“Without his dreams, man would be an animal.”

“And you, then, wait for this woman?  In seriousness you wait, and believe that out of nothing she will come to you?”

Blake turned away and walked slowly to the window, the sadness, the aloofness still visible in his face like the glow from a shrouded light.

“That’s the hardship of it, boy—­the faith that it wants and the patience that it wants!  Sometimes it takes the heart out of a man!  There’re days when I feel like a derelict; when I say to myself, ’Here I am, thirty-eight years old, unanchored, unharbored.’  Oh, I know I’m young as the world counts age!  I know that plenty of men and women like me, and that I pass the time of day to plenty as I go along!  But all the same, if I died to-morrow there isn’t one would break a heart over me.  Not a solitary one.”

“Do not say that!”

“It’s true, all the same!  Sometimes I say to myself, ’Wha a fool you are, Ned Blake!  The Almighty gives reality to some and dreams to some, and who knows but your lot is to go down to your grave hugging empty hopes, like your forefathers before you!’ It’s terrible, sometimes, the way the heart goes out of a man!”

“Ned!  Ned!  Do not say that!” Max’s voice was strangely troubled, strangely unlike itself, so unlike and troubled that it wakened Blake to self-consciousness.

“I’m talking rank nonsense!  I’m a fool!”

“You are not!” The boy ran across to him impulsively; then paused, mute and shy.

“What is it, boy?”

“Only that what you say is not the truth.  If you were to die, there is one person who would—­”

Blake’s face softened.  He was surprised and touched.

“What?  You’d care?”

Max nodded.

“Thank you, boy!  Thank you for that!”

They stood silent for a moment, looking through the uncurtained window at the February breezes ruffling the holly bushes in the plantation, each unusually aware of the other’s presence, each unusually self-conscious.

“But if it comes to pass—­your miracle—­you will forget me?  You will no longer have need of me, is that not so?”

Max spoke softly, a disproportionate seriousness darkening his eyes, causing his voice to quiver.

Blake turned to answer in the same vein, but something checked him—­some embarrassment, some inexplicable doubt of himself.

“Boy,” he said, sharply, “we’re running into deep waters.  Don’t you think we ought to steer for shore?  I came to smoke, you know, and watch you at your work.”

The words acted as a charm.  Max threw up his head and gave a little laugh, a trifle high, a shade hysterical.

“But, of course!  But, of course!  I believe I, too, was falling into a dream; and the dream comes after, the work first, is it not so?  The work first; the work always first.  Place another log upon the fire and begin to smoke, and I swear to you that before the day is finished I will make you proud of me.  I swear it to you!”