lready getting lessons which
in days to come would freely modify the effect of the stern tenets which
through habit and education he accepted with small cost of thought. His
mind, however, was of serious type, and inquiry was in the whole world's
atmosphere of his time.

He said, "Herr Schmidt, can a man conceive of God as having enjoyment?"

"If you were God, the all-creative, the eternal power, the inconceivable
master, would you not make for yourself pleasure, when you could make or
mar all things? Does it shock you? Or has the thought of your church the
clipped wings of an eagle that must ever stumble on the earth and yearn
for the free flight of the heavens? Terrible shears are creeds."

De Courval was new to such comments. He felt hindered by all the child
home-rule of habit, and the discipline of limiting beliefs held the more
stringently for the hostile surroundings of neighbors and kinfolks of
the Church of Rome.

The German was of no mind to perplex him. He had some clearly defined
ideas as to what as a gentleman he could or could not do. As to much
else he had no ruling conscience, but a certain kindliness which made
him desire to like and be liked of men, and so now, with something akin
to affection, he was learning to love the grave young noble to whom he
owed a life endowed by nature with great power of varied enjoyment.

"We will talk of these things again," he said. "Once I was speaking of
the making of men, and I said, 'If the father of Shakspere had married
another woman, or his wife a year later, would "Hamlet" ever have been
written?'"

De Courval laughed. "I do not know 'Hamlet.'"

The German looked around at him thoughtfully and said: "Is that indeed
so? It is a sermon on the conduct of life. When once I spoke of this and
how at birth we are fortuned, the king said to me, I think--" and he
broke off his sentence. "You must not take me too seriously, De Courval.
This is mere gossip of the imagination. I have lived too much in France
with the philosophers, who are like Paul's men of Athens."

"I like it," said De Courval, pleased, puzzled, flattered, and immensely
curious concerning the man at his side; but decent manners forbidding
personal questions, he accepted the German's diversion of the talk and
asked, "Who is that across the street?"

"A good soldier, General Wayne, and with him the Secretary of War, Knox.
It is said he is one of the few whom Washington loves. He is a lonely
man, th