“Thank you,” he replied, ironically.

“Don’t be sarcastic!” she retorted.  “I only meant—­”

“It’s all right, anyhow,” said he.  “You’ve simply got the old, stupid, wornout ideas of your class.  You can’t grasp this new ideal, rising through the ruck and waste and sin and misery of the present system.  I don’t blame you.  You’re a product of your environment.  You can’t help it.  With that environment, how can you sense the newer and more vital ideas of the day?”

For a moment she fixed eager eyes on him, in silence.  Then asked she: 

“Ideals?  You mean that Socialism has ideals, and that it’s not all a matter of tearing down and dividing up, and destroying everything good and noble and right—­all the accumulated wisdom and resources of the world?”

He laughed heartily.

“Who handed you that bunk?” he demanded.

“Father told me Socialism was all that, and more,”

“What’s your father’s business?”

“Why, investments, stocks, bonds, industrial development and all that sort of thing.”

“Hm!” he grunted.  “I thought as much!”

“You mean that father misinformed me?”

“Rather!”

“Well, if he did, what is Socialism?”

“Socialism,” answered the young man slowly, while he fixed his eyes on the smouldering fire, “Socialism is a political movement, a concept of life, a philosophy, an interpretation, a prophecy, an ideal.  It embraces history, economics, science, art, religion, literature and every phase of human activity.  It explains life, points the way to better things, gives us hope, strengthens the weary and heavy-laden, bids us look upward and onward, and constitutes the most sublime ideal ever conceived by the soul of man!”

“Can this be true?” the girl demanded, astonished.

“Not only can, but is!  Socialism would free the world from slavery and slaves, from war, poverty, prostitution, vice and crime; would cleanse the sores of our rotting capitalism, would loose the gyves from the fettered hands of mankind, would bid the imprisoned soul of man awake to nobler and to purer things!  How?  The answer to that would take me weeks.  You would have to read and study many books, to learn the entire truth.  But I am telling you the substance of the ideal—­a realizable ideal, and no chimera—­when I say that Socialism sums up all that is good, and banishes all that is evil!  And do you wonder that I love and serve it, all my life?”

She peered at him in wonder.

“You serve it?  How?” she demanded.

“By spreading it abroad; by speaking for it, working for it, fighting for it!  By the spoken and the printed word!  By every act and through every means whereby I can bring it nearer and nearer realization!”

“You’re a dreamer, a visionary, a fanatic!” she exclaimed.

“You think so?  No, I can’t agree.  Time will judge that matter.  Meanwhile, I travel up and down the earth, spreading Socialism.”