deck shielded from the wind and warmed by
the two huge smokestacks. Dropping breathless into a chair, she invited
him with a gesture to take another. Little imps of mischief flashed out
at him from her eyes. In the adventure of the escape she had made him
partner. A rush of warm blood danced through his veins.

"Now, sir, we're safe. Begin the propaganda. Isn't that the word you
use? Tell me all about everything. You're the first real live socialist
I ever caught, and I mean to make the most of you."

"But I'm unfortunately not exactly a socialist."

"An anarchist will do just as well."

"Nor an anarchist. Sorry."

"Oh, well, you're something that's dreadful. You haven't the proper bump
of respect for father and for Uncle Joe. Now why haven't you?"

And before he knew it this young woman had drawn from him glimpses of
what life meant to him. He talked to her of the pressure of the struggle
for existence, of the poverty that lies like a blight over whole
sections of cities, spreading disease and cruelty and disorder, crushing
the souls of its victims, poisoning their hearts and bodies. He showed
her a world at odds and ends, in which it was accepted as the natural
thing that some should starve while others were waited upon by servants.

He made her see how the tendency of environment is to reduce all things
to a question of selfinterest, and how the great triumphant fact of
life is that love and kindness persist. Her interest was insatiable. She
poured questions upon him, made him tell her stories of the things he
had seen in that strange underworld that was farther from her than Asia.
So she learned of Oscar Marchant, coughing all day over the shoes he
half-soled and going out at night to give his waning life to the service
of those who needed him. He told her--without giving names--the story
of Sam Miller and his wife, of shop girls forced by grinding poverty to
that easier way which leads to death, of little children driven by want
into factories which crushed the youth out of them.

Her eyes with the star flash in them never left his face. She was
absorbed, filled with a strange emotion that made her lashes moist. She
saw not only the tragedy and waste of life, but a glorious glimpse of
the way out. This man and his friends set the common good above their
private gain. For them a new heart was being born into the world. They
were no longer consumed with blind greed, with love of their petty
selves. They were