Gaston returned home with lighter step. He met, as he crossed the square, the Preacher who was waiting for him.
“Come here and sit down a minute. I’ve heard of your trouble. You have my sympathy. But you ’ll come out all right. The oak that’s bent by the storm makes a fibre fit for a ship’s rib. You can’t make steel without white heat. God’s just trying your temper, boy, to see if there’s anything in you. When he has tried you in the fire, and the pure gold shines, he will call you to higher things.”
Gaston nodded his assent to this saying, “And yet, Doctor, none of us like the touch of fire or the smell of the smoke of our clothes.”
“You are right. But it’s good for the soul. You are learning now that we must face things that we don’t like in this world. I am older than you. I will tell you something that you can’t really know until you have lived through this. Love seems to you at this time the only thing in the world. But it is not. My deepest sympathy is with Sallie. She’s already pure gold. To such a woman love is the centre of gravity of all life. This is not true of a strong normal man. The centre of gravity of a strong man’s life as a whole is not in love and the emotions, but in justice and intellect and their expression in the wider social relations.”
“And that means that I must brace up for this political fight?”
“Exactly so. And it’s the best thing you can do for your love. Become a power and you can coerce even a man of the General’s character.”
“You are right, Doctor. I had my mind about fixed on that course.”
“You will find the County Committee in session in the Clerk’s office there now. They want to see you. I tell you to fight this coalition of McLeod and the farmers every inch up to the last hour it is formed, and if McLeod wins them, and the alliance is made, then fight to break it every day and every hour and every minute till the votes are counted out.”
Gaston went at once into the consultation with the Democratic county committee.