impersonal as science. All these men--They've given nothing to it.
They're just people who have pegged out claims upon a big
intellectual No-Man's-Land--and don't feel quite sure of the law.
There's a sort of quarrelsome uneasiness. . . . If we professed
Socialism do you think they'd welcome us? Not a man of them!
They'd feel it was burglary. . . ."

"Yes," said Margaret, looking into the fire. "That is just what I
felt about them all the evening. . . . Particularly Dr. Tumpany."

"We mustn't confuse Socialism with the Socialists," I said; "that's
the moral of it. I suppose if God were to find He had made a
mistake in dates or something, and went back and annihilated
everybody from Owen onwards who was in any way known as a Socialist
leader or teacher, Socialism would be exactly where it is and what
it is to-day--a growing realisation of constructive needs in every
man's mind, and a little corner in party politics. So, I suppose,
it will always be. . . . But they WERE a damned lot, Margaret!"

I looked up at the little noise she made. "TWICE!" she said,
smiling indulgently, "to-day!" (Even the smile was Altiora's.)

I returned to my thoughts. They WERE a damned human lot. It was an
excellent word in that connection. . . .

But the ideas marched on, the ideas marched on, just as though men's
brains were no more than stepping-stones, just as though some great
brain in which we are all little cells and corpuscles was thinking
them! . . .