hough the church grew so dim that all was mysterious shadow except
the vague planes of the windows and the organist's light, with the white
head moving beneath it, Bibbs had no consciousness that the girl sitting
beside him had grown shadowy; he seemed to see her as plainly as ever in
the darkness, though he did not look at her. And all the mighty chanting
of the organ's multitudinous voices that afternoon seemed to Bibbs to be
chorusing of her and interpreting her, singing her thoughts and singing
for him the world of humble gratitude that was in his heart because she
was so kind to him. It all meant Mary.

CHAPTER XVI

But when she asked him what it meant, on their homeward way, he was
silent. They had come a few paces from the church without speaking,
walking slowly.

"I'll tell you what it meant to me," she said, as he did not immediately
reply. "Almost any music of Handel's always means one thing above all
others to me: courage! That's it. It makes cowardice of whining seem so
infinitesimal--it makes MOST things in our hustling little lives seem
infinitesimal."

"Yes," he said. "It seems odd, doesn't it, that people down-town are
hurrying to trains and hanging to straps in trolley-cars, weltering
every way to get home and feed and sleep so they can get down-town
to-morrow. And yet there isn't anything down there worth getting to.
They're like servants drudging to keep the house going, and believing
the drudgery itself is the great thing. They make so much noise and fuss
and dirt they forget that the house was meant to live in. The housework
has to be done, but the people who do it have been so overpaid that
they're confused and worship the housework. They're overpaid, and yet,
poor things! they haven't anything that a chicken can't have. Of
course, when the world gets to paying its wages sensibly that will be
different."

"Do you mean 'communism'?" she asked, and she made their slow pace a
little slower--they had only three blocks to go.

"Whatever the word is, I only mean that things don't look very sensible
now--especially to a man that wants to keep out of 'em and can't!
'Communism'? Well, at least any 'decent sport' would say it's fair for
all the strong runners to start from the same mark and give the weak
ones a fair distance ahead, so that all can run something like even
on the stretch. And wouldn't it be pleasant, really, if they could all
cross the winning-line together? Who really enjoys beatin