He saw it with the eye.  His mind was elsewhere.  He was trying, in honest and relentless fashion, to discover himself.  What if his human values were really wrong?

Thomas, the doubting apostle. . . .

Africa had made him think; had made him more silent and reflective than ever.  And now this sudden strange stimulus of Nepenthe—­it was driving his thoughts headlong, out of their old grooves.

Here was Keith, a man of altogether different stamp, drawing conclusions which he dared not formulate for himself.  How far were they applicable, those old Hebrew precepts, to modern conditions?  Were they still availing as guides to conduct?

“You are a candid person, Keith, and I think I am.  I sincerely try to be.  Will you tell me what you think?  You seem to have a quarrel with Moses and his commandments, which we are taught to regard as the keystone of ethics.  I don’t want to discuss things.  I want to listen to the opinions of a man so different from myself as you are.  It may do me good.  And I think I could stand almost anything,” he added, with a laugh, “in this landscape—­in this clear pagan light, as you call it.”

“I used to be interested in such things as a boy.  I suppose all respectable boys are; and I was respectable even at that tender age.  Nowadays, though I still pick up an Oriental rug now and then, I have no further use for Oriental gods.”

“What is your objection to them?”

Mr. Keith paused before replying.  Then he said: 

“The drawback of Oriental gods is that they have been manufactures by the proletariat for the use of the aristocracy.  They act accordingly; that is, they distil the morality of their creators which I consider a noxious emanation.  The classic gods were different.  They were invented by intellectualists who felt themselves capable of maintaining a kind of comradeship with their deities.  Men and gods were practically on a level.  They walked hand in hand over the earth.  These gods belonged to what one might call the horizontal or downstairs variety.”

“And those others?”

“Oh, they are the upstairs or vertical type.  They live overhead.  Why overhead?  Because they have been created by the proletariat.  The proletariat loves to humiliate itself.  Therefore they manufacture a god who approves of grovelling, a god who can look down upon them.  They exalt this deity to an infinite degree in point of goodness and distance, and in so doing they inevitably abase themselves.  Now I disapprove of grovelling.  That means I disapprove of upstairs gods.”

“Upstairs gods—­”