"No one, except my mother, has ever understood so completely. I shall always, whatever happens, look back on our talks at Briarlay as the most helpful, the most beautiful of my life."
Her glance was veiled with joy as she smiled up at him. This was more than she had ever demanded even in dreams. It was the bread of life in abundance, and she felt that she could live on it through all the barren years of the future. To have the best in her recognized, to be judged, not by a momentary impulse, but by a permanent ideal—this was what she had craved, and this was accorded her.
"For the time I can see nothing but the war," he was saying in a changed voice. "The ground has been cut from under my feet. I am groping through a ruined world toward some kind of light, some kind of certainty. The things I believed in have failed me—and even the things I thought have undergone modifications. I can find but one steadfast resolve in the midst of this fog of disappointment, and that is to help fight this war to a finish. My personal life has become of no consequence. It has been absorbed into the national will, I suppose. It has become a part of America's determination to win the war, let it cost what it may."
The old light of vision and prophecy had come back to his face while she watched it; and she realized, with a rush of mental sympathy, that his ideas were still dynamic—that they possessed the vital energy of creative and constructive forces.
"Talk to me of your work—your life," she said, and she thought exultantly, "If I cannot hold him back, I can follow him. I, too, can build my home on ideas."
"You know what I have always felt about my country," he said slowly. "You know that I have always hoped to be of some lasting service in building a better State. As a boy I used to dream of it, and in later years, in spite of disappointments—of almost unbearable disappointments and failures—the dream has come back more vividly. For a time I believed that I could work here, as well as away, for the future of America—for the genuine democracy that is founded not on force, but on freedom. For a little while this seemed to me to be possible. Then I was pushed back again from the ranks of the fighters—I became again merely a spectator of life—until the war called me to action. As long as the war lasts it will hold me. When that is over there will be fresh fields and newer problems, and I may be useful."
"It is constructive work, not fighting now, isn't it?"
"It is the machinery of war—but, after all, what does it matter if it only helps to win?"
"And afterwards? When it is over?"
His eyes grew very gentle. "If I could only see into the future! Words may come to me some day, and I may answer you—but not now—not yet. I know nothing to-day except that there is work for my hand, and I must do it. Trust me for the rest. You do trust me?"