r, and that everybody can
dip into it and bring up the water of life. Sometimes when she told me
that--how rich we all are, if we only knew it--I used to see the
multitudes of hands dipping in for their drop--old wrinkled hands,
children's hands."

He was musing now, and yet admitting the other man to his confidence. It
was proof of MacLeod's charm that even Osmond, who kept his true self to
himself, and who started by hating a girl's oppressor, had nevertheless
fallen into a maze of self-betrayal. MacLeod spoke softly, as if he
recognized the spell and would not break it:--

"Yet, the Founder of her religion said, 'I came not to send peace, but a
sword.'"

"How do you know who the Founder of her religion is? I don't know it
myself. I don't know but she dug it out of the ground, or breathed it
out of the air. She has her sword, too, grannie has. You never saw her
licking a boy for torturing a rat. I have."

"What shall we do?"

Osmond roused himself a little from his muse.

"I read something the other day in a book--about the town of Abdera. I
suppose you know it."

MacLeod shook his head.

"In the town of Abdera they suddenly began to love one another, that's
all. They went round chanting, 'O Cupid, prince of God and men!'"

"Is that going to obviate all the difficulties?"

Osmond looked at him with dog's eyes, the eyes that seek and wonder out
of their confusion of incomplete knowledge.

"Every man would refuse to rest," he said, "while any other man was
hungry. They would all be humble, the rich as well as the poor. Now,
one's as cocky as the other. I don't know that the cockiness of the
ignorant is any more picturesque than the cockiness of the privileged."

MacLeod was smiling a little. These, he saw, were pretty dreams, but
hardly of the texture to demand destruction. They would fall to pieces,
in good time, of their own flimsiness.

"Do you believe in kings?" he asked idly.

Osmond glowed.

"I know it's a mighty pity not to," he said. "Some people have got to be
fostered chiefly because they have gifts. If you don't draw a little
circle round them, you lose the gifts maybe, and you certainly lose the
fun of adoring them. I'd like to be a soldier of Alexander--if I
couldn't be Alexander himself. But you'll never get anywhere smashing
round and yelling that one man's better than another because he works
with his hands. No! the man that brings peace will bring it another
way."

MacLeod regarded