him. Why, Sylvia, he's the worst foe we have--all of us
who want to do what we call the great things--ease the burdens of the
poor, make government honest, catch the gleam we seek! Even poor Allen,
when he stands on the Monument steps at midnight and spouts to me about
the Great Experiment, feels what Morton Bassett can't be made to feel."

"But he may yet see it; even he may come to see it," murmured Sylvia.

"He's a hard, stubborn brute; it's in the lines of his back--I was
studying him on the boat this evening, and my eyes followed him up the
steps after they dropped him at his dock. It's in those strong, iron
hands of his. I tell you, what we feel for him is only the kind of pity
we have for those we know to be doomed by the gods to an ignominious
end. He's not worth our pity. He asks no mercy and he won't get any."

He was at once ashamed of the temper to which he had yielded, and angry
at himself for having broken the calm of the night with these discordant
notes. Sylvia's hand touched the water caressingly, waking tiny ripples.

"Sylvia," he said when he was calm again, "I want you to marry me."

"I have told you, Dan, that I can never marry any one; and that must be
the end of it."

"But your work can go on--" he began, ready for another assault upon
that barrier.

A sailboat loitering in the light wind had stolen close upon them, and
passed hardly a paddle's length away. Dan, without changing his
position, drove the canoe toward the shore with a few strokes of the
paddle, then steadied himself to speak again. Sylvia's eyes watched the
sails vanishing like ghosts into the dark.

"That won't do, Sylvia: that isn't enough. You haven't said that you
don't care for me; you haven't said that you don't love me! And I can't
believe that your ambitions alone are in the way. Believe me, that I
respect them; I should never interfere with them. There must be some
other reason. I can't take no for an answer; this night was made for us;
no other night will ever be just like this. Please, dear, if there are
other reasons than my own poor spirit and the little I can offer, let me
know it. If you don't care, it will be kinder to say it now! If that is
the reason--even if there's some other man--let me know it now. Tell me
what it is, Sylvia!"

It was true that she had not said she did not care. Her silence now at
the direct question stirred new fears to life in his breast, like the
beat of startled wings from a thicket