“We have to decide on our missions for ourselves,” said he.

“Don’t you think it sufficient Purpose for a woman who has been in a gray prison all her life—­when she finds herself free—­to go out and see all that is wonderful in scenery like this, in paintings, architecture, manners, and customs of other nations, in people who have other ideas and feelings from those she knew in prison?  You speak as if you’re finding fault with me for not doing anything useful.  Isn’t what I do enough?  What else can I do?”

“I don’t know,” said Sypher, looking at the back of his gloves; then he turned his head and met her eyes in one of his quick glances.  “But you, with your color and your build and your voice, seem somehow to me to stand for Force—­there’s something big about you—­just as there’s something big about me—­Napoleonic—­and I can’t understand why it doesn’t act in some particular direction.”

“Oh, you must give me time,” cried Zora.  “Time to expand, to find out what kind of creature I really am.  I tell you I’ve been in prison.  Then I thought I was free and found a purpose, as you call it.  Then I had a knock-down blow.  I am a widow—­I supposed you’ve guessed.  Oh, now, don’t speak.  It wasn’t grief.  My married life was a six-weeks’ misery.  I forget it.  I went away from home free five months ago—­to see all this”—­she waved her hand—­“for the first time.  Whatever force I have has been devoted to seeing it all, to taking it all in.”

She spoke earnestly, just a bit passionately.  In the silence that followed she realized with sudden amazement that she had opened her heart to this prime apostle of quackery.  As he made no immediate reply, the silence grew tense and she clasped her hands tight, and wondered, as her sex has done from time immemorial, why on earth she had spoken.  When he answered it was kindly.

“You’ve done me a great honor in telling me this.  I understand.  You want the earth, or as much of it as you can get, and when you’ve got it and found out what it means, you’ll make a great use of it.  Have you many friends?”

“No,” said Zora.  He had an uncanny way of throwing her back on to essentials.  “None stronger than myself.”

“Will you take me as a friend?  I’m strong enough,” said Sypher.

“Willingly,” she said, dominated by his earnestness.

“That’s good.  I may be able to help you when you’ve found your vocation.  I can tell you, at any rate, how to get to what you want.  You’ve just got to keep a thing in view and go for it and never let your eyes wander to right or left or up or down.  And looking back is fatal—­the truest thing in Scripture is about Lot’s wife.  She looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt.”

He paused, his face assumed an air of profound reflection, and he added with gravity: 

“And the Clem Sypher of the period when he came by, made use of her, and plastered her over with posters of his cure.”