Page:The Ball and the Cross.djvu/137

“Excuse me,” he said; “it was ceremonial. One has to get the taste out of one’s mouth.”

“The taste of what?” asked MacIan.

“I don’t know the exact name for it,” replied Turnbull. “Perhaps it is the South Sea Islands, or it may be Magdalen College.”

There was a long pause, and MacIan also lifted his large limbs off the ground—his eyes particularly dreamy.

“I know what you mean, Turnbull,” he said, “but . . . I always thought you people agreed with all that.”

“Agreed with all what?” asked the other.

“With all that about doing as one likes, and the individual, and Nature loving the strongest, and all the things which that cockroach talked about.”

Turnbull’s big blue-gray eyes stood open with a grave astonishment.

“Do you really mean to say, MacIan,” he said, “that you fancied that we, the Free-thinkers, that Bradlaugh, or Holyoake, or Ingersoll, believe all that dirty, immoral mysticism about Nature? Damn Nature!”

“I supposed you did,” said MacIan calmly. “It seems to me your most conclusive position.”