“Yes,” she said, “when you talk high-mindedly and generously, as you can, when you want to, I enjoy being with you, in touch with a mind so much more knowing and able than my own.  But, now we’ve made a beginning, I’d really like to talk about—­all this dreadful mess that’s been made of your life, and how things can be made easier for you, and for my father.”

Figuratively, Blizzard’s tongue went into his cheek at the mention of Dr. Ferris, but the expression of his face underwent no change.  “Of course,” he said simply, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, “I have forgiven your father.  He was very young—­very excitable—­inexperienced.”

“Actually" she said, “in your heart, you’ve forgiven him?  And you’re not saying things just to make me comfortable?”

“I am afraid,” he confessed, “that I am too selfish to say or do things just to make other people comfortable.  Did you ever hate anybody?”

“I think so.”

“Did you like it?”

“For a while it was rather fun to think up things to do to the person, and then it got to be disagreeable, and feverish, like a cut that’s festered, and then I made a strong effort, and found that hating was very poor company and led nowhere.”

“Exactly,” said the beggar.  “Do you mind if I talk frankly?  My hatred for your father persisted a great many years, until I found that going to bed with it every night and getting up with it every morning was a slow poison that was affecting all the rest of me—­my power to think out a line of action, my power to stick to it, even my power to like people that were good to me and faithful to my interests.  I found that I was beginning to hate everybody and everything in the world and the world itself.  Meanwhile, Miss Barbara, I did things that can never be undone.”

He was silent, and appeared to be turning over the leaves in the books of his memory.  Suddenly he spoke again.

“And it was all so silly,” he said, “so futile.  The cure was in my head all the time—­just longing to be used.  And fool that I was, I didn’t know it.”

“What was the cure?”

“It was the sovereign cure for all our troubles, Miss Barbara—­reason, and crowds.  Stand morning or evening at the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge—­stand there with your trouble, and consider that among the passers, better carried than yours, are troubles, far, far greater than yours, more poignant, lives lived in dungeons deeper and more dark.  Your father has lived a life of most admirable utility:  should he be hated for one mistake?  Suppose that it had been some other small boy’s legs that he wasted, instead of mine?  Would I hate him for it?  Why, no.  I’d say it’s too bad.  But since it was I that lost the legs I lost all sense of proportion and justice and was a long time—­a long time coming back to it.”

“May I know what brought you round?”