“But look at the mother-given prophets standing alone, militant but tender, the real producers!  The spirit that sparks fitfully in the artist is a steady flame now.  Their giving is to all, not to one.  What they take of the world is very little, but through them to the world is given direct the Holy Spirit.  Saint Paul and the Forerunner are the highest types, and in perspective.  Their way is the way of the Christ, Who showed the world that unto the completed union of Mystic Womanhood and militant manhood, is added Godhood.

“There are immediate examples of men maturing in prophecy,” Bedient concluded.  “Men in our own lives almost—­Whitman, Lincoln, Thoreau, Emerson, Carlyle, Wordsworth.  See the poise and the service which came from their greater gifts.  Contrast them with the beautiful boys who searched so madly, so vainly, among the senses—­Burns, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Poe.  What noble elder brothers they are!  More content, they have, more soul-age, more of the visioning feminine principle....  And see how flesh destroys!  In the small matter of years they lived, the prophets more than doubled the age of the singers.  Their greatest work was done in the years which the lyric-makers did not reach....  The great masses of the world have not yet the spark which shows itself in the singing poetic consciousness.  Such men are mere males, leaning upon matter, soldiers and money-makers, pitifully unlit, chance children, without fastidiousness, but all on the road.”

“There will be plenty, yes, more than plenty,” said Beth, “to take the places of those, who confine their parenthood to the race.”

Bedient was gone, and though his incorruptible optimism was working more than ever in her heart, that which she had sought to learn, had not come.  Prophet or not, his smile at the door had left something volatile within her, something like girlhood in her heart.  He had not overlooked the picture upon the mantel.  Twice she had looked up, and found him regarding it....  It was the late still time of afternoon.  Beth felt emotional.  She ran over several songs on the piano, while the dusk thickened in the studio.  One was about an Indian maiden who yearned for the sky-blue water; another about an Irish Kathleen who gave her lover to strike a blow for the Green; and still another concerned a girl who would rather lie in the dust of her lord’s chariot than be the ecstasy of lesser man.  Beth Truba’s face was upturned to the light—­to the last pallor of day.  She was like a wraith singing and communing with the tuneful tragedies of women world-wide.  But there was gaiety in her heart....  Then the knocker, the scurrying of dreams away, and the voice of Marguerite Grey in the dark.

“Most romantic—­song, hour and all,” she said, while Beth turned on the lamps.

“Beth Truba is naturally so romantic——­”

“Possibly the piano could tell tales; I know my ’cello could,” said the Grey One.  “Beth, dear, I am touching wood, and praying to preserve ’an humble and a contrite heart,’ but reeking with commerce.  Sold three pictures—­real pictures.  The one that was hanging at Torvin’s so long was sold four days ago, and Torvin immediately took two more——­”