a soon
found that they and kindred hopes and plans were the purpose and the
inspiration of his life.

"I have the business instinct," he told her one day. "It is easy to
make money. It is a pleasure, too, to busy one's mind with large
schemes and see them coming your way. But that is nothing to the
pleasure it will be to set to work, as I shall soon be able to do,
upon some of these schemes and see them coming out as I want them to."

"Your pleasure then will be a double one," she said, "the pleasure of
creating something and that of doing good as well. Mr. Brand must have
that double pleasure, too, when he feels all his faculties at work and
knows that he is creating something that is beautiful, as you will
feel that you are doing something good."

His face darkened and his eyes flashed at the sound of Brand's name.
She felt that he stiffened, mind and body, into hostility.

"Pardon me," he said curtly, "if I am not pleased with the comparison.
I consider Felix Brand, his ideas and principles and his mode of life,
to be so thoroughly detestable that even the mention of his name
rouses my contempt and disgust. I consider him," Gordon went on, his
tones lower and more tense, "a plague spot, a source of evil that
would be a menace to any community."

"Oh, Mr. Gordon!" she protested. "Aren't you exaggerating dreadfully?
Aren't you prejudiced against him? Think of the beautiful buildings he
creates and of the elevating and refining influence of such noble and
beautiful architecture!"

"I know," he assented, "the man has genius, great genius. He has
proved that already, and he might have gone farther in his line and
done much finer and greater things, if he had lived a different life.
But he is bringing his fate upon himself." He paused for an instant,
and she, wondering what he meant by that last dark sentence, which he
had spoken in a tone of the most serious significance, was about to
ask him for an explanation when he turned upon her abruptly.

"Tell me," he demanded, "do you think that a man is to be pardoned for
being a source of evil, for leading or forcing others into wrong-doing
and misfortune, while he keeps himself prosperous and honored, just
because he can create beautiful things in art, or architecture, or
music, or literature? Is the world in greater need of being made more
beautiful and more pleasurable for the few than it is of being made
better for the many? Would you condone a man for deliberately