Tom was bitterly happy. He rushed on. “Well, tell me then: could your ideal artisan work in a factory? He worked with his soul and his hands, the artisan you might admire. It was his love that spoke as he worked; as he sat lost in the magic of his tools, his hands touched the wood with a caress from which came beauty. Machines and trade-union rules would make short shrift of him! There is no place in labor for the man who wants to love while he works. Or your farmer--your true breeder of the earth--can he plow a hired field and then truckle with parasite middlemen to sell and adulterate his fruits? What must his attitude be to the loafer who ‘owned’ his soil and to the loafer who ‘handled’ his products? And the poet-priest that loved his paper and placed the mystery of his love on it--where would you have him write his love to-day, in the Dailies or the Magazines? Where would you have him sing and act his love, in vaudeville or the ‘legit’?” “I am not up to reasoning with you, Tom. Not yet. But I shall be.” “Am I wrong?” “I am certain you are wrong. I feel these things--love and brotherhood--the many people somehow creating and creating. I am stupid, perhaps?” “You are not stupid, David.” “Then they aren’t stupid either! Any of them. They are just like me. They are not so very different from poets and inventors. I feel that. You say I am not stupid.” Tom took David’s hands. “I am the stupid one. That is why I need reason. Dear, confident boy. Please convince me!” He looked hard, almost fiercely into David’s eyes: dimly glowing they were, or rather their sentiment than themselves, in the shadow.... Tom’s hands hardened over David’s.... David grew aware of a faint unease that was sharp against the sweetness of his mood. Something imperceptible drew back in him: blanched. Tom felt the withdrawal: he dropped David’s hands--suddenly: almost he flung them from him. He stepped back and sat on the couch. His hands held his head so that they did not tremble. His voice came vibrant from the darkness. “Do not listen to me, David. Though I out-talk you a thousand times, it is you who are right. I am of an old travel-weary race that has lost its gods and that has found no others. I feel you young and fresh beside me, though in our years there is no great difference. Your childhood was not full of false beliefs. You are strong now to go in search of your own dear Mystery. I have cast off false gods. But their hands were about my heart: and my heart went with them. They are indeed discarded and dead. But my heart is dead along.”