ble to account for. "You don't
look," Katie added almost shyly, "as if you had grown in the dark."

He did not reply. He looked so much older when sternness set his face,
leaving no hint of that teasing gleam in his eyes, that pleasing little
humorous twist of his mouth.

Gently her voice went into the dark country claiming him then. "But you
were telling me of my friend."

It brought him out, wondering anew. "Your friend! There you go again! How
can you expect me to stick to a subject when paths open out on all sides
of you like that? But I'll try to quit straying. It happened that on that
day, just at that time, I was going under the south bridge. I chanced to
look up. A face was bending down. Her face. Our eyes met--square. I _got_
it--flung to me in that one look. What the world had done to her--what
she thought of it for doing it--what she meant to do about it.

"I wish," he went on, with a slow, heavy calm, "that the 'good' men and
women of the world--those 'good' men and women who eat good dinners and
sleep in good beds--some of the 'God's in heaven all's well with the
world' people--could have that look wake them up in the middle of the
night. I'd like to think of them turning to the wall and trying to shut
it out--and the harder they tried the nearer and clearer it grew. I'd
like to think of them sitting up in bed praying God--the God of 'good'
folks--to please make it stop. I'd like to have it haunt them--dog
them--finally pierce their brains or souls or whatever it is they have,
and begin to burrow. I'd like to have it right there on the job every
time they mentioned the goodness of God or the justice of man, till
finally they threw up their hands in crazed despair with, 'For God's
sake, what do you want _me_ to do about it!'"

He had scarcely raised his voice. He was smiling at her. It was the smile
led her to gasp: "Why I believe you hate us!"

"Why I really believe I do," he replied quietly, still smiling.

Suddenly she flared. "That's not the thing! You're not going to set the
world right by hating the world. You're not going to make it right for
some people by hating other people. What good thing can come of hate?"

"The greatest things have come of hate. Of a divine hate that
transcends love."

"Why no they haven't! The greatest things have come of love. What the
world needs is more love. You can't bring love by hating."

He seemed about to make heated reply, but smiled, or rather his smile
b