The City of Fire | Page 8

but it was dangerous business, and we ought to be warned. And
Graham, _I'm afraid Mark heard it!_ He was just coming up on the
porch as she finished and I'm almost sure he heard it!"
The eyes of the minister gave a startled flicker and then grew
comprehending. "I wondered why he gave up college after he had
worked so hard to get in."
"But Graham! Surely, if he had heard he would have wanted to show
her that she was wrong."
"No, Mary. He is not built that way. It's his one big fault. Always to be
what he thinks people have labeled him, or to seem to be. To be that in
defiance, knowing in his heart he really isn't that at all. It's a curious
psychological study. It makes me think of nothing else but when the
Prince of the Power of the Air wanted to be God. Mark wants to be a
young God. When he finds he's not taken that way he makes himself
look like the devil in defiance. Don't you remember, Mary, how when
Bob Bliss broke that memorial window in the church and said it was
Mark did it, how Mark stood looking, defiantly from one to another of
us to see if we would believe it, and when he found the elders were all
against him and had begun to get ready for punishment, he lifted his
fine young shoulders, and folded his arms, and just bowed in
acquiescence, as if to say yes, he had done it? Don't you remember,
Mary? He nearly broke my heart that day, the hurt look in his eyes; the
game, mistaken, little devil! He was only ten, and yet for four long
months he bore the blame in the eyes of the whole village for breaking
that window, till Bob told the truth and cleared him. Not because he
wanted to save Bob Bliss, for everybody knew he was a little scamp,
and needed punishment, but because he was _hurt_--hurt way down
into the soul of him to think anybody had thought he would want to
break the window we had all worked so hard to buy. And he actually
broke three cellar windows in that vacant store by the post office, yes,
and paid for them, just to keep up his character and give us some reason
for our belief against him."
The wife with a cloud of anxiety in her eyes, and disapproval in her

voice, answered slowly:
"That's a bad trait, Graham. I can't understand it. It is something wrong
in his nature."
"Yes, Mary, it is sin, original sin, but it comes at him from a different
direction from most of us, that's all. It comes through sensitiveness. It is
his reaction to a deep and mortal hurt. Some men would be stimulated
to finer action by criticism, he is stimulated to defy, and he does not
know that he is trying to defy God and all the laws of the universe.
Some day he will find it out, and know that only through humility can
he make good."
"But he is letting all his opportunities go by."
"I'm not so sure. You can't tell what he may be doing out in the world
where he is gone."
"But they say he is very wild."
"They were always saying things about him when he was here, and
most of them were not true. You and I knew him, Mary. Was there ever
a finer young soul on earth than he with his clear true eyes, his eager
tender heart, his brave fearlessness and strength. I can not think he has
sold his soul to sin--not yet. It may be. It may be that only in the Far
Country will he realize it is God he wants and be ready to say, 'I have
sinned' and 'I will arise.'"
"But Graham, I should think that just because you believe in him you
could talk to him."
"No, Mary. I can't probe into the depths of that sensitive soul and dig
out his confidence. He would never give it that way. It is a matter
between himself and God."
"But Lynn--"
"Lynn has God too, my dear. We must not forget that. Life is not all for
this world, either. Thank God Lynn believes that!"
The mother sighed with troubled eyes, and rose. The purring of the
engine was heard. Lynn would be coming in. They watched the young
man swing his car out into the road and glide away like a comet with a
wild sophisticated snort of his engine that sent him so far away in a
flash. They watched the girl standing where he had left her, a stricken
look upon her face, and saw her turn slowly back