Nor was Bellair. “The fact is, it doesn’t greatly matter what women think of women, and what men think of men—compared to what men and women think of each other,” he observed.
“You say you didn’t know that other man at first—that preacher,” she remarked.
“That’s true. There had to be danger—I had to hear his voice in danger.”
Bellair was lifted to his life-theme. He had never really told it in one piece. He did not mean to now, but Fleury came clearly to mind. The food was served and it was quiet behind the palms. If he could only say something for her heart. She seemed ready. Points of human interest were crowding to mind—perhaps he could hold her with them.
“... His every thought was for others,” he was saying. “I disliked him at first, but he was so kind and good-natured throughout that he could not fail to impress me a bit, but I didn’t really see him before the night of the wreck, when he arose to take things in hand. It was not noise, nor voice, but a different force. He seemed to rise—so that the huge Stackhouse was just a squealing pig before him. He had no fear. You looked into his face and wanted to be near him, and to do what he said. I caught his secret. A fool would. It was because he wasn’t thinking of himself. It seems, Bessie, as sure as you live—that the more a man gives out in that pure way Fleury did for us all—the more power floods into him. It came to him in volumes. We all knew it—even Stackhouse——
“And this is what I’m getting at. You’ve got the chance to use it. I can’t yet. I seem to be all clotted with what I want, but you can! You did. You pulled me out of the crowd, not knowing me at all—made me come to you—changed me. You can give with your singing—to hundreds—so that they will answer in their thoughts, and do things strange to themselves at first. They’ll want to die for you—but that isn’t the thing for you. You must want to sing for them—want to give them your soul all the time. Greater things will come to you than this—this which makes you happy. All that the world could give you—you will come to see—doesn’t matter—but what you can give the world——”
He saw her falling away from his story. It crippled him. He did not think he could fail so utterly.
“But you were a thief,” she said.
“I—was what?”
“You preach all the time, but you were a thief——”