“Yes, I know. I was Cleopatra, and again I was Nero's mistress while he watched the city burning.”
“Rome was rough, and crude, and poor, Mary. Rome was nothing to this. This is Satan on my Father's throne, making new worlds for himself.” He paced the room again, then turned and said: “I don't understand this world. I must know more about it, if I am to save it!” There was such grief, such selfless pity in his voice as he repeated this: “I must know more!”
“You know everything!” exclaimed Mary, suddenly. “You are all wisdom!”
But he went on, speaking as if to himself, pondering his problem: “To serve others, yet not to indulge them; for the cause of their enslavment is that they have accepted service without return. And how shall one preach patience to the poor, when the masters make such preaching a new means of enslavement?” He looked at me, as if he thought that I could answer his question. Then with sudden energy he exclaimed: “I must meet those who are in rebellion against enslavement! Tomorrow I want to meet the strikers—all the strikers in your city.”
“You'll have your hands full,” I said—for I was a coward, and wanted to keep him out of it.
“How shall I find them?” he persisted.
“I don't know; I suppose their headquarters are at the Labor Temple.”
“I will go there. Meantime, I fear I shall have to be alone. I need to think about the things I have learned.”
“Where are you going to stay?”
“I don't know.”