"But you didn't say anything nice about Dale!"
She laughed. "I thought you knew about Dale—and me; for I'm of the mountains!"
"You didn't belong to those people," he murmured. "You're a spirit who lived in a deep spring, and you just floated down with the brook. I know, because I've dreamed about you. And I know, too," he shook off the spell, "a little something about stirring the ambition of real people up there. I've seen it tried in a mining camp where a railroad has been running for years! I've seen a fair and square company build model cottages, and in every way try to improve conditions. It put in baths, and the tubs were used for vegetable bins. It built a reading room, and the walls were covered with charcoal pictures. Two men used their little front porches for firewood, rather than pick up all they wanted a hundred yards away. One winter coal took a jump. The mine had a bonanza chance, and the men who had been making their two and a half dollars a day, or thereabouts, could with the same hours' work pull down twice that much. Did they? I'll tell you what they did: they laughed at the superintendent and worked half time; they sat about the store and whittled, saying that two and a half was all they needed. But they forgot this quick enough when the union afterwards went in and told them they ought to get twenty cents more! You'd have thought then that they'd been on the verge of starvation for years, and the harrowing tales which went forth about their 'wretched conditions' would have made you laugh—had you known the facts. The union had photographs taken of the two cottages without front porches, and sent them broadcast so the world could see how capital trod upon its hire. Ambition? They don't know the word deeper than its two first letters! And you've got to be ready for many a disappointment here, too—let me tell you that!"
She was looking at him earnestly, and in a few moments said: "I agree with everything you say. I grant it all, every bit. But, Brent, consider! A mother tells her little boy to wash his face, to read his primer, and he doesn't. And the next day she tells him, and he doesn't. And so on, for days and days, she tells and tells. It seems utterly hopeless, but all the time she is persisting, and gradually bringing him nearer to a sense of obligation. After ten or twelve years you will find him stepping briskly on to admirable manhood; but it is because she has never turned her back on him—she never faltered. See what Dale's sister has done with patient perseverance! Surely, you would not get in a pout and hold back the road simply because a few mountaineers are sometimes obstinate little children!"
He felt the double reproach of this and began to smile, saying:
"I hadn't intended to tell you, but now you force me to it: the line is twice as far along as when you were over here last!"
"Oh, you good-for-nothing—splendid!" she impulsively cried; but more wistfully added: "Why wouldn't you have told me? Why do you try to keep people from seeing when you do good things, and only show the—the not so good?" He did not answer, and she spoke again with a new and delicate caress in her voice: "You haven't deceived me utterly—there are times when I've been tremendously proud of you."
"Jane," he said, and stopped. His eyes were looking deep into her own, and while she gave him back look for look he seemed incapable of continuing. But she turned away, somewhat confused, and slowly he continued: "One time I discovered that in us all there is a secret temple, with a very small but highly prized altar lighted by a tiny taper flame, where we keep just our own little treasures—our wonderful selves." She glanced up in some surprise, but this time he was staring at the ground. "In some, its door is studiously, carefully locked; in others, its paths of approach are overgrown with weeds and almost lost; in others still, it is hard to find because it has been starved, or hurt, or laughed at—but always when a certain current of thought or sound sweeps by, that wonderful part of our souls upon this little altar is set a-quivering. Old soldiers feel its pulsing at the booming of a cannon; old women feel it at the laughter of a child; others know it is there while beneath the spell of an orchestra, a breeze in the pines, a bird's note, the fragrance of certain flowers, the caress of a voice. You will forgive this unintentional preamble," he looked slowly up at her, "when I say that your voice just now has been all of these things to me—and more!"
"Oh, Brent," she cried, with a brave pretense at lightness, "if only you weren't such a trifler! The dangerous thing about you is that you mean this now—almost; enough, anyway, to give it a ring of sincerity. Were I less sophisticated, I might go home believing it, and thinking what a wonderful man you are starting out to be; but in the morning find my ideals shattered, and on the ash heap!"
"You are so worldly, then?" he smiled.