“It may be.  One never can tell.”  Then he laughed with tolerant affection.  “I’ve found out the trouble with John.”

“The trouble with John?” Her voice trembled.

“Yes, the trouble with John is that he lacks blood at the brain.  He is trying to make a living organism out of a skeleton—­to build the world over on a skull and cross-bones—­and it can’t be done.  I admire John as much as I ever did.  He is as logical as a problem in geometry.  But Vetch is nearer to the truth of things.  Vetch has the one attribute that John needs to make him complete.”

She nodded.  “I know.  You mean feeling?”

“Human sympathy—­the sympathy that means imagination and insight.  That is the only power that Vetch has, but, by Jove, it is the greatest of all!  It is the spirit that comprehends, that reconciles, and recreates.  Both Vetch and John have failed, I think; Vetch for want of education, system, method, and John because, having all this essential framework, he still lacked the blood and fibre of humanity.  In its essence, I suppose it is a difference of principle, the old familiar struggle between the romantic and the realistic temperament, which divides in politics into the progressive and the conservative forces.  There is nothing in history, I learned that at college, except the war between these two irreconcilable spirits.  Irreconcilable, they call them, and yet I wonder, I wonder more and more, if this is not a misinterpretation of history?  It seems to me that the leader of the future, even in so small a community as this one, must be big enough to combine opposite elements; that he must take the good where he finds it; that he must vitalize tradition and discipline progress—­”

“You mean that he must accept both the past and the future?” While her heart craved the substance of truth, she dispensed platitudes with a benevolent air.

“How can it be otherwise?  That, it seems to me, is the only logical way out of the muddle.  The difficulty, of course, is to remain practical—­not to let the vision run away with one.  It will require moderation, which Vetch has not, and adaptability, which John has never learned.”

“And never will learn,” rejoined Corinna.  “He is made of the mettle that breaks but does not bend.”

“Like my father; like all those who have petrified in the shape of a convention.  And yet the new stuff—­the ideas that haven’t turned to stone—­are full of froth—­they splash over.  Take Vetch and this strike, for instance.  I myself believe that he wants to do the right thing, to protect the public at any cost; but he has gone too far; he has splashed over the dividing line between principle and expediency.  Will he be able to stand firm at the last?”

“Father says there is to be a meeting Thursday night.”

“Yes, and he’ll be obliged to come to some decision then, or at least to drop a hint as to the line he intends to pursue.  I am afraid there will be trouble either way.”