Came a moment's silence, there in the darkening hut, with the fire-glow red upon their faces. "Happy," said the girl. "You say you're happy. While I--" "Are not unhappy, surely?" asked Gabriel, leaning forward as he sat there beside her, and gazing keenly into her face. "How should I know?" she answered. "Unhappy? No, perhaps not. But vacant--empty--futile!" "Yes, I believe you," Gabriel judged. "You tell me no news. And as you are, you will ever be. You will live so and die so. No, I won't preach. I won't proselytize. I won't even explain. It would be useless. You are one pole, I the other. And the world--the whole wide world--lies between!" Suddenly she spoke. "You're a Socialist," said she. "What does it mean to be a Socialist?" He shook his head. "You couldn't understand, if I told you," he answered. "Why not?" "Oh, because your ideas and environments and interests and everything have been so different from mine--because you're what you are--because you can never be anything else." "You mean Socialism is something beyond my understanding?" she demanded, piqued. "Of course, that's nonsense. I'm a human being. I've got brains, haven't I? I can understand a scheme of dividing up, or levelling down, or whatever it is, even if I can't believe in it!" He smiled oddly. "You've just proved, by what you've said," he answered slowly, "that your whole concepts are mistaken. Socialism isn't anything like what you think it is, and if I should try to explain it, you'd raise ten thousand futile objections, and beg the question, and defeat my object of explanation by your very inability to get the point of view. So you see--" "I see that I want to know more!" she exclaimed, with determination. "If there's any branch of human knowledge that lies outside my reasoning powers, it's time I found that fact out. I thought Socialists were wild, crazy, erratic cranks; but if you're one, then I seem to have been wrong. You look rational enough, and you talk in an eminently sane manner." "Thank you," he replied, ironically. "Don't be sarcastic!" she retorted. "I only meant--" "It's all right, anyhow," said he. "You've simply got the old, stupid, wornout ideas of your class. You can't grasp this new ideal, rising through the ruck and waste and sin and misery of the present system. I don't blame you. You're a product of your environment. You can't help it. With that environment, how can you sense the newer and more vital ideas of the day?" For a moment she fixed eager eyes on him, in silence. Then asked she: "Ideals? You mean that Socialism has ideals, and that it's not all a matter of tearing down and dividing up, and destroying everything good and noble and right--all the accumulated wisdom and resources of the world?" He laughed heartily. "Who handed you that bunk?" he demanded. "Father told me Socialism was all that, and more," "What's your father's business?"