of duty--and to obey!"

"A dreamer!" she laughed, "as wild a dreamer as I!"

"Why not?" he returned. "All great deeds are born of dreams! It was a
dreamer who found this America you are so loyal to! And who knows but
that I too may find my world?"

"And a fatalist, too!"

"Why, of course! Everyone is, to a greater or a less extent, though
most dare not admit it!"

"But yesterday you said--what _did_ you say, Paul, about the power of
the human will over environment and fate?"

"I don't remember. That was yesterday. I'm not the same to-day, at all.
And to-morrow I may be quite different."

"Behold the consistency of man. But Fate, Paul--what makes Fate? I have
always been taught to believe that the world is what we make it!"

"And it is true, too, that in a way we may make the world what we will,
each creating it anew for himself, after his own pattern--but after all,
Opal, that is Fate. For what we _are_, we put into these worlds of ours,
and what we are is what our ancestors have made us--and that is what I
understand by destiny."

"Ah, Paul, you have so many noble theories of life."