FEJEVARY:  (moved but unconvinced) But, my friend, there are men who have no aspiration.  That’s why, to me, this is as a light shining from too far.

GRANDMOTHER:  (old things waked in her) Light shining from far.  We used to do that.  We never pulled the curtain.  I used to want to—­you like to be to yourself when night conies—­but we always left a lighted window for the traveller who’d lost his way.

FELIX:  I should think that would have exposed you to the Indians.

GRANDMOTHER:  Yes. (impatiently) Well, you can’t put out a light just because it may light the wrong person.

FEJEVARY:  No. (and this is as a light to him.  He turns to the hill) No.

SILAS:  (with gentleness, and profoundly) That’s it.  Look again.  Maybe your eyes are stronger now.  Don’t you see it?  I see that college rising as from the soil itself, as if it was what come at the last of that thinking that breathes from the earth.  I see it—­but I want to know it’s real before I stop knowing.  Then maybe I can lie under the same sod with the red boys and not be ashamed.  We’re not old!  Let’s fight!  Wake in other men what you woke in me!

FEJEVARY:  And so could I pay my debt to America. (His hand goes out.)

SILAS:  (giving him the deed) And to the dreams of a million years! (Standing near the open door, their hands are gripped in compact.)

CURTAIN

ACT II

SCENE:  A corridor in the library of Morton College, October of the year 1920, upon the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of its founding.  This is an open place in the stacks of books, which are seen at both sides.  There is a reading-table before the big rear window.  This window opens out, but does not extend to the floor; only a part of its height is seen, indicating a very high window.  Outside is seen the top of a tree.  This outer wall of the building is on a slant, so that the entrance right is near, and the left is front.  Right front is a section of a huge square column.  On the rear of this, facing the window, is hung a picture of SILAS MORTON.  Two men are standing before this portrait.

SENATOR LEWIS is the Midwestern state senator.  He is not of the city from which Morton College rises, but of a more country community farther in-state.  FELIX FEJEVARY, now nearing the age of his father in the first act, is an American of the more sophisticated type—­prosperous, having the poise of success in affairs and place in society.

SENATOR:  And this was the boy who founded the place, eh?  It was his idea?

FEJEVARY:  Yes, and his hill.  I was there the afternoon he told my father there must be a college here.  I wasn’t any older then than my boy is now.

(As if himself surprised by this.)

SENATOR:  Well, he enlisted a good man when he let you in on it.  I’ve been told the college wouldn’t be what it is today but for you, Mr Fejevary.