she seemed to glint an impression of steel--thin, jewel-like steel.
She seemed strength in its most delicate terms and fabrics. He fondled
the impression of her as of silverspun wire, of fine leather, of
twisted hair-sennit from the heads of maidens such as the Marquesans
make, of carven pearl-shell for the lure of the bonita, and of barbed
ivory at the heads of sea-spears such as the Eskimos throw.

"All right, Aaron," they heard Dick Forrest's voice rising, in a lull,
from the other end of the table. "Here's something from Phillips
Brooks for you to chew on. Brooks said that no man 'has come to true
greatness who has not felt in some degree that his life belongs to his
race, and that what God gives him, he gives him for mankind.'"

"So at last you believe in God?" the man, addressed Aaron, genially
sneered back. He was a slender, long-faced olive-brunette, with
brilliant black eyes and the blackest of long black beards.

"I'm hanged if I know," Dick answered. "Anyway, I quoted only
figuratively. Call it morality, call it good, call it evolution."

"A man doesn't have to be intellectually correct in order to be
great," intruded a quiet, long-faced Irishman, whose sleeves were
threadbare and frayed. "And by the same token many men who are most
correct in sizing up the universe have been least great."

"True for you, Terrence," Dick applauded.

"It's a matter of definition," languidly spoke up an unmistakable
Hindoo, crumbling his bread with exquisitely slender and small-boned
fingers. "What shall we mean as _great?"_