"Do you mean to say," asked Joe, speaking more calmly, "that you will pack up your belongings and go to the end of the world whenever a friend asks you to? It is most tremendously obliging, you know." "Not for any friend," John replied. "But I would most certainly do it for this particular one." "You must be very fond of him to do that," said Joe. "I am under great obligations to him, too. He is certainly the most important man with whom I have any relations. We can trust each other-it would not do to endanger the certainty of good faith that exists between us." "He must be a very wonderful person," said Joe, who had grown quite calm by this time. "I should like to know him." "Very possibly you may meet him, some day. He is a very wonderful person indeed, as you say. He has devoted fifty years of his life and strength to the unremitting pursuit of the best aim that any man can set before him." "In other words," said Joe, "he is your ideal. He is what you hope to be at his age. He must be very old." "Yes, he is old. As for his representing my ideal, I think he approaches more nearly to it than any man alive. But you would probably not like him." "Why?" "He belongs to a class of men whom old-world people especially dislike," answered John. "He does not believe in any monarchy, aristocracy, or distinction of birth. He looks upon titles as a decaying institution of barbarous ages, and he confidently asserts that in two or three generations the republic will be the only form of social contract known amongst the inhabitants of the civilized world." John was watching Joe while he spoke. He was merely talking because it seemed necessary, and he saw that in spite of her assumed calm she was still greatly agitated. She seemed anxious, however, to continue the conversation. "It is absurd," said she, "to say that all men are born equal." "Everything depends on what you mean by the word 'equal.' I mean by it that all men are born with an equal claim to a share in all the essential rights of free citizenship. When a man demands more than that, he is infringing on the rights of others; when he is content with less, he is allowing himself to be robbed." "But who is to decide just how much belongs to each man?" asked Joe, leaning back wearily against the cushions. She wished now that she had allowed him to call her aunt. It was a fearful strain on her faculties to continue talking upon general subjects and listening to John Harrington's calm, almost indifferent tones. "The majority decides that," said John. "But a majority has just decided that you are not to be senator," said Joe. "According to you they were right, were they not?"