But to see through it all--there are so many who do it unconsciously--that is a quality beyond philosophy. John laughed. She looked up quickly. "You laugh? Why?" "You look so serious." "I was. It’s so true--quite true, all you said. But what is one to do when everybody around one sets their standard in gold--when people are only good-spirited when there is money to be had, and cross and inconsiderate when there is none? What is one to do then?" "Must you follow their lead?" asked John. "What else? The community governs, doesn’t it?" "So they say. But even government is a thing that must be taught, and someone must teach it to the community, so that the community may become proficient at its job. When you get into a community of people like that, all you have to do is to break away. It doesn’t matter how universally good a wrong may be, you can’t make it right for the individual." "What did your father do?" "Oh--he disobeyed the laws of the community. He went away. He deserted her." She stole a hurried glance at his face. "Don’t you speak rather hardly?" "No--conventionally--that’s all. That is the technical term. He deserted her. Went and lived in the slums and worked. He was probably no paragon, either, until he met my mother. No man is until he meets _the_ woman with the great heart and God’s good gift of understanding." "Have you ever met her yet?" "No--I’m only twenty-six." "Do you think you ever will meet her?" "Yes--one day." "When?" "Oh, the time that Fate allots for these things." "When is that?" "When it’s too late." "Isn’t that pessimistic?" "No--I’m only speaking of Time. Time’s nothing--Time doesn’t count. You may count it--you generally do with a mechanical contrivance called a clock--but it doesn’t count itself. As the community looks at these things it may be too late, but it’s not too late to make all the difference in life. The point is meeting her, knowing her. Nothing else really matters. Once you know her, she is as much in your life as ever marriage and all such little conventional ceremonies as that can make her." She looked up at him again. "What strange ideas you have." "Are they?" "They are to me. Then your father didn’t meet your mother too late? How soon did he meet her after--after he went away?" "Two years or so." "Oh--he was quite old, then?" "No--quite young." "But I thought you said they didn’t marry until she was forty." "Yes--that is so. He couldn’t marry her till then. They were both Catholics, you see. Eighteen years went by before they married." She made patterns on a bare piece of ground with the ferrule of her umbrella, as she listened. When he came to this point of the story, she carved the figure one and eight in the mould. "Yes," said John, looking at them--"it was a long time to wait--wasn’t it?" She nodded her head and slowly scratched the figures out. "So the secret papers were sent to your father?" she said. "Yes."