"Is he really an anarchist, then?" she asked.

"Only in that sense I speak of," replied Syme; "or if you prefer
it, in that nonsense."

She drew her broad brows together and said abruptly--

"He wouldn't really use--bombs or that sort of thing?"

Syme broke into a great laugh, that seemed too large for his slight
and somewhat dandified figure.

"Good Lord, no!" he said, "that has to be done anonymously."

And at that the corners of her own mouth broke into a smile, and
she thought with a simultaneous pleasure of Gregory's absurdity
and of his safety.

Syme strolled with her to a seat in the corner of the garden, and
continued to pour out his opinions. For he was a sincere man, and
in spite of his superficial airs and graces, at root a humble one.
And it is always the humble man who talks too much; the proud man
watches himself too closely. He defended respectability with
violence and exaggeration. He grew passionate in his praise of
tidiness and propriety. All the time there was a smell of lilac
all round him. Once he heard very faintly in some distant street a
barrel-organ begin to play, and it seemed to him that his heroic
words were moving to a tiny tune from under or beyond the world.

He stared and talked at the girl's red hair and amused face for