“You say that very lightly, who have no need to command yours!”

“How do you know?” she said in a low voice.

“Because you have none to curb — else you could better understand the greater ones.”

She sat with head lowered, playing with a blade of grass. After a while she looked up at me, a trifle confused.

“Until I knew you, I entertained but one living passion — to find my mother and hold her in my arms — and have of her all that I had ached for through many empty and loveless years. Since I have known you that desire has never changed. She is my living passion, and my need.”

She bent her head again and sat playing with