott flashed, “and I warn you, sir, that I will give no such freedom at your bidding—­on the contrary, I shall have my marriage with Miss Rawson solemnized immediately, and try, if there is a word of truth in your preposterous assertion that she loves you, to bring her back to a proper sense of her duty to me and to God, repressing her earthly longings by discipline and self-denial, the only true methods for the saving of her soul.  And I and her natural guardians, her uncle and her aunt, will take care that you never see her again.”

Count Roumovski raised his eyebrows once more and prepared to light a cigar.

“It is a pity you will not discuss this peacefully, sir,” he said, “or apparently even think about it yourself with common sense.  If you would do so, you would begin by asking yourself what God gave certain human beings certain attributes for,” he blew a few whiffs of smoke, “whether to be wasted and crushed out by the intolerance of others,—­or whether to be tended and grow to the highest, as flowers grow with light and air and water.”

“What has that got to do with the case?” asked Mr. Medlicott, tapping his foot uneasily.

“Everything,” went on the Russian, mildly, “you, I believe, are a priest, and therefore should be better able to expound your Deity’s meaning than I, a layman—­but you have evidently not the same point of view—­mine is always to look at the facts of a case denuded of prejudice—­because the truth is the thing to aim at—­”

“You would suggest that I am not aiming at the truth,” the clergyman interrupted, trembling now with anger, so that he fiercely grasped the back of a high chair, “your words are preposterous, sir.”

“Not at all,” Count Roumovski continued.  “Look frankly at things; you have just announced that you would constitute yourself judge of what is for Miss Rawson’s salvation.”

“Leave her name out, I insist,” the other put in hotly.

“To be concrete, unfortunately, I cannot do so,” the Russian said.  “I must speak of this lady we are both interested in—­pray, try to listen to me calmly, sir, for we are here for the settling of a matter which concerns the happiness of our three lives.”

“I do not admit for a moment that you have the right to speak at all,” Mr. Medlicott returned, but his adversary went on quietly.

“You must have remarked that Miss Rawson possesses beauty of form, sweet and tender flesh, soft coloring, and a look of health and warmth and life.  All these charms tend to create in man a passionate physical love.  That is cause and effect.  For the sake of the present argument we will, for the moment, leave out all more important questions of the soul and things mental and spiritual.  Well, who gave her these attributes?  Did you or I—­or even her parents, consciously?  Or did the Supreme Being, whom you call God, endow her so?  Admitted that