"If it was any one but my old friend Max I should make you a very low courtesy, and say, 'By your leave, fair sir, it is a matter of not the slightest consequence to _you_;' but I'll tell you the truth and nothing but the truth: I'm waiting for my hero, Max." "For your hero? Yes; I thought you were. And what is he like? A fairy prince like the Sleeping Beauty's?" "Don't be satirical: it doesn't suit you, Max," retorts Dorris. "Satirical? I'm in the deepest earnest. Won't you describe him? I really wish to know." "Well," began Dorris, "it is not exactly an easy thing to describe an imaginary person. He is no fairy prince, Max, but a strong and earnest man, a true and noble soul; a man who, for a good cause, would peril anything, a knight like Bayard of old: _sans peur et sans reproche_." "Do you think you will ever find this ideal?" questions Max. "No," is the prompt reply. "If there are such men, I have never met them. But I would far rather wait for the dim ideal than try the commonplace reality." "But is all the reality commonplace? Let me tell you a story, Dorris; I shall not bore you, for it is not long: When I joined the army, in the first of the war, I went to tell an old friend, and to take leave of him. He was a peculiar fellow, seemingly cold, light and satirical, half-sneering at the ardent blaze of patriotism that was burning all around him, seeming to have no intention of serving his country in her need. And yet I knew him to be the truest, noblest, tenderest, and most loyal fellow among all my friends. He looked at me with real envy, and then exclaimed: 'I wish to Heaven I could go with you, Allen!' and I answered: 'Why don't you? I have never asked before because I knew you had some worthy reason.' After some hesitation, he began: 'Because you have never doubted or questioned me I will tell you why I am here, when every feeling is against my inactivity. You will keep my secret?' Of course I promised, and he went on: 'You know I am very wealthy, Max, that my income is, for these times, extremely large; but you do not know that, by my grandfather's will, the next heir, in case of my death, is my cousin, a man who aids and abets the Tories in every possible way, a man unscrupulous and unprincipled to the last degree. I have but one life; I might lay it down in my first battle, and that property, over which I have no control, would be worse than useless to my country. It would aid her foes, and, much as she needs men, she needs money even more. So I stay here, and put my income, as fast as I get it, to the national use. You know what my income is. I'll show you my expenses'; and he showed me the merest fraction--less than I spend myself, I began to expostulate on his endurance of suspicion and blame for what might be so nobly explained, but he would only say, 'Oh, it would sound quixotic and sentimental; and, after all, what does it matter? I know _myself_ that I am serving my country to the best of my poor ability.' But at