He did not reply.  He looked so much older when sternness set his face, leaving no hint of that teasing gleam in his eyes, that pleasing little humorous twist of his mouth.

Gently her voice went into the dark country claiming him then.  “But you were telling me of my friend.”

It brought him out, wondering anew.  “Your friend!  There you go again!  How can you expect me to stick to a subject when paths open out on all sides of you like that?  But I’ll try to quit straying.  It happened that on that day, just at that time, I was going under the south bridge.  I chanced to look up.  A face was bending down.  Her face.  Our eyes met—­square.  I got it—­flung to me in that one look.  What the world had done to her—­what she thought of it for doing it—­what she meant to do about it.

“I wish,” he went on, with a slow, heavy calm, “that the ‘good’ men and women of the world—­those ‘good’ men and women who eat good dinners and sleep in good beds—­some of the ’God’s in heaven all’s well with the world’ people—­could have that look wake them up in the middle of the night.  I’d like to think of them turning to the wall and trying to shut it out—­and the harder they tried the nearer and clearer it grew.  I’d like to think of them sitting up in bed praying God—­the God of ‘good’ folks—­to please make it stop.  I’d like to have it haunt them—­dog them—­finally pierce their brains or souls or whatever it is they have, and begin to burrow.  I’d like to have it right there on the job every time they mentioned the goodness of God or the justice of man, till finally they threw up their hands in crazed despair with, ’For God’s sake, what do you want me to do about it!’”

He had scarcely raised his voice.  He was smiling at her.  It was the smile led her to gasp:  “Why I believe you hate us!”

“Why I really believe I do,” he replied quietly, still smiling.

Suddenly she flared.  “That’s not the thing!  You’re not going to set the world right by hating the world.  You’re not going to make it right for some people by hating other people.  What good thing can come of hate?”

“The greatest things have come of hate.  Of a divine hate that transcends love.”

“Why no they haven’t!  The greatest things have come of love.  What the world needs is more love.  You can’t bring love by hating.”

He seemed about to make heated reply, but smiled, or rather his smile became really a smile as he said:  “What a lot of things you and I would find to talk about.”

“We must—­” Katie began impetuously, but halted and flushed.  “We must go on with our story,” was what it came to.