"I don't deny it is pleasant to be considered worth a moment of anxiety; but it is weakening to the resolution. It is something that must have no part in my life."
"Good heavens, Parks! You don't mean to say that you would give up the chance to get a girl like Mercy Fillmore, just for the sake of making speeches about--" It was on the tip of my tongue to say "the riffraff," but in deference to the prejudices of my listener, I ended weakly with "--people who don't care a snap of their fingers for you?"
Parks was silent for some seconds, and he studied the table with a far-away look in his eyes.
"Do you think I have a chance?" he asked.
"Great Scott, man, how much encouragement do you want? Why, if a young lady I could name--and won't--showed half as much interest in my personal safety as this girl is showing in yours, I'd be down on my knees at once."
He looked in my eyes, with something of frank boyishness, for the first time, showing under the enthusiast and dreamer.
"I don't mind confessing to you, Hampden, that I've been in love with that girl ever since we were school children together. But I think you overestimate her interest in me. She is a very sympathetic person, and--" He did not finish the sentence, but gave his hand a wave that made her anxieties include the entire circle of her acquaintance. "It was her work among the suffering poor that led me to the studies that have shown me the rights of man and the wrongs of society. But, I have resolved, Hampden, before I say a word, to accomplish something--to make myself known--to strike a blow for the regeneration of mankind that shall make the nations ring."
His voice had risen in the oratorical fervor of his last sentence, until it attracted attention from the group at the lower end of the room, and a chorus of voices called "Parks! Parks!"
"Here!" responded Parks. "What's wanted?" And rising, with a wave of the hand that summoned me to follow him, he strode to the farther end of the L where a group of five or six men sat around a table.
