Suddenly Rupert made an abrupt movement towards the house.
"I can't stand this," he began, but almost as he spoke sprang back into the shadow, for the panel of gold was again cut out of the black house front, and the burly figure of Basil was silhouetted against it coming out.

He was roaring with laughter and talking so loudly that you could have heard every syllable across the street.

Another voice, or, possibly, two voices, were laughing and talking back at him from within.
"No, no, no," Basil was calling out, with a sort of hilarious hostility.
"That's quite wrong.

That's the most ghastly heresy of all.

It's the soul, my dear chap, the soul that's the arbiter of cosmic forces.