But that was quite lost on Worth. "Why, Aunt Kate, don't you know him?

You said you'd rather see him than anybody now living! Don't you know, Aunt Kate--the man that mends the boats?"

It seemed that in proclaiming their name for him Worth was shamelessly proclaiming it all: her conversations, the intimacy to which she had admitted him, her delight in him--yes, _need_ of him. "But I thought,"

she murmured, as if in justification, "that you had a long white beard!"

And so she had--at times; then there had been other times when he had no beard at all--but just such a chin.

"I am sorry to be disappointing," the stranger replied--with his voice. With his eyes--it became clear even in that early moment that his eyes were insurgents--he said: "I don't take any stock in that long white beard!" Then, as if fearing his eyes had overstepped: "Perhaps you have visions of the future. A long white beard is a gift the years may bring me."

"You can just ask him anything you want to, Aunt Kate," Worth was brightly assuring her. "I told him you wanted to know about the under life--the under what it is of life. You needn't be 'fraid of him, Aunt Kate; you know he's the man's so sorry for you. He knows all about everything, and will tell you just everything he knows."

"Quite a sweeping commendation," Katie found herself murmuring foolishly--and in the imaginary conversations she had talked so brilliantly! But when one could not be brilliant one could always find cover under dignity. "If you will get in the boat now, Worth," she said, "we will go home."

But Worth, serene in the consciousness of having accomplished his mission, was sending Queen out after sticks and did not appear to have heard.

And suddenly, perhaps because the hot day had come to mean so much more than mere hot day, the feeling of being in a ridiculous position, together with that bristling sense of the need of a protective dignity, fell away. It became one of those rare moments when real things matter more than things which supposedly should matter. She looked at him to find him looking intently at her. He was not at all slipshod as inspector. "Why are you sorry for me?" she asked. "What is there about me to pity?"

He smiled as he surveyed her, considering it. Even people for whom smiling was difficult must have smiled at the idea of pitying Katie Jones--Katie, who looked so much as if the world existed that she might have the world.

But he looked with a different premise and saw a deeper thing. The world might exist for her enjoyment, but it eluded her understanding. And that was beginning to encroach upon the enjoyment.

She seemed to follow, and her divination stirred a singular emotion, possibly a more turbulent emotion than Katie Jones had ever known.

"It's all very well to pity me, but it's not a genuine pity--it's a jeering one. If you're going to pity me, why don't you do it sincerely instead of scoffingly? Is it my fault that I don't know anything about life? What chance did I ever have to know anything real? I wasn't educated. I was 'accomplished.' Oh, of course, if I had been a big person, a person with a real mind--if I had had anything exceptional about me--I would have stepped out. But I'm nothing but the most ordinary sort of girl. I haven't any talents. Nobody--myself included--can see any reason for my being any different from the people I'm associated with. I was brought up in the army. Army life isn't real life. It's army life. To an army man a girl is a girl, and what they mean by a girl has nothing to do with being a thinking being. Then what business has a man like you--I don't know who you are or what you're doing, but I believe you have some ideas about the real things of life--tell me, please--what business have you jeering at me?"

"I have no business jeering at you," he said quickly, simply and strongly.

But Katie had changed. He had a fancy that she would always be changing; that she was not one to rest in outlived emotions, that one mood was always but the making and enriching of another mood, moment ever flowing into moment, taking with it the heart of the moment that had gone. "You are quite right to pity me," she said, and tears surged beneath both eyes and voice. "Whether scoffingly or genuinely--you were quite right.

Feeling just enough to feel there _is_ something--but not a big enough feeling to go to that something, knowing just enough to know I'm being cheated, but without either the courage or the knowledge to do anything about it--I'm surely a pitiable and laughable object. Come, Worth," she said sharply, "we're going home."

But Worth had begun upon the construction of a raft, and was not in a home-going mood. Thus encouraged by his young friend the man who mended the boats sat down on a log.

"When did you begin to want to know about the 'underlying principles of life'?" His smile quoted it, though less mockingly than tenderly.

Katie was silent.

"Was it the day _she_ came?" he asked quietly.

She gasped. Was he--a wizard? But looking at him and seeing he looked very much more like a man than like anything else, she met him as man should be met. "The day who came? I don't know what you mean."

"The girl. Was it the day you took her in? Saved her by making her save you?"

She was too startled by that for pretense. She could only stare at him.

"I saw her before you did," he said.

She looked around apprehensively. The man who mended the boats knowing about Ann? Was the whole world losing its mind just because it had been such a hot day?

But the world looking natural enough, she turned back to him. "I don't understand. Tell me, please."

As he summoned it, he changed. She had an impression of all but the central thing falling away, leaving his spirit exposed. And a thought or a vision gripped that spirit, and he tightened under it as a muscle would tighten.

When he turned to her, taking her in, self-consciousness fell away. There was no place for it.

"You want to hear about it?" he asked.

She nodded.

"As a matter of fact, it's nothing, as facts go. Only an impression. Yet an impression that swore to facts. Perhaps you know that she came on the Island from the south bridge?"

Katie shook her head. "I know nothing, save that suddenly she was there."

That held him. "And knowing nothing, you took her in?"

She kept silence, and he looked at her, dwelling upon it. "And you," he said softly, "don't know anything about the 'underlying principles of life'? Perhaps you don't. But if we had more you we'd have no her."

She disclaimed it. "It wasn't that way--an understanding way. I didn't do it because I thought it should be done; because I wanted to--do good.

I--oh, I don't know. I did it because I wanted to do it. I did it because I couldn't help doing it."

That called to him. He seemed one for whom ideas were as doors, ever opening into new places. And he did not shut those doors, or turn from them, until he had looked as far as he could see.

"Perhaps," he saw now, "that is the way it must come. Doing it because you can't help doing it. It seems wonderful enough to work the wonder."

"Work what wonder?" Katie asked timidly.

"The wonder of saving the world."

He spoke it quietly, but passion, the passion of the visioner, leaped to his eyes at sound of what he had said.

Katie looked about at so much of the world as her vision afforded: Prosperous factories--beautiful homes--hundreds of other homes less beautiful, but comfortable looking--some other very humble homes which yet looked habitable, the beautifully kept Government island in between the two cities, seeming to stand for something stable and unifying--far away hills and a distant sky line--a steamboat going through the splendid Government bridge, automobiles and carriages and farm wagons passing over that bridge--this man who mended the boats, this young man so live that thoughts of life could change him as a sculptor can change his clay--dear little Worth who was happily building a raft, the beautiful dog lying there drawing restoration from the breath of the water--"But it doesn't look as though it needed 'saving,'" said Katie.

He shook his head. "You're looking at the framework. Her eyes that day brought word from the inside. To one knowing--"

He broke off, looking at her as though seeing her from a new angle.

He thought it aloud. "You've walked sunny paths, haven't you? You never had your soul twisted. Life never tried to wring you out of shape. And yet--oh there's quite a yet," he finished more lightly.

"But you were telling me of Ann," Katie felt she must say.

"Yes, and when I've finished telling you, you'll go back to your sunny paths, won't you? Please don't hurry me. I can tell it better if I think I'm not being hurried."

She smiled openly. "I am in no hurry." There was a sunny rim trying all the while to pierce the somber thing which drew them together. Little rays from the sunny paths would dart daringly in to the dark place from which Ann rose.

It made him wonder how far she of the sunny paths could penetrate an unlighted country. He looked at her--peered at her, fairly--trying to decide. But he could not decide. Katie baffled him on that.

"I wonder," he voiced it, "where it's going to lead you? I wonder if you're prepared to go where it may lead you? Have you thought of that?

Perhaps it's going to take you into a country too dark for you of the sunny paths. She may be called back. You know we are called back to countries where we have--established a residence. You might have to go with her to settle a claim, or break a tie, or pull some one else out that she might not be pulled back in. Then what? Perhaps you might feel you needed a guide. If so,"--he went boldly to the edge of it, then halted, and concluded with a boyishly bashful humor--"will you keep my application on file?"