"Yes, Pete," he said. "But you paint your pictures." "Now you own I'm right! Isn't it anything to move ten thousand men to throw down their tools and go on strike?" "Well, by thunder!" Osmond had awakened. "Now you put it that way, I don't know whether it is or not. That phrase undid you. Lay down their tools? Show me the man that makes me take up my tools in reverence and sobriety, because good work is good religion. That's what I'd like." "But it means something,--starvation, maybe, death. You don't recognize it, do you? You won't recognize the war that's on--oh, it is on!--between Capital and Labor, between the high places and the low. It's war, and it's got to be fought out." "I do recognize it, lad." He spoke gently, thinking of his own lot, and the hard way through which he had come to his almost fevered championship of whatever was maimed or hurt. "Only, Pete, do you know what your opposing forces need? They need grannie." "To say it's the will of God?" "To be wheeled out in her chair, and sit at the head of your armies and say, 'Love God. Love one another.' If they love God, they'll listen to Him. If they love one another your strikes will end to-morrow, and your rich man will break bread with your poor one, and your poor one will lose hatred for the rich. You need grandmother." They sat smiling over it. Peter had amazingly cooled. He rose to his feet. "Well," he said, "I'll paint some pictures. Of course I'll paint my pictures--sometime. There's the Brotherhood again. Don't I want to turn in shekels? Don't I want to have it known that such weight as my name carries is going in there?" It was Osmond's turn to rage. He, too, rose, and they confronted each other. Osmond spoke. His voice trembled, it seemed with emotion that was not anger but a fervor for great things. "I cannot get it through my head. You can do the thing, and it's I that value it. You can paint pictures and you'd prostitute the thing for money,--for reputation. If I had it, if I had that gift"--he paused, and shook his head as if he shook a mane. Peter was looking at him curiously. This was passion such as he had never seen in any man. "What would you do, old chap?" he asked. Osmond was ashamed of his display, but he had to answer. "I would guard it," he said, "as a man would guard--a woman." They stood silent, their eyes not meeting now, hardly knowing how to get away from each other. As if she had been evolved by his mention of precious womanhood, Electra, in her phaeton, drove swiftly by. They took off their hats, glad of the break in the moment's tension; but she did not turn that way. "Could she be going to see her?" Peter asked in haste. "To see her?" "Rose. She mustn't go now. Rose has gone to the orchard with her book."