'It only remains for me to show her that your true motive is revenge.'
'Once say that to her, and you are lost.'
He stole an uneasy look at the woman out of a face that had grown haggard.
'If you were fighting for that girl only against me, you'd win,' she said. 'It isn't so—and you will fail. The influence that has hold of her is in the very air. No soul knows where it comes from, except that it comes from the higher sources of civilization.'
'I see the origin of it before my eyes!'
'As little as you see the beginnings of life. This is like the other mysterious forces of Mother Earth. No warning given—no sign. A night wind passes over the brown land, and in the morning the fields are green.'
His look was the look of one who sees happiness slipping away. 'Or it passes over gardens like a frost,' he said, 'and the flowers die.'
'I know that is what men fear. It even seems as if it must be through fear that your enlightenment will come. The strangest things make you men afraid! That's why I see a value in Jean Dunbarton far beyond her fortune.'
He looked at her dully.