," he cried, "don't play with
Lizzie--she's not your kind, and it's breaking Jared's heart. Can't you
see what you're doing? You'll go down there a dozen times, make love to
her, hold her hand and kiss her and go away and pick up another girl.
But she's the whole world and Heaven to boot for Jared. She's his one
little ewe lamb, Tom. And she'd be happy with Jared if--"

"If she wants Jared she can have him. I'm not holding her," interrupted
the youth. "And anyway," he exclaimed, "what do I owe to Jared and what
do I owe to her or to any one but myself!"

Fenn did not answer at once. At length he broke the silence. "Well, you
heard what I said and I didn't smile when I said it."

But Tom Van Dorn did smile as he answered, a smile of such sweetness,
and of such winning grace that it sugar-coated his words.

"Henry," he cried in his gay, deep voice with the exuberance of youth
ringing in it, "the world is mine. You know what I think about this
whole business. If Lizzie doesn't want me to bother her she mustn't have
such eyes and such hair and such lips. In this life I shall take what I
find that I can get. I'm not going to be meek nor humble nor patient,
nor forgiving and forbearing and I'm not going to refrain from a mutton
roast because some one has a ewe lamb."

He put a warm, kind, brotherly hand on the shoulder beside him.
"Shocked, aren't you, Henry?" he asked, laughing.

Henry Fenn looked up with a gentle, glowing smile on his rather dull
face and returned, "No, Tom. Maybe you can make it go, but I couldn't."

"Well, I can. Watch me," he cried arrogantly. "Henry, I want the
advantage of my strength in this world and I'm not going to go puling
around, golden-ruling and bending my back to give the weak and worthless
a ride. Let 'em walk. Let 'em fall. Let 'em rot for all I care. I'm not
afraid of their God. There is no God. There is nature. Up to the place
where man puts on trousers it's a battle of thews and teeth. And nature
never intended pants to mark the line where she changes the order of
things. And the servile, weakling, groveling, charitable, cowardly
philosophy of Christ--it doesn't fool me, Henry. I'm a pagan and I want
the advantage of all the force, all the power, that nature gave me, to
live life as a dangerous, exhilarating experience. I shall live life to
the full--live it hard--live it beautifully, but live it! live it!
Henry, live it like a gentleman and not like an understrapper and
bootlicke