"The proletarian is that modern sphinx whose thundering interrogative society will be called upon to answer. You and I know too well that society hitherto has answered only with belching cannon and vain vapourings of law, religion, and duty. But the toiling sphinx, who has time only to ask terrible questions, will some day formulate an articulate reply to its own question, and then once more we shall see that our foundations are of sand--sand that will be washed away, by blood, if need be. Some there are who will weep tears over the sand: the pleasures and the joy may die, for to me they are cold and false. My joy cannot find place within the four walls which shut out the misery and brutality of the world. "How be a mouthpiece for the poor? How can art master the master-problem? They who have nothing much to say, often say it well and in a popular form; they are unhampered by weighty matters. It takes an eagle to soar with a heavy weight in its grasp. The human being, rocking to and fro with his little grief, must give way in depth of meaning to him who is rocked with the grief of generations past, present, and to come. It is then that love might rise, love so close to agony that agony cannot last: the love that will search ceaselessly, in the slums, in the dives, throughout all life, for the inevitable, and will accept no alternative and no compromise." This was the man who met Marie at a critical time of her life. He was about thirty-five years old, had experienced much, had become formed, had rejected society, but not the ideal. Rather, as he dropped the one, he embraced more fervently the other. He had consorted with thieves, prostitutes, with all low human types; and for their failures and their weaknesses, their ideas and their instincts, he felt deep sympathy and even an aesthetic appreciation. Marie, as we have seen, was only seventeen, unformed and wild, full of youthful passion and social despair, on the verge of what we call prostitution; reckless, hopeless, with a deep touch of sullenness and hatred. She was working at the time in the house of one of Terry's brothers. Katie, too, was employed there; although she lived with Nick, her husband, she still occupied herself at times with her old occupation; and, as ever, she watched Marie with a careful eye, rather vainly so just then, for this girl was as wild as a girl well could be. One day Terry paid one of his infrequent visits to his brother's home, and saw the plump and pretty Marie hanging clothes in the yard. He was at once attracted to her, and entered into conversation. He was deeply pleased; so was the girl; and they made an appointment. He soon saw what her character was, and this was to him an added attraction.