began the last great peace. This has ever been the fate of energy in
security; it takes to art and to eroticism, and then come languor
and decay.

'Even this artistic impetus would at last die away--had almost died
in the Time I saw. To adorn themselves with flowers, to dance, to
sing in the sunlight: so much was left of the artistic spirit, and
no more. Even that would fade in the end into a contented
inactivity. We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and
necessity, and, it seemed to me, that here was that hateful
grindstone broken at last!

'As I stood there in the gathering dark I thought that in this
simple explanation I had mastered the problem of the world--mastered
the whole secret of these delicious people. Possibly the checks they
had devised for the increase of population had succeeded too well,
and their numbers had rather diminished than kept stationary.
That would account for the abandoned ruins. Very simple was my
explanation, and plausible enough--as most wrong theories are!



V


'As I stood there musing over this too perfect triumph of man, the
full moon, yellow and gibbous, came up out of an overflow of silver
light in the north-east. The bright little figures ceased to move
about below, a noiseless owl flitted by, and I shivered with the
chill of the night. I determined to descend and find where I could