suppose in YOUR case it had been a wild cat? . . . A fierce
mastiff? . . . A mastiff? . . . A terrier? . . . A lap dog?"

"Yes, but my case is that there are limits."

Benham was impatient at the idea of limits. With a faintly
malicious pleasure Prothero lugged him back to that idea.

"We both admit there are limits," Prothero concluded. "But between
the absolutely impossible and the altogether possible there's the
region of risk. You think a man ought to take that risk--" He
reflected. "I think--no--I think NOT."

"If he feels afraid," cried Benham, seeing his one point. "If he
feels afraid. Then he ought to take it. . . ."

After a digestive interval, Prothero asked, "WHY? Why should he?"

The discussion of that momentous question, that Why? which Benham
perhaps might never have dared ask himself, and which Prothero
perhaps might never have attempted to answer if it had not been for
the clash of their minds, was the chief topic of their conversation
for many months. From Why be brave? it spread readily enough to
Why be honest? Why be clean?--all the great whys of life. . . .
Because one believes. . . . But why believe it? Left to himself
Benham would have felt the mere asking of this question was a thing
ignoble, not to be tolerated. It was, as it were, treason to
nobility. But Prothero put it one afternoon in a way that permitted
no high dismissal of their doubts. "You can't build your honour on
fudge, Benham. Like committing sacrilege--in order to buy a cloth