"Very true, Mrs. Howth," he said, with a grave smile. Then his
thin face grew hot again.

"No, Dr. Knowles. Your scheme is but a sign of the mad age we
live in. Since the thirteenth century, when the anarchic element
sprang full-grown into the history of humanity, that history has
been chaos. And this republic is the culmination of chaos."

"Out of chaos came the new-born earth," suggested the Doctor.

"But its foundations were granite," rejoined the old man with
nervous eagerness,--"granite, not the slime of yesterday. When
you found empires, go to work as God worked."

The Doctor did not answer; sat looking, instead, out into the
dark indifferently, as if the heresies which the old man hurled
at him were some old worn-out song. Seeing, however, that the
school-master's flush of enthusiasm seemed on the point of dying
out, he roused himself to gibe it into life.

"Well, Mr. Howth, what will you have? If the trodden rights of
the human soul are the slime of yesterday, how shall we found our
empire to last? On despotism? Civil or theocratic?"

"Any despotism is better than that of newly enfranchised serfs,"
replied the school-master.

The Doctor laughed.