“But—­forgive me—­you’re very poor?”

“Not at all!  I have, at this present moment, more than eighteen dollars in my pocket, and I have these!”

He showed her his two hands, big and sinewed, capable and strong.

“Eighteen dollars,” she mused, half to herself.  “Why, I have spent that, and more, for a single ounce of a new perfume—­something very rare, you know, from Japan.”

“Indeed?  Well, don’t tell me,” he replied.  “I’m not interested in how you spend money, but how you get it.”

“Get it?  Oh, father gives me my allowance, that’s all.”

“And he squeezes it out of the common people?”

She glanced at him quickly.

“You—­you aren’t a Socialist, into the bargain, are you?” she inquired.

“At your service,” he bowed.

“This is strange, strange indeed,” she said.  “Tell me your name.”

“No,” he refused.  “I’d still rather not.  Nor shall I ask yours.  Please don’t volunteer it.”

Came a moment’s silence, there in the darkening hut, with the fire-glow red upon their faces.

“Happy,” said the girl.  “You say you’re happy.  While I—­”

“Are not unhappy, surely?” asked Gabriel, leaning forward as he sat there beside her, and gazing keenly into her face.

“How should I know?” she answered.  “Unhappy?  No, perhaps not.  But vacant—­empty—­futile!”

“Yes, I believe you,” Gabriel judged.  “You tell me no news.  And as you are, you will ever be.  You will live so and die so.  No, I won’t preach.  I won’t proselytize.  I won’t even explain.  It would be useless.  You are one pole, I the other.  And the world—­the whole wide world—­lies between!”

Suddenly she spoke.

“You’re a Socialist,” said she.  “What does it mean to be a Socialist?”

He shook his head.

“You couldn’t understand, if I told you,” he answered.

“Why not?”

“Oh, because your ideas and environments and interests and everything have been so different from mine—­because you’re what you are—­because you can never be anything else.”

“You mean Socialism is something beyond my understanding?” she demanded, piqued.  “Of course, that’s nonsense.  I’m a human being.  I’ve got brains, haven’t I?  I can understand a scheme of dividing up, or levelling down, or whatever it is, even if I can’t believe in it!”

He smiled oddly.

“You’ve just proved, by what you’ve said,” he answered slowly, “that your whole concepts are mistaken.  Socialism isn’t anything like what you think it is, and if I should try to explain it, you’d raise ten thousand futile objections, and beg the question, and defeat my object of explanation by your very inability to get the point of view.  So you see—­”

“I see that I want to know more!” she exclaimed, with determination.  “If there’s any branch of human knowledge that lies outside my reasoning powers, it’s time I found that fact out.  I thought Socialists were wild, crazy, erratic cranks; but if you’re one, then I seem to have been wrong.  You look rational enough, and you talk in an eminently sane manner.”