rience--written all over your
face--sadly, satirically, scornfully, gayly, bitterly. And
what I want is experience--not merely having been through
things, but having been through them understandingly. You'll
help me in my experiment?"

He looked astonished, then irritated, when the girl, instead
of accepting eagerly, drew back in her chair and seemed to be
debating. His irritation showed still more plainly when she
finally said:

"That depends on him. And he--he thinks you don't like him."

"What's his name?" said Brent in his abrupt, intense fashion.
"What's his name?"

"Spenser--Roderick Spenser."

Brent looked vague.

"He used to be on the _Herald_. He writes plays."

"Oh--yes. I remember. He's a weak fool."

Susan abruptly straightened, an ominous look in eyes and brow.

Brent made an impatient gesture. "Beg pardon. Why be
sensitive about him? Obviously because you know I'm right.
I said fool, not ass. He's clever, but ridiculously vain. I
don't dislike him. I don't care anything about him--or about
anybody else in the world. No man does who amounts to
anything. With a career it's as Jesus said--leave father and
mother, husband and wife--land, ox everything--and follow it."

"What for?" said Susan.

"To save your soul! To be a somebody; to be strong. To be
able to give to anybody and everybody--whatever they need. To
be happy."

"Are you happy?"

"No," he admitted. "But I'm growing in that direction. . . .
Don't waste yourself on Stevens--I beg pardon, Spenser.
You're bigger than that. He's a small man with large
dreams--a hopeless misfit. Small dreams for small men; large
dreams for--" he laughed--"you and me--our sort."

Susan echoed his laugh, but faint-heartedly. "I've watched
your name in the papers," she said, sincerely unconscious of
flattery. "I've seen you grow more and more famous. But--if
there had been anything in me, would I have gone down and down?"

"How old are you?"

"About twenty-one."

"Only twenty-one and that look in your face! Magnificent! I
don't believe I'm to be disappointed this time. You ask why
you've gone down! You haven't. You've gone _through_."

"Down," she insisted, sadly.

"Nonsense! The soot'll rub off the steel."

She lifted her head eagerly. Her own secret thought put into words.

"You can't make steel without soot and dirt. You can't make
anything without dirt. That's why the nice, prim, silly
world's full of cabin