“That is the rest of the debt.  Let the wheel turn if need be.  Each of us has suffering.  Mine own is for the faith, for the cause.”

“For what faith?  What cause do you mean?”

“The cause of the world,” she answered vaguely.  “The cause of humanity.  Oh, the world’s so big, and we’re so very little.  Life runs away so fast.  So many suffer, in the world, so many want!  Is it right for us, more fortunate, to take all, to eat in greed, to sleep in sloth, to be free from care, when there are thousands, all over the world, needing food, aid, sympathy, opportunity, the chance to grow?

“Why,” she went on, “I put out little plants, and I love them, always, because they’re going to grow, they’re going to live.  I love it—­that thought of life, of growth.  Well, can I make you understand, that was what I felt over yonder, in that revolution, in mid-Europe.  I felt it was just like seeing little plants set out, to grow.  Those poor people!  Those poor people!  They’re coming over here, to grow, here in America, in this great country out here, in this West.  They’ll grow, like plants extending, like grass multiplying, going out, edging westward, all the time.  Ah, thousands of them, millions yet to come, plants, little human plants, with the right to live born with them.  I don’t so much mind about their creed.  I don’t so much mind about race—­their color, even.  But to see them grow—­why, I suppose God up in His Heaven looks down and smiles when He sees that.  And we—­we who are here for a little time—­we who sometimes are given minds and means to fall in tune with God’s smile—­why, when we grow little and selfish, instead of getting in tune with the wish of God—­why, we fail.  Then, indeed, we do not pay—­we repudiate our debt to ourselves.”

“You are shaming me,” he said slowly.  “But I see why they put you out of Washington.”

“But they can not put God out of Heaven!  They can not turn back the stars!  They can not stop the rush of those westbound feet, the spread of the millions, millions of blades of grass edging out, on.  That is what will make you see this ‘higher law,’ some time.  That is big politics, higher than what you call your traditions.  That will shame little men.  Many traditions are only egotism and selfishness.  There is a compromise which will be final—­not one done in a mutual cowardice.  It’s one done in a mutual largeness and courage.

“Oh,”—­she beat her hands together, as was sometimes her way—­“America, this great West, this splendid country where the feet are hurrying on so fast, fast—­and the steam now carries men faster, faster, so that it may be done—­it may be done—­without delay—­why, all this America must one day give over war and selfishness—­just as we two have tried to give over war and selfishness, right here, right now.  Do you suppose this world was made just to hold selfishness and unhappiness?  Do you think that’s all there ever was to the plan of life?  Ah, no!  There’s something in living beyond eating and drinking and sleeping and begetting.  Faith—­a great faith in something, some plan ahead, some purpose under you—­ah, that’s living!”