"You are a merchant. You could make a name for yourself. The world would respect you. There are enough to do the nursing, and too few brains in the sugar business. To-night I will give the orders and the advance shall be made when the market opens."
"But your directors?"
"We will direct the directors. They have had two months to figure how to fight the scalpers; you show me in twenty-four hours. Some monks were in to see me this morning; I was too busy. They told my secretary they were building an asylum for old men. I told him to say, not a dollar for old men; to come to me when they were building an asylum for old women. What do you say to my offer, Francis?"
"What do I say? Ah, Robert, although you are a very big paymaster, I am working for a Paymaster much bigger than you. What do I say? I say to you, give up this sugar business and come with me to the nursing. I will give you rags in place of riches, fasting in place of fine dinners, toil in place of repose, but my Paymaster--He will reward you there for all you endure here."
"Always deferred dividends. Besides, I should make a poor nurse, Francis, and you would make a good sugar man. And you seem to imply I am a bad man in the sugar business. I am not; I am a very excellent man, but you don't seem to know it."
"I hope so; I hope you are. God has given you splendid talents--he has given you more reason, more heart, more judgment than he has given to these men around you. If you waste, you are in danger of the greater punishment."
"But I don't waste. I build up. What can a man do in this world without power? He must have the sinews of empire to make himself felt. Francis, what would Cromwell, Frederick, Napoleon have been without power?"
"Ah! These are your heroes; they are not mine. I give glory to no man that overcomes by force, violence, and worse--fraud, broken faith, misrule, falsehood. What is more detestable than the triumph of mere brains? Your heroes, do they not tax, extort, pillage, slaughter, and burn for their own glory? Do they not ride over law, morality, and justice, your world's heroes? They are not my heroes. When men shrink at nothing to gain their success--what shall we say of them? But to hold law, morality, and justice inviolable; to conquer strength but only by weakness, to vanquish with pity, to crush with mercy--that alone is moving greatness."
"Where do you find it?" demanded Kimberly sharply.
"Never where you look for your heroes; often where I look for mine--among the saints of God. Not in men of bronze but in men of clay. It is only Christ who puts the souls of heroes into hearts of flesh and blood."