"It's all of a piece," said Mr. Cuthcott; "not politics at all, but religion--touches the point of national self-knowledge and faith, the point of knowing what we want to become and of resolving to become it. Your father will tell you that we have no more idea of that at present than a cat of its own chemical composition. As for these good people here to-night--I don't want to be disrespectful, but if they think they're within a hundred miles of the land question, I'm a--I'm a Jingo--more I can't say."
And, as if to cool his head, he leaned out of the window.
"Nothing is nicer than darkness, as I said just now, because you can only see the way you MUST go instead of a hundred and fifty ways you MIGHT. In darkness your soul is something like your own; in daylight, lamplight, moonlight, never."
Nedda's spirit gave a jump; he seemed almost at last to be going to talk about the things she wanted, above all, to find out. Her cheeks went hot, she clenched her hands and said resolutely:
"Mr. Cuthcott, do you believe in God?"
Mr. Cuthcott made a queer, deep little noise; it was not a laugh, however, and it seemed as if he knew she could not bear him to look at her just then.
"H'm!" he said. "Every one does that--according to their natures.
Some call God IT, some HIM, some HER, nowadays--that's all. You might as well ask--do I believe that I'm alive?"
"Yes," said Nedda, "but which do YOU call God?"
As she asked that, he gave a wriggle, and it flashed through her:
'He must think me an awful enfant terrible!' His face peered round at her, queer and pale and puffy, with nice, straight eyes; and she added hastily:
"It isn't a fair question, is it? Only you talked about darkness, and the only way--so I thought--"
"Quite a fair question. My answer is, of course: 'All three'; but the point is rather: Does one wish to make even an attempt to define God to oneself? Frankly, I don't! I'm content to feel that there is in one some kind of instinct toward perfection that one will still feel, I hope, when the lights are going out; some kind of honour forbidding one to let go and give up. That's all I've got; I really don't know that I want more."
Nedda clasped her hands.
"I like that," she said; "only--what is perfection, Mr. Cuthcott?"
Again he emitted that deep little sound.
"Ah!" he repeated, "what is perfection? Awkward, that--isn't it?"
"Is it"--Nedda rushed the words out--"is it always to be sacrificing yourself, or is it--is it always to be--to be expressing yourself?"
"To some--one; to some--the other; to some--half one, half the other."
"But which is it to me?"
"Ah! that you've got to find out for yourself. There's a sort of metronome inside us--wonderful, sell-adjusting little machine; most delicate bit of mechanism in the world--people call it conscience--that records the proper beat of our tempos. I guess that's all we have to go by."
Nedda said breathlessly:
"Yes; and it's frightfully hard, isn't it?"
"Exactly," Mr. Cuthcott answered. "That's why people devised religions and other ways of having the thing done second-hand. We all object to trouble and responsibility if we can possibly avoid it. Where do you live?"
"In Hampstead."
"Your father must be a stand-by, isn't he?"
"Oh, yes; Dad's splendid; only, you see, I AM a good deal younger than he. There was just one thing I was going to ask you. Are these very Bigwigs?"
Mr. Cuthcott turned to the room and let his screwed-up glance wander. He looked just then particularly as if he were going to bite.
"If you take 'em at their own valuation: Yes. If at the country's: So-so. If at mine: Ha! I know what you'd like to ask: Should I be a Bigwig in THEIR estimation? Not I! As you knock about, Miss Freeland, you'll find out one thing--all bigwiggery is founded on: Scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours.
Seriously, these are only tenpenny ones; but the mischief is, that in the matter of 'the Land,' the men who really are in earnest are precious scarce. Nothing short of a rising such as there was in 1832 would make the land question real, even for the moment. Not that I want to see one--God forbid! Those poor doomed devils were treated worse than dogs, and would be again."
Before Nedda could pour out questions about the rising in 1832, Stanley's voice said:
"Cuthcott, I want to introduce you!"
Her new friend screwed his eyes up tighter and, muttering something, put out his hand to her.
"Thank you for our talk. I hope we shall meet again. Any time you want to know anything--I'll be only too glad. Good night!"
She felt the squeeze of his hand, warm and dry, but rather soft, as of a man who uses a pen too much; saw him following her uncle across the room, with his shoulders a little hunched, as if preparing to inflict, and ward off, blows. And with the thought:
'He must be jolly when he gives them one!' she turned once more to the darkness, than which he had said there was nothing nicer. It smelled of new-mown grass, was full of little shiverings of leaves, and all colored like the bloom of a black grape. And her heart felt soothed.