"Capital. Labor."
Osmond was silent a long time because he had too many things to say, all of them impossible. He felt hot tears in his eyes from a passion of revolt against the lad's wastefulness. He felt the shame of such squandering. To him, all the steps in the existence by which his own being had been preserved meant thrift and penury. He had conserved every energy. He had lived wholesomely, not only for months, but unremittingly for years. His only indulgences had been the brave temperate ones of air and sleep; and with their aid he had built up in himself the strength of the earth. And here was a creature whose clay was shot through with all the tingling fires of life, whose hand carried witchery, whose brain and eye were spiritual satellites, and he talked about painting by and by.
"What a hold that man has on you!" he breathed involuntarily.
Peter swept his little green nosegays into confusion and sat up. His eyes were brilliant.
"Not the man," he said. "It's not the man. It's the facts behind him."
Osmond's thought flew back to one night, and a girl's reckless picture of her father. It seemed now like a dream, yet it swayed him.
"What can you do for him?" he asked, forcing himself to a healthy ruthlessness. "What have you done?"
"For Markham MacLeod? Nothing. What could I do for him? He has done everything for me."
"What, Pete?"
"Opened my eyes. Made me realize the brotherhood of man. Why, see here, Osmond!"