"Yes; I've heard you talk such rubbish before," Gordon replied, dreamily. "Mark, I'm sorry for the poverty of your life. The man who has not loved is not a man. He is a monstrosity out of touch of sympathy with the race. You cannot understand me when I tell you that our love is so pure, so wonderful, so perfect, it is its own defense." "Indeed! Which love? For Ruth or Kate? Frank, I marvel at the childlike simplicity of your folly and your mental antics to justify it. It's enough to make that cat laugh that broke up your sermon." "We are going to bear in our union and life the flaming standard of a revolution that will yet redeem society." "I admire your ingenuity. Just a plain rooster-fighting sinner like me would never have thought of making his sin a holy religion. You haven't studied theology for nothing. I'll bet you could argue the devil or the Archangel Michael to a standstill on any proposition you'd set your heart on." The preacher smiled. "I never saw my course with greater clearness." "Yes; but a nail in the pilot-house will draw the needle and drive the mightiest ocean greyhound on the rocks with the captain at the wheel dead sure of his course." "Mark, it's utterly useless to talk. You and I are miles apart at our starting-point and we get farther with every step. You look at it from the vulgar point of view of the world. What I am doing is a great act of the soul, a breaking of bonds and chains. You see only the body. I am going to lead a crusade that shall so purify and exalt the body that it shall become one with the soul. The freedom of man can only be attained in unfettered fellowship, and this beautiful woman will be with me a comrade priestess to teach the world this sublime truth." "And will you be the only priest with her in the Temple of Humanity?" asked the banker, quizzically. Gordon laughed with insolent assurance. "In her eyes, yes." "But other men have eyes." "Their gaze will not disturb the serenity of our love, because it will be built on oneness of ideal, hope, faith, taste and work." "And yet dark hair loves the blond, and blue eyes hunger for the brown. It's an old trick Nature has played before, Frank." "Well, we are going to show you a miracle, and you are coming with us by and by and be a deacon in this Church of the Son of Man." Overman drew his straight bushy brow down over his one eye until it looked like the gleam of a lighthouse through the woods, turned his head sideways, peered at his friend and growled: "Well, you are a fool!" "I have faith that will remove mountains." "You'll need it. I've been waiting for a church in New York broad enough to invite the devil to join. I'll come when it's ready." "Good. We'll give you a welcome." Overman grunted, and gazed into the fire with his single eye, frowning and twisting the muscles of his mouth into a sneer. CHAPTER XVI THE PARTING