“Why on earth not?” said MacIan, with a sudden asperity.  “Why shouldn’t we quarrel about a word?  What is the good of words if they aren’t important enough to quarrel over?  Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn’t any difference between them?  If you called a woman a chimpanzee instead of an angel, wouldn’t there be a quarrel about a word?  If you’re not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about?  Are you going to convey your meaning to me by moving your ears?  The Church and the heresies always used to fight about words, because they are the only things worth fighting about.  I say that murder is a sin, and bloodshed is not, and that there is as much difference between those words as there is between the word ‘yes’ and the word ‘no’; or rather more difference, for ‘yes’ and ‘no’, at least, belong to the same category.  Murder is a spiritual incident.  Bloodshed is a physical incident.  A surgeon commits bloodshed.

“Ah, you’re a casuist!” said the large man, wagging his head.  “Now, do you know what I always say to casuists...?”

MacIan made a violent gesture; and Turnbull broke into open laughter.  The peacemaker did not seem to be in the least annoyed, but continued in unabated enjoyment.

“Well, well,” he said, “let us get back to the point.  Now Tolstoy has shown that force is no remedy; so you see the position in which I am placed.  I am doing my best to stop what I’m sure you won’t mind my calling this really useless violence, this really quite wrong violence of yours.  But it’s against my principles to call in the police against you, because the police are still on a lower moral plane, so to speak, because, in short, the police undoubtedly sometimes employ force.  Tolstoy has shown that violence merely breeds violence in the person towards whom it is used, whereas Love, on the other hand, breeds Love.  So you see how I am placed.  I am reduced to use Love in order to stop you.  I am obliged to use Love.”

He gave to the word an indescribable sound of something hard and heavy, as if he were saying “boots”.  Turnbull suddenly gripped his sword and said, shortly, “I see how you are placed quite well, sir.  You will not call the police.  Mr. MacIan, shall we engage?” MacIan plucked his sword out of the grass.

“I must and will stop this shocking crime,” cried the Tolstoian, crimson in the face.  “It is against all modern ideas.  It is against the principle of love.  How you, sir, who pretend to be a Christian...”

MacIan turned upon him with a white face and bitter lip.  “Sir,” he said, “talk about the principle of love as much as you like.  You seem to me colder than a lump of stone; but I am willing to believe that you may at some time have loved a cat, or a dog, or a child.  When you were a baby, I suppose you loved your mother.  Talk about love, then, till the world is sick of the word.  But don’t you talk about Christianity.