"Victor must have the best," said Jane.

She and Selma looked at each other, and Selma understood.

"He HAS the best," said she, gentle with an effort.

"Dr. Alban is the best," said Jane.

"The most fashionable," said Selma. "Not the best." With restraint, "Go home. Let us alone. This is no place for you—for Martin Hastings' daughter."

Jane, looking and acting like one in a trance, tried to push past her and reenter the room. Selma stood firm. She said: "If you do not go I shall have these men take you to your carriage. You do not know what you are doing."

Jane looked at her. "I love him," she said.

"So do we," said Selma. "And he belongs to US. You must go. Come!" She seized her by the arm, and beckoning one of the waiting Leaguers to her assistance she pushed her quietly but relentlessly along the hall, out of the house, out of the yard and into the carriage. Then she closed the door, while Jane sank back against the cushions.

"Yes, he belongs to you," said Jane; "but I love him. Oh, Selma!"

Selma suddenly burst into tears. "Go, Jane, dear. You MUST go," she cried.

"At least I'll wait here until—until they are sure," said Jane. "You can't refuse me that, Selma."

"But they are sure," said Selma. "You must go with your friends. Here they come."

When Ellen Clearwater and Joe Wetherbe—the second son of the chief owner of the First National—reached the curb, Selma said to Wetherbe:

"Please stand aside. I've something to say to this lady."

When Wetherbe had withdrawn, she said: "Miss Hastings is—not quite herself. You had better take her home alone."

Jane leaned from the open carriage window. "Ellen," said she, "I am going to stay here until Victor recovers consciousness, and I am SURE."

"He has just come around," said Ellen. "He is certain to get well. His mind is clear."

"I must see for myself," cried Jane.

Selma was preventing her leaving the carriage when Ellen quietly interfered with a significant look for Selma. "Jane," she said, "you can't go in. The doctor has just put every one out but his assistant and a nurse that has come."

Jane hesitated, drew back into the corner of the carriage. "Tell Mr. Wetherbe to go his own way," said Ellen aside to Selma, and she got in beside Jane.

"To Mr. Hastings'," said Selma to the driver. The carriage drove away.

She gave Ellen's message to Wetherbe and returned to the house. Victor was still unconscious; he did not come to himself until toward daylight. And then it was clear to them all that Dr. Charlton's encouraging diagnosis was correct.

Public opinion in Remsen City was publicly articulate by means of three daily newspapers—the Pioneer, the Star, and the Free Press. The Star and the Free Press were owned by the same group of capitalists who controlled the gas company and the water works. The Pioneer was owned by the traction interests. Both groups of capitalists were jointly interested in the railways, the banks and in the principal factories. The Pioneer was Republican, was regarded as the organ of Dick Kelly. The Star was Democratic, spoke less cordially of Kelly and always called for House, Mr. House, or Joseph House, Esquire. The Free Press posed as independent with Democratic leanings. It indulged in admirable essays against corruption, gang rule and bossism. But it was never specific and during campaigns was meek and mild. For nearly a dozen years there had not been a word of truth upon any subject important to the people of Remsen City in the columns of any of the three. During wars between rival groups of capitalists a half-truth was now and then timidly uttered, but never a word of "loose talk," of "anarchy," of anything but the entirely "safe, sane and conservative."

Thus, any one who might have witnessed the scenes in Market Square on Thursday evening would have been not a little astonished to read the accounts presented the next day by the three newspapers. According to all three the Workingmen's League, long a menace to the public peace, had at last brought upon Remsen City the shame of a riot in which two men, a woman and four children had lost their lives and more than a hundred, "including the notorious Victor Dorn," had been injured. And after the riot the part of the mob that was hostile to "the Dorn gang" had swept down upon the office of the New Day, had wrecked it, and had set fire to the building, with the result that five houses were burned before the flames could be put out. The Free Press published, as a mere rumor, that the immediate cause of the outbreak had been an impending "scurrilous attack" in the New Day upon one of the political gangs of the slums and its leader. The Associated Press, sending forth an account of the riot to the entire country, represented it as a fight between rival gangs of workmen precipitated by the insults and menaces of a "socialistic party led by a young operator named Dorn." Dorn's faction had aroused in the mass of the workingmen a fear that this spread of "socialistic and anarchistic ideas" would cause a general shut down of factories and a flight of the capital that was "giving employment to labor."

A version of the causes and the events, somewhat nearer the truth, was talked about Remsen City. But all the respectable classes were well content with what their newspapers printed. And, while some broad-minded respectabilities spoke of the affair as an outrage, none of them was disposed to think that any real wrong had been done. Victor Dorn and his crowd of revolutionists had got, after all, only their deserts.

After forty-eight hours of careful study of public opinion, Dick Kelly decided that Remsen City was taking the dose as he had anticipated. He felt emboldened to proceed to his final move in the campaign against "anarchy" in his beloved city. On the second morning after the riot, all three newspapers published double-headed editorials calling upon the authorities to safeguard the community against another such degrading and dangerous upheaval. "It is time that the distinction between liberty and license be sharply drawn." After editorials in this vein had been repeated for several days, after sundry bodies of eminently respectable citizens—the Merchants' Association, the Taxpayers' League, the Chamber of Commerce—had passed indignant and appealing resolutions, after two priests, a clergyman and four preachers had sermonized against "the leniency of constituted authority with criminal anarchy," Mr. Kelly had the City Attorney go before Judge Lansing and ask for an injunction.

Judge Lansing promptly granted the injunction. The New Day was enjoined from appearing. The Workingmen's League was enjoined from holding meetings.

Then the County Prosecutor, also a henchman of Kelly's, secured from the Grand Jury—composed of farmers, merchants and owners of factories—indictments against Thomas Colman and Victor Dorn for inciting a riot.

Meanwhile Victor Dorn was rapidly recovering. With rare restraint young Dr. Charlton did not fuss and fret and meddle, did not hamper nature with his blundering efforts to assist, did not stuff "nourishment" into his patient to decay and to produce poisonous blood. He let the young man's superb vitality work the inevitable and speedy cure. Thus, wounds and shocks, that have often been mistreated by doctors into mortal, passed so quickly that only Selma Gordon and the doctor himself realized how grave Victor's case had been. The day he was indicted—just a week from the riot—he was sitting up and was talking freely.

"Won't it set him back if I tell him all that has occurred?" said Selma.

"Talk to him as you would to me," replied Charlton. "He is a sensible man. I've already told him pretty much everything. It has kept him from fretting, to be able to lie there quietly and make his plans."

Had you looked in upon Victor and Selma, in Colman's little transformed parlor, you would rather have thought Selma the invalid. The man in the bed was pale and thin of face, but his eyes had the expression of health and of hope. Selma had great circles under her eyes and her expression was despair struggling to conceal itself. Those indictments, those injunctions—how powerful the enemy were! How could such an enemy, aroused new and inflexibly resolved, be combatted?—especially when one had no money, no way of reaching the people, no chance to organize.

"Dr. Charlton has told you?" said Selma.

"Day before yesterday," replied Victor. "Why do you look so down-in-the-mouth, Selma?"

"It isn't easy to be cheerful, with you ill and the paper destroyed," replied she.

"But I'm not ill, and the paper isn't destroyed," said Victor. "Never were either I or it doing such good work as now." His eyes were dancing. "What more could one ask than to have such stupid enemies as we've got?"

Selma did not lift her eyes. To her those enemies seemed anything but stupid. Had they not ruined the League?

"I see you don't understand," pursued Victor. "No matter. You'll wear a very different face two weeks from now."

"But," said Selma, "exactly what you said you were afraid of has occurred. And now you say you're glad of it."

"I told you I was afraid Dick Kelly would make the one move that could destroy us."

"But he has!" cried Selma.

Victor smiled. "No, indeed!" replied he.

"What worse could he have done?"

"I'll not tell you," said Victor. "I'd not venture to say aloud such a dangerous thing as what I'd have done if I had been in his place. Instead of doing that, he made us. We shall win this fall's election."

Selma lifted her head with a sudden gesture of hope. She had unbounded confidence in Victor Dorn, and his tone was the tone of absolute confidence.

"I had calculated on winning in five years. I had left the brutal stupidity of our friend Kelly out of account."

"Then you see how you can hold meetings and start up the paper?"

"I don't want to do either," said Victor. "I want those injunctions to stand. Those fools have done at a stroke what we couldn't have done in years. They have united the working class. They—the few—have forbidden us, the many, to unite or to speak. If those injunctions hold for a month, nothing could stop our winning this fall.... I can't understand how Dick Kelly could be so stupid. Five years ago these moves of his would have been bad for us—yes, even three years ago. But we've got too strong—and he doesn't realize! Selma, when you want to win, always pray that your opponent will underestimate you."

"I still don't understand," said Selma. "None of us does. You must explain to me, so that I'll know what to do."

"Do nothing," said Victor. "I shall be out a week from to-day. I shall not go into the streets until I not only am well but look well."

"They arrested Tom Colman to-day," said Selma. "But they put the case over until you'd be able to plead at the same time."

"That's right," said Victor. "They are playing into our hands!" And he laughed as heartily as his bandages would permit.

"Oh, I don't understand—I don't understand at all!" cried Selma. "Maybe you are all wrong about it."

"I was never more certain in my life," replied Victor. "Stop worrying about it, my dear." And he patted her hands gently as they lay folded in her lap. "I want you—all our people—to go round looking sad these next few days. I want Dick Kelly to feel that he is on the right track."

There came a knock at the door, and Mrs. Colman entered. She had been a school teacher, and of all the occupations there is no other that leaves such plain, such indelible traces upon manner, mind and soul. Said she:

"Miss Jane Hastings is outside in her carriage—and wants to know if she can see you."

Selma frowned. Victor said with alacrity: "Certainly. Bring her in, Mrs. Colman."

Selma rose. "Wait until I can get out of the way," she cried.

"Sit down, and sit still," commanded Victor.

Selma continued to move toward the door. "No—I don't wish to see her," she said.

Victor chagrined her by acquiescing without another word. "You'll look in after supper?" he asked.

"If you want me," said the girl.

"Come back here," said Victor. "Wait, Mrs. Colman." When Selma was standing by the bed he took her hand. "Selma," he said, "don't let these things upset you. Believe me, I'm right. Can't you trust me?"

Selma had the look of a wild creature detained against its will. "I'm not worried about the party—and the paper," she burst out. "I'm worried about you."

"But I'm all right. Can't you see I'm almost well?"

Selma drew her hand away. "I'll be back about half-past seven," she said, and bolted from the room.

Victor's good-natured, merry smile followed her to the door. When the sound of her retreat by way of the rear of the house was dying away he said to Mrs. Colman:

"Now—bring in the young lady. And please warn her that she must stay at most only half an hour by that clock over there on the mantel."

Every day Jane had been coming to inquire, had been bringing or sending flowers and fruit—which, by Dr. Charlton's orders, were not supposed to enter the invalid's presence. Latterly she had been asking to see Victor; she was surprised when Mrs. Colman returned with leave for her to enter. Said Mrs. Colman:

"He's alone. Miss Gordon has just gone. You will see a clock on the mantel in his room. You must not stay longer than half an hour."

"I shall be very careful what I say," said Jane.

"Oh, you needn't bother," said the ex-school teacher. "Dr. Charlton doesn't believe in sick-room atmosphere. You must treat Mr. Dorn exactly as you would a well person. If you're going to take on, or put on, you'd better not go in at all."

"I'll do my best," said Jane, rather haughtily, for she did not like Mrs. Colman's simple and direct manner. She was used to being treated with deference, especially by the women of Mrs. Colman's class; and while she disapproved of deference in theory, in practice she craved it, and expected it, and was irritated if she did not get it. But, as she realized how unattractive this weakness was, she usually took perhaps more pains than does the average person to conceal it. That day her nerves were too tense for petty precautions. However, Mrs. Colman was too busy inspecting the details of Miss Hastings' toilet to note Miss Hastings' manners.

Jane's nervousness vanished the instant she was in the doorway of the parlor with Victor Dorn looking at her in that splendidly simple and natural way of his. "So glad to see you," he said. "What a delightful perfume you bring with you. I've noticed it before. I know it isn't flowers, but it smells like flowers. With most perfumes you can smell through the perfume to something that's the very reverse of sweet."

They were shaking hands. She said: "That nice woman who let me in cautioned me not to put on a sick-room manner or indulge in sick-room talk. It was quite unnecessary. You're looking fine."

"Ain't I, though?" exclaimed Victor. "I've never been so comfortable. Just weak enough to like being waited on. You were very good to me the night that stone knocked me over. I want to thank you, but I don't know how. And the flowers, and the fruit—You have been so kind."

"I could do very little," said Jane, blushing and faltering. "And I wanted to do—everything." Suddenly all energy, "Oh, Mr. Dorn, I heard and saw it all. It was—INFAMOUS! And the lying newspapers—and all the people I meet socially. They keep me in a constant rage."

Victor was smiling gayly. "The fortunes of war," said he. "I expect nothing else. If they fought fair they couldn't fight at all. We, on this side of the struggle, can afford to be generous and tolerant. They are fighting the losing battle; they're trying to hold on to the past, and of course it's slipping from them inch by inch. But we—we are in step with the march of events."

When she was with him Jane felt that his cause was hers, also—was the only cause. "When do you begin publishing your paper again?" she asked. "As soon as you are sitting up?"

"Not for a month or so," replied he. "Not until after the election."

"Oh, I forgot about that injunction. You think that as soon as Davy Hull's crowd is in they will let you begin again?"

He hesitated. "Not exactly that," he said. "But after the election there will be a change."

Her eyes flashed. "And they have indicted you! I heard the newsboys crying it and stopped and bought a paper. But I shall do something about that. I am going straight from here to father. Ellen Clearwater and I and Joe Wetherbe SAW. And Ellen and I will testify if it's necessary—and will make Joe tell the truth. Do you know, he actually had the impudence to try to persuade Ellen and me the next day that we saw what the papers reported?"

"I believe it," said Victor. "So I believe that Joe convinced himself."

"You are too charitable," replied Jane. "He's afraid of his father."

"Miss Hastings," said Victor, "you suggested a moment ago that you would influence your father to interfere in this matter of the indictment."

"I'll promise you now that he will have it stopped," said Jane.

"You want to help the cause, don't you?"

Jane's eyes shifted, a little color came into her cheeks. "The cause—and you," she said.

"Very well," said Victor. "Then you will not interfere. And if your father talks of helping me you will discourage him all you can."

"You are saying that out of consideration for me. You're afraid I will quarrel with my father."

"I hadn't thought of that," said Victor. "I can't tell you what I have in mind. But I'll have to say this much—that if you did anything to hinder those fellows from carrying out their plans against me and against the League to the uttermost you'd be doing harm instead of good."

"But they may send you to jail.... No, I forgot. You can give bail."

Victor's eyes had a quizzical expression. "Yes, I could give bail. But even if I don't give bail, Miss Hastings—even if I am sent to jail—Colman and I—still you must not interfere. You promise me?"

Jane hesitated. "I can't promise," she finally said.

"You must," said Victor. "You'll make a mess of my plans, if you don't."

"You mean that?"

"I mean that. Your intentions are good. But you would only do mischief—serious mischief."

They looked at each other. Said Jane: "I promise—on one condition."

"Yes?"

"That if you should change your mind and should want my help, you'd promptly and freely ask for it."

"I agree to that," said Victor. "Now, let's get it clearly in mind. No matter what is done about me or the League, you promise not to interfere in any way, unless I ask you to."

Again Jane hesitated. "No matter what they do?" she pleaded.

"No matter what they do," insisted he.

Something in his expression gave her a great thrill of confidence in him, of enthusiasm. "I promise," she said. "You know best."

"Indeed I do," said he. "Thank you."

A moment's silence, then she exclaimed: "That was why you let me in to-day—because you wanted to get that promise from me."

"That was one of the reasons," confessed he. "In fact, it was the chief reason." He smiled at her. "There's nothing I'm so afraid of as of enthusiasm. I'm going to be still more cautious and exact another promise from you. You must not tell any one that you have promised not to interfere."

"I can easily promise that," said Jane.

"Be careful," warned Victor. "A promise easily made is a promise easily forgotten."

"I begin to understand," said Jane. "You want them to attack you as savagely as possible. And you don't want them to get the slightest hint of your plan."

"A good guess," admitted Victor. He looked at her gravely. "Circumstances have let you farther into my confidence than any one else is. I hope you will not abuse it."

"You can rely upon me," said Jane. "I want your friendship and your respect as I never wanted anything in my life before. I'm not afraid to say these things to you, for I know I'll not be misunderstood."

Victor's smile thrilled her again. "You were born one of us," he said. "I felt it the first time we talked together."

"Yes. I do want to be somebody," replied the girl. "I can't content myself in a life of silly routine ... can't do things that have no purpose, no result. And if it wasn't for my father I'd come out openly for the things I believe in. But I've got to think of him. It may be a weakness, but I couldn't overcome it. As long as my father lives I'll do nothing that would grieve him. Do you despise me for that?"

"I don't despise anybody for anything," said Victor. "In your place I should put my father first." He laughed. "In your place I'd probably be a Davy Hull or worse. I try never to forget that I owe everything to the circumstances in which I was born and brought up. I've simply got the ideas of my class, and it's an accident that I am of the class to which the future belongs—the working class that will possess the earth as soon as it has intelligence enough to enter into its kingdom."

"But," pursued Jane, returning to herself, "I don't intend to be altogether useless. I can do something and he—my father, I mean—needn't know. Do you think that is dreadful?"

"I don't like it," said Victor. But he said it in such a way that she did not feel rebuked or even judged.

"Nor do I," said she. "I'd rather lead the life I wish to lead—say the things I believe—do the things I believe in—all openly. But I can't. And all I can do is to spend the income of my money my mother left me—spend it as I please." With a quick embarrassed gesture she took an envelope from a small bag in which she was carrying it. "There's some of it," she said. "I want to give that to your campaign fund. You are free to use it in any way you please—any way, for everything you are and do is your cause."

Victor was lying motionless, his eyes closed.

"Don't refuse," she begged. "You've no right to refuse."

A long silence, she watching him uneasily. At last he said, "No—I've no right to refuse. If I did, it would be from a personal motive. You understand that when you give the League this money you are doing what your father would regard as an act of personal treachery to him?"

"You don't think so, do you?" cried she.

"Yes, I do," said he deliberately.

Her face became deathly pale, then crimson. She thrust the envelope into the bag, closed it hastily. "Then I can't give it," she murmured. "Oh—but you are hard!"

"If you broke with your father and came with us—and it killed him, as it probably would," Victor Dorn went on, "I should respect you—should regard you as a wonderful, terrible woman. I should envy you having a heart strong enough to do a thing so supremely right and so supremely relentless. And I should be glad you were not of my blood—should think you hardly human. Yet that is what you ought to do."

"I am not up to it," said Jane.

"Then you mustn't do the other," said Victor. "We need the money. I am false to the cause in urging you not to give it. But—I'm human."

He was looking away, an expression in his eyes and about his mouth that made him handsomer than she would have believed a man could be. She was looking at him longingly, her beautiful eyes swimming. Her lips were saying inaudibly, "I love you—I love you."

"What did you say?" he asked, his thoughts returning from their far journey.

"My time is up," she exclaimed, rising.

"There are better ways of helping than money," said he, taking her hand. "And already you've helped in those ways."

"May I come again?"

"Whenever you like. But—what would your father say?"

"Then you don't want me to come again?"

"It's best not," said he. "I wish fate had thrown us on the same side. But it has put us in opposite camps—and we owe it to ourselves to submit."

Their hands were still clasped. "You are content to have it so?" she said sadly.

"No, I'm not," cried he, dropping her hand. "But we are helpless."

"We can always hope," said she softly.

On impulse she laid her hand in light caress upon his brow, then swiftly departed. As she stood in Mrs. Colman's flowery little front yard and looked dazedly about, it seemed to her that she had been away from the world—away from herself—and was reluctantly but inevitably returning.



VI

As Jane drove into the grounds of the house on the hilltop she saw her father and David Hull in an obviously intimate and agitated conversation on the front veranda. She made all haste to join them; nor was she deterred by the reception she got—the reception given to the unwelcome interrupter. Said she:

"You are talking about those indictments, aren't you? Everyone else is. There's a group on every corner down town, and people are calling their views to each other from windows across the streets."

Davy glanced triumphantly at her father. "I told you so," said he.

Old Hastings was rubbing his hand over his large, bony, wizened face in the manner that indicates extreme perplexity.

Davy turned to Jane. "I've been trying to show your father what a stupid, dangerous thing Dick Kelly has done. I want him to help me undo it. It MUST be undone or Victor Dorn will sweep the town on election day."

Jane's heart was beating wildly. She continued to say carelessly, "You think so?"

"Davy's got a bad attack of big red eye to-day," said her father. "It's a habit young men have."

"I'm right, Mr. Hastings," cried Hull. "And, furthermore, you know I'm right, Jane; you saw that riot the other night. Joe Wetherbe told me so. You said that it was an absolutely unprovoked assault of the gangs of Kelly and House. Everyone in town knows it was. The middle and the upper class people are pretending to believe what the papers printed—what they'd like to believe. But they KNOW better. The working people are apparently silent. They usually are apparently silent. But they know the truth—they are talking it among themselves. And these indictments will make Victor Dorn a hero."

"What of it? What of it?" said Hastings impatiently. "The working people don't count."

"Not as long as we can keep them divided," retorted Davy. "But if they unite——"

And he went on to explain what he had in mind. He gave them an analysis of Remsen City. About fifty thousand inhabitants, of whom about ten thousand were voters. These voters were divided into three classes—upper class, with not more than three or four hundred votes, and therefore politically of no importance AT THE POLLS, though overwhelmingly the most influential in any other way; the middle class, the big and little merchants, the lawyers and doctors, the agents and firemen and so on, mustering in all about two thousand votes; finally, the working class with no less than eight thousand votes out of a total of ten thousand.

"By bribery and cajolery and browbeating and appeal to religious prejudice and to fear of losing jobs—by all sorts of chicane," said Davy, "about seven of these eight thousand votes are kept divided between the Republican or Kelly party and the Democratic or House party. The other ten or twelve hundred belong to Victor Dorn's League. Now, the seven thousand workingmen voters who follow Kelly and House like Victor Dorn, like his ideas, are with him at heart. But they are afraid of him. They don't trust each other. Workingmen despise the workingman as an ignorant fool."

"So he is," said Hastings.

"So he is," agreed Davy. "But Victor Dorn has about got the workingmen in this town persuaded that they'd fare better with Dorn and the League as their leaders than with Kelly and House as their leaders. And if Kelly goes on to persecute Victor Dorn, the workingmen will be frightened for their rights to free speech and free assembly. And they'll unite. I appeal to you, Jane—isn't that common sense?"

"I don't know anything about politics," said Jane, looking bored. "You must go in and lie down before dinner, father. You look tired."

Hastings got ready to rise.

"Just a minute, Mr. Hastings," pleaded Hull. "This must be settled now—at once. I must be in a position not only to denounce this thing, but also to stop it. Not to-morrow, but to-day ... so that the morning papers will have the news."

Jane's thoughts were flying—but in circles. Everybody habitually judges everybody else as both more and less acute than he really is. Jane had great respect for Davy as a man of college education. But because he had no sense of humor and because he abounded in lengthy platitudes she had thought poorly indeed of his abilities. She had been realizing her mistake in these last few minutes. The man who had made that analysis of politics—an analysis which suddenly enlighted her as to what political power meant and how it was wielded everywhere on earth as well as in Remsen City—the man was no mere dreamer and theorist. He had seen the point no less clearly than had Victor Dorn. But what concerned her, what set her to fluttering, was that he was about to checkmate Victor Dorn. What should she say and do to help Victor?

She must get her father away. She took him gently by the arm, kissed the top of his head. "Come on, father," she cried. "I'll let Davy work his excitement off on me. You must take care of your health."

But Hastings resisted. "Wait a minute, Jenny," said he. "I must think."

"You can think lying down," insisted his daughter Davy was about to interpose again, but she frowned him into silence.

"There's something in what Davy says," persisted her father. "If that there Victor Dorn should carry the election, there'd be no living in the same town with him. It'd put him away up out of reach."

Jane abruptly released her father's arm. She had not thought of that—of how much more difficult Victor would be if he won now. She wanted him to win ultimately—yes, she was sure she did. But—now? Wouldn't that put him beyond her reach—beyond need of her?

She said: "Please come, father!" But it was perfunctory loyalty to Victor. Her father settled back; Davy Hull began afresh, pressing home his point, making his contention so clear that even Martin Hastings' prejudice could not blind him to the truth. And Jane sat on the arm of a big veranda chair and listened and made no further effort to interfere.

"I don't agree with you, Hull," said the old man at last. "Victor Dorn's run up agin the law at last, and he ought to get the consequences good and hard. But——"

"Mr. Hastings," interrupted Davy eagerly—too fond of talking to realize that the old man was agreeing with him, "Your daughter saw——"

"Fiddle-fiddle," cried the old man. "Don't bring sentimental women into this, Davy. As I was saying, Victor ought to be punished for the way he's been stirring up idle, lazy, ignorant people against the men that runs the community and gives 'em jobs and food for their children. But maybe it ain't wise to give him his deserts—just now. Anyhow, while you've been talking away like a sewing machine I've been thinking. I don't see as how it can do any serious HARM to stop them there indictments."

"That's it, Mr. Hastings," cried Hull. "Even if I do exaggerate, as you seem to think, still where's the harm in doing it?"

"It looks as if the respectable people were afraid of the lower classes," said Hastings doubtfully. "And that's always bad."

"But it won't look that way," replied Davy, "if my plan is followed."

"And what might be your plan?" inquired Hastings.

"I'm to be the reform candidate for Mayor. Your son-in-law, Hugo, is to be the reform candidate for judge. The way to handle this is for me to come out in a strong statement denouncing the indictments, and the injunction against the League and the New Day, too. And I'll announce that Hugo Galland is trying to join in the fight against them and that he is indignant and as determined as I am. Then early to-morrow morning we can go before Judge Lansing and can present arguments, and he will denounce the other side for misleading him as to the facts, and will quash the indictments and vacate the injunctions."

Hastings nodded reflectively. "Pretty good," said he with a sly grin. "And Davy Hull and my son-in-law will be popular heroes."

Davy reddened. "Of course. I want to get all the advantage I can for our party," said he. "I don't represent myself. I represent the party."

Martin grinned more broadly. He who had been representing "honest taxpayers" and "innocent owners" of corrupt stock and bonds all his life understood perfectly. "It's hardly human to be as unselfish as you and I are, Davy," said he. "Well, I'll go in and do a little telephoning. You go ahead and draw up your statement and get it to the papers—and see Hugo." He rose, stood leaning on his cane, all bent and shrivelled and dry. "I reckon Judge Lansing'll be expecting you to-morrow morning." He turned to enter the house, halted, crooked his head round for a piercing look at young Hull. "Don't go talking round among your friends about what you're going to do," said he sharply. "Don't let NOBODY know until it's done."

"Certainly, sir," said Davy.

"I could see you hurrying down to that there University Club to sit there and tell it all to those smarties that are always blowing about what they're going to do. You'll be right smart of a man some day, Davy, if you'll learn to keep your mouth shut."

Davy looked abashed. He did not know which of his many indiscretions of self-glorifying talkativeness Mr. Hastings had immediately in mind. But he could recall several, any one of which was justification for the rather savage rebuke—the more humiliating that Jane was listening. He glanced covertly at her.

Perhaps she had not heard; she was gazing into the distance with a strange expression upon her beautiful face, an expression that fastened his attention, absorbed though he was in his project for his own ambitions. As her father disappeared, he said:

"What are you thinking about, Jane?"

Jane startled guiltily. "I? Oh—I don't know—a lot of things."

"Your look suggested that you were having a—a severe attack of conscience," said he, laughingly. He was in soaring good humor now, for he saw his way clear to election.

"I was," said Jane, suddenly stern. A pause, then she laughed—rather hollowly. "Davy, I guess I'm almost as big a fraud as you are. What fakirs we human beings are?—always posing as doing for others and always doing for our selfish selves."

Davy's face took on its finest expression. "Do you think it's altogether selfishness for me to fight for Victor Dorn and give him a chance to get out his paper again—when he has warned me that he is going to print things that may defeat me?"

"You know he'll not print them now," retorted Jane.

"Indeed I don't. He's not so forbearing."

"You know he'll not print them now," repeated Jane. "He'd not be so foolish. Every one would forget to ask whether what he said about you was true or false. They'd think only of how ungenerous and ungrateful he was. He wouldn't be either. But he'd seem to be—and that comes to the same thing." She glanced mockingly at Hull. "Isn't that your calculation?"

"You are too cynical for a woman, Jane," said Davy. "It's not attractive."

"To your vanity?" retorted Jane. "I should think not."

"Well—good-by," said Davy, taking his hat from the rail. "I've got a hard evening's work before me. No time for dinner."

"Another terrible sacrifice for public duty," mocked Jane.

"You must be frightfully out of humor with yourself, to be girding at me so savagely," said Davy.

"Good-by, Mr. Mayor."

"I shall be—in six weeks."

Jane's face grew sombre. "Yes—I suppose so," said she. "The people would rather have one of us than one of their own kind. They do look up to us, don't they? It's ridiculous of them, but they do. The idea of choosing you, when they might have Victor Dorn."

"He isn't running for Mayor," objected Hull. "The League's candidate is Harbinger, the builder."

"No, it's Victor Dorn," said Jane. "The best man in a party—the strongest man—is always the candidate for all the offices. I don't know much about politics, but I've learned that much.... It's Victor Dorn against—Dick Kelly—or Kelly and father."

Hull reddened. She had cut into quick. "You will see who is Mayor when I'm elected," said he with all his dignity.

Jane laughed in the disagreeably mocking way that was the climax of her ability to be nasty when she was thoroughly out of humor. "That's right, Davy. Deceive yourself. It's far more comfortable. So long!"

And she went into the house.

Davy's conduct of the affair was masterly. He showed those rare qualities of judgment and diplomacy that all but insure a man a distinguished career. His statement for the press was a model of dignity, of restrained indignation, of good common sense. The most difficult part of his task was getting Hugo Galland into condition for a creditable appearance in court. In so far as Hugo's meagre intellect, atrophied by education and by luxury, permitted him to be a lawyer at all, he was of that now common type called the corporation lawyer. That is, for him human beings had ceased to exist, and of course human rights, also; the world as viewed from the standpoint of law contained only corporations, only interests. Thus, a man like Victor Dorn was in his view the modern form of the devil—was a combination of knave and lunatic who had no right to live except in the restraint of an asylum or a jail.

Fortunately, while Hugo despised the "hoi polloi" as only a stupid, miseducated snob can despise, he appreciated that they had votes and so must be conciliated; and he yearned with the snob's famished yearning for the title and dignity of judge. Davy found it impossible to convince him that the injunctions and indictments ought to be attacked until he had convinced him that in no other way could he become Judge Galland. As Hugo was fiercely prejudiced and densely stupid and reverent of the powers of his own intellect, to convince him was not easy. In fact, Davy did not begin to succeed until he began to suggest that whoever appeared before Judge Lansing the next morning in defense of free speech would be the Alliance and Democratic and Republican candidate for judge, and that if Hugo couldn't see his way clear to appearing he might as well give up for the present his political ambitions.

Hugo came round. Davy left him at one o'clock in the morning and went gloomily home. He had known what a prejudiced ass Galland was, how unfit he was for the office of judge; but he had up to that time hidden the full truth from himself. Now, to hide it was impossible. Hugo had fully exposed himself in all his unfitness of the man of narrow upper class prejudices, the man of no instinct or enthusiasm for right, justice and liberty. "Really, it's a crime to nominate such a chap as that," he muttered. "Yet we've got to do it. How Selma Gordon's eyes would shame me, if she could see me now!"

Davy had the familiar fondness for laying on the secret penitential scourge—wherewith we buy from our complacent consciences license to indulge in the sins our appetites or ambitions crave.

Judge Lansing—you have never seen a man who LOOKED the judge more ideally than did gray haired, gray bearded, open browed Robert Lansing—Judge Lansing was all ready for his part in the farce. He knew Hugo and helped him over the difficult places and cut him short as soon as he had made enough of his speech to give an inkling of what he was demanding. The Judge was persuaded to deliver himself of a high-minded and eloquent denunciation of those who had misled the court and the county prosecutor. He pointed out—in weighty judicial language—that Victor Dorn had by his conduct during several years invited just such a series of calamities as had beset him. But he went on to say that Dorn's reputation and fondness for speech and action bordering on the lawless did not withdraw from him the protection of the law. In spite of himself the law would protect him. The injunctions were dissolved and the indictments were quashed.

The news of the impending application, published in the morning papers, had crowded the court room. When the Judge finished a tremendous cheer went up. The cheer passed on to the throng outside, and when Davy and Hugo appeared in the corridor they were borne upon the shoulders of workingmen and were not released until they had made speeches. Davy's manly simplicity and clearness covered the stammering vagueness of hero Galland.

As Davy was gradually clearing himself of the eager handshakers and back-slappers, Selma suddenly appeared before him. Her eyes were shining and her whole body seemed to be irradiating emotion of admiration and gratitude. "Thank you—oh, thank you!" she said, pressing his hand. "How I have misjudged you!"

Davy did not wince. He had now quite forgotten the part selfish ambition had played in his gallant rush to the defense of imperilled freedom—had forgotten it as completely as the now ecstatic Hugo had forgotten his prejudices against the "low, smelly working people." He looked as exalted as he felt. "I only did my plain duty," replied he. "How could any decent American have done less?"

"I haven't seen Victor since yesterday afternoon," pursued Selma. "But I know how grateful he'll be—not so much for what you did as that YOU did it."

The instinct of the crowd—the universal human instinct—against intruding upon a young man and young woman talking together soon cleared them of neighbors. An awkward silence fell. Said he hesitatingly:

"Are you ready to give your answer?—to that question I asked you the other day."

"I gave you my answer then," replied she, her glance seeking a way of escape.

"No," said he. "For you said then that you would not marry me. And I shall never take no for an answer until you have married some one else."

She looked up at him with eyes large and grave and puzzled. "I'm sure you don't want to marry me," she said. "I wonder why you keep asking me."

"I have to be honest with you," said Davy. "Somehow you bring out all the good there is in me. So, I can't conceal anything from you. In a way I don't want to marry you. You're not at all the woman I have always pictured as the sort I ought to marry and would marry. But—Selma, I love you. I'd give up anything—even my career—to get you. When I'm away from you I seem to regain control of myself. But just as soon as I see you, I'm as bad as ever again."

"Then we mustn't see each other," said she.

Suddenly she nodded, laughed up at him and darted away—and Hugo Galland, long since abandoned by the crowd, had seized him by the arm.

Selma debated whether to take Victor the news or to continue her walk. She decided for the walk. She had been feeling peculiarly toward Victor since the previous afternoon. She had not gone back in the evening, but had sent an excuse by one of the Leaguers. It was plain to her that Jane Hastings was up to mischief, and she had begun to fear—sacrilegious though she felt it to be to harbor such a suspicion—that there was man enough, weak, vain, susceptible man enough, in Victor Dorn to make Jane a danger. The more she had thought about Jane and her environment, the clearer it had become that there could be no permanent and deep sincerity in Jane's aspirations after emancipation from her class. It was simply the old, old story of a woman of the upper class becoming infatuated with a man of a genuine kind of manhood rarely found in the languor-producing surroundings of her own class. Would Victor yield? No! her loyalty indignantly answered. But he might allow this useless idler to hamper him, to weaken his energies for the time—and during a critical period.

She did not wish to see Victor again until she should have decided what course to take. To think at her ease she walked out Monroe Avenue on her way to the country. It was a hot day, but walking along in the beautiful shade Selma felt no discomfort, except a slight burning of the eyes from the fierce glare of the white highway. In the distance she heard the sound of an engine.

A few seconds, and past her at high speed swept an automobile. Its heavy flying wheels tore up the roadway, raised an enormous cloud of dust. The charm of the walk was gone; the usefulness of roadway and footpaths was destroyed for everybody for the fifteen or twenty minutes that it would take for the mass of dust to settle—on the foliage, in the grass, on the bodies and clothing of passers-by and in their lungs. Selma halted and gazed after the auto. Who was tearing along at this mad speed? Who was destroying the comfort of all using that road, and annoying them and making the air unfit to breathe! Why, an idle, luxuriously dressed woman, not on an errand of life or death, but going down town to amuse herself shopping or calling.

The dust had not settled before a second auto, having a young man and young woman apparently on the way to play tennis, rushed by, swirling up even vaster clouds of dust and all but colliding with a baby carriage a woman was trying to push across the street. Selma's blood was boiling! The infamy of it! These worthless idlers! What utter lack of manners, of consideration for their fellow beings. A GENTLEMAN and a LADY insulting and bullying everyone who happened not to have an automobile. Then—she laughed. The ignorant, stupid masses! They deserved to be treated thus contemptuously, for they could stop it if they would. "Some day we shall learn," philosophized she. "Then these brutalities of men toward each other, these brutalities big and little, will cease." This matter of the insulting automobiles, with insolent horns and criminal folly of speed and hurling dust at passers-by, worse than if the occupants had spat upon them in passing—this matter was a trifle beside the hideous brutalities of men compelling masses of their fellow beings, children no less than grown people, to toil at things killing soul, mind and body simply in order that fortunes might be made! THERE was lack of consideration worth thinking about.

Three more autos passed—three more clouds of dust, reducing Selma to extreme physical discomfort. Her philosophy was severely strained. She was in the country now; but even there she was pursued by these insolent and insulting hunters of pleasure utterly indifferent to the comfort of their fellows. And when a fourth auto passed, bearing Jane Hastings in a charming new dress and big, becoming hat—Selma, eyes and throat full of dust and face and neck and hands streaked and dirty, quite lost her temper. Jane spoke; she turned her head away, pretending not to see!

Presently she heard an auto coming at a less menacing pace from the opposite direction. It drew up to the edge of the road abreast of her. "Selma," called Jane.

Selma paused, bent a frowning and angry countenance upon Jane.

Jane opened the door of the limousine, descended, said to her chauffeur: "Follow us, please." She advanced to Selma with a timid and deprecating smile. "You'll let me walk with you?" she said.

"I am thinking out a very important matter," replied Selma, with frank hostility. "I prefer not to be interrupted."

"Selma!" pleaded Jane. "What have I done to turn you against me?"

Selma stood, silent, incarnation of freedom and will. She looked steadily at Jane. "You haven't done anything," she replied. "On impulse I liked you. On sober second thought I don't. That's all."

"You gave me your friendship," said Jane. "You've no right to withdraw it without telling me why."

"You are not of my class. You are of the class that is at war with mine—at war upon it. When you talk of friendship to me, you are either false to your own people or false in your professions to me."

Selma's manner was rudely offensive—as rude as Jane's dust, to which it was perhaps a retort. Jane showed marvelous restraint. She told herself that she felt compassionate toward this attractive, honest, really nice girl. It is possible, however, that an instinct of prudence may have had something to do with her ultra-conciliatory attitude toward the dusty little woman in the cheap linen dress. The enmity of one so near to Victor Dorn was certainly not an advantage. Instead of flaring up, Jane said:

"Now, Selma—do be human—do be your sweet, natural self. It isn't my fault that I am what I am. And you know that I really belong heart and soul with you."

"Then come with us," said Selma. "If you think the life you lead is foolish—why, stop leading it."

"You know I can't," said Jane mournfully.

"I know you could," retorted Selma. "Don't be a hypocrite, Jane."

"Selma—how harsh you are!" cried Jane.

"Either come with us or keep away from us," said the girl inflexibly. "You may deceive yourself—and men—with that talk of broad views and high aspirations. But you can't deceive another woman."

"I'm not trying to deceive anybody," exclaimed Jane angrily. "Permit me to say, Selma, that your methods won't make many converts to your cause."

"Who ever gave you the idea that we were seeking converts in your class?" inquired Selma. "Our whole object is to abolish your class—and end its drain upon us—and its bad example—and make its members useful members of our class, and more contented and happier than they are now." She laughed—a free and merry laugh, but not pleasant in Jane's ears. "The idea of US trying to induce young ladies and young gentlemen with polished finger nails to sit round in drawing-rooms talking patronizingly of doing something for the masses! You've got a very queer notion of us, my dear Miss Hastings."

Jane's eyes were flashing. "Selma, there's a devil in you to-day. What is it?" she demanded.

"There's a great deal of dust from your automobile in me and on me," said Selma. "I congratulate you on your good manners in rushing about spattering and befouling your fellow beings and threatening their lives."

Jane colored and lowered her head. "I—I never thought of that before," she said humbly.

Selma's anger suddenly dissolved. "I'm ashamed of myself," she cried. "Forgive me."

What she had said about the automobile had made an instant deep impression upon Jane, who was honestly trying to live up to her aspirations—when she wasn't giving up the effort as hopelessly beyond her powers and trying to content herself with just aspiring. She was not hypocritical in her contrition. The dust disfiguring the foliage, streaking Selma's face and hair, was forcing the lesson in manners vigorously home. "I'm much obliged to you for teaching me what I ought to have learned for myself," she said. "I don't blame you for scorning me. I am a pretty poor excuse. But"—with her most charming smile—"I'll do better—all the faster if you'll help me."

Selma looked at her with a frank, dismayed contrition, like a child that realizes it has done something very foolish. "Oh, I'm so horribly impulsive!" she cried. "It's always getting me into trouble. You don't know how I try Victor Dorn's patience—though he never makes the least sign." She laughed up at Jane. "I wish you'd give me a whipping. I'd feel lots better."

"It'd take some of my dust off you," said Jane. "Let me take you to the house in the auto—you'll never see it going at that speed again, I promise. Come to the house and I'll dust you off—and we'll go for a walk in the woods."

Selma felt that she owed it to Jane to accept. As they were climbing the hill in the auto, Selma said:

"My, how comfortable this is! No wonder the people that have autos stop exercising and get fat and sick and die. I couldn't trust myself with one."

"It's a daily fight," confessed Jane. "If I were married and didn't have to think about my looks and my figure I'm afraid I'd give up."

"Victor says the only time one ought ever to ride in a carriage is to his own funeral."

"He's down on show and luxury of every kind—isn't he?" said Jane.

"No, indeed," replied Selma. "Victor isn't 'down on' anything. He thinks show and luxury are silly. He could be rich if he wished, for he has wonderful talent for managing things and for making money. He has refused some of the most wonderful offers—wonderful in that way. But he thinks money-making a waste of time. He has all he wants, and he says he'd as soon think of eating a second dinner when he'd just had one as of exchanging time that could be LIVED for a lot of foolish dollars."

"And he meant it, too," said Jane. "In some men that would sound like pretense. But not in him. What a mind he has—and what a character!"

Selma was abruptly overcast and ominously silent. She wished she had not been turned so far by her impulse of penitence—wished she had held to the calm and deliberate part of her resolve about Jane—the part that involved keeping aloof from her. However, Jane, the tactful—hastened to shift the conversation to generalities of the softest kinds—talked about her college life—about the inane and useless education they had given her—drew Selma out to talk about her own education—in the tenement—in the public school, at night school, in factory and shop. Not until they had been walking in the woods nearly two hours and Selma was about to go home, did Victor, about whom both were thinking all the time, come into the conversation again. It was Jane who could no longer keep away from the subject—the one subject that wholly interested her nowadays. Said she:

"Victor Dorn is REALLY almost well, you think?"

After a significant pause Selma said in a tone that was certainly not encouraging, "Obviously."

"I was altogether wrong about Doctor Charlton," said Jane. "I'm convinced now that he's the only really intelligent doctor in town. I'm trying to persuade father to change to him."

"Well, good-by," said Selma. She was eager to get away, for she suddenly felt that Jane was determined to talk about Victor before letting her go.

"You altered toward me when I made that confession—the night of the riot," said Jane abruptly. "Are you in love with him, too?"

"No," said Selma.

"I don't see how you could help being," cried Jane.

"That's because you don't know what it is to be busy," retorted Selma. "Love—what you call love—is one of the pastimes with your sort of people. It's a lazy, easy way of occupying the thoughts."

"You don't know me as well as you think you do," said Jane. Her expression fascinated Selma—and made her more afraid than ever.

Impulsively Selma took Jane by the arm. "Keep away from us," she said. "You will do no good. You can only cause unhappiness—perhaps most of all to yourself."

"Don't I know that!" exclaimed Jane. "I'm fighting it as hard as I can. But how little control one has over oneself when one has always been indulged and self-indulgent."

"The man for you is David Hull," said Selma.

"You could help him—could make a great deal of a person out of him."

"I know it," replied Jane. "But I don't want him, and he—perhaps you didn't know that he is in love with you?"

"No more than you are with Victor Dorn," said Selma. "I'm different from the women he has known, just as Victor is different from the men you meet in your class. But this is a waste of time."

"You don't believe in me at all," cried Jane. "In some ways you are very unjust and narrow, Selma."

Selma looked at her in that grave way which seemed to compel frankness. "Do YOU believe in yourself?" she asked.

Jane's glance shifted.

"You know you do not," proceeded Selma. "The women of your class rarely have sincere emotions because they do not lead sincere lives. Part of your imaginary love for Victor Dorn is desire to fill up idle hours. The rest of it is vanity—the desire to show your power over a man who seems to be woman-proof." She laughed a little, turned away, paused. "My mother used to quote a French proverb—'One cannot trifle with love.' Be careful, Jane—for your own sake. I don't know whether you could conquer Victor Dorn or not. But I do know IF you could conquer him it would be only at the usual price of those conquests to a woman."

"And what is that?" said Jane.

"Your own complete surrender," said Selma.

"How wise you are!" laughed Jane. "Who would have suspected you of knowing so much!"

"How could I—a woman—and not unattractive to men—grow up to be twenty-one years old, in the free life of a working woman, without learning all there is to know about sex relations?"

Jane looked at her with a new interest.

"And," she went on, "I've learned—not by experience, I'm glad to say, but by observation—that my mother's proverb is true. I shall not think about love until I am compelled to. That is a peril a sensible person does not seek."

"I did not seek it," cried Jane—and then she halted and flushed.

"Good-by, Jane," said Selma, waving her hand and moving away rapidly. She called back—"On ne badine pas avec l'amour!"

She went straight to Colman's cottage—to Victor, lying very pale with his eyes shut, and big Tom Colman sitting by his bed. There was a stillness in the room that Selma felt was ominous. Victor's hand—strong, well-shaped, useful-looking, used-looking—not ABUSED-looking, but USED-looking-was outside the covers upon the white counterpane. The fingers were drumming softly; Selma knew that gesture—a certain sign that Victor was troubled in mind.

"You've told him," said Selma to Colman as she paused in the doorway.

Victor turned his head quickly, opened his eyes, gave her a look of welcome that made her thrill with pride. "Oh—there you are!" he exclaimed. "I was hoping you'd come."

"I saw David Hull just after it was done," said Selma. "And I thanked him for you."

Victor's eyes had a look of amusement, of mockery. "Thank you," he said.

She, the sensitive, was on the alert at once. "Didn't you want me to thank him?"

Victor did not answer. In the same amused way he went on: "So they carried him on their shoulders—him and that other defender of the rights of the people, Hugo Galland? I should like to have seen. It was a memorable spectacle."

"You are laughing at it," exclaimed the girl. "Why?"

"You certainly are taking the news very queer, Victor," said Colman. Then to Selma, "When I told him he got white and I thought I'd have to send for Doctor Charlton."

"Well—joy never kills," said Victor mockingly. "I don't want to keep you, Tom—Selma'll sit with me."

When they were alone, Victor again closed his eyes and resumed that silent drumming upon the counterpane. Selma watched the restless fingers as if she hoped they would disclose to her the puzzling secret of Victor's thoughts. But she did not interrupt.

That was one lesson in restraint that Victor had succeeded in teaching her—never to interrupt. At last he heaved a great sigh and said:

"Well, Selma, old girl—we've probably lost again. I was glad you came because I wanted to talk—and I can't say what's in my mind before dear old Tom—or any of them but my sister and you."

"You didn't want those injunctions and indictments out of the way?" said Selma.

"If they had stood, we'd have won—in a walk," replied Victor. "As the cards lie now, David Hull will win. And he'll make a pretty good show mayor, probably—good enough to fool a large majority of our fellow citizens, who are politically as shallow and credulous as nursery children. And so—our work of educating them will be the harder and slower. Oh, these David Hulls!—these good men who keep their mantles spotless in order to make them the more useful as covers for the dirty work of others!" Suddenly his merry smile burst out. "And they carried Hugo Galland on their shoulders?"

"Then you don't think Hull's motives were honorable?" inquired Selma, perplexed and anxious.

"How could I know his motives?—any man's motives?" replied Victor. "No one can read men's hearts. All I ever consider is actions. And the result of his actions is probably the defeat of the League and the election of Dick Kelly."

"I begin to understand," said Selma thoughtfully. "But—I do believe his motive was altogether good."

"My dear girl," said Victor, "the primer lesson in the life of action is: 'Never—NEVER look at motives. Action—only actions—always actions.' The chief reason the human race is led patiently round by the nose is its fondness for fussing about motives. We are interested only in men's actions and the results to our cause. Davy Hull's motives concern only himself—and those who care for him." Victor's eyes, twinkling mischievously, shot a shrewd glance at Selma. "You're not by any chance in love with Davy?"

Selma colored high. "Certainly not!" she exclaimed indignantly.

"Why not? Why not?" teased Victor. "He's tall and handsome—and superbly solemn—and women always fancy a solemn man has intellect and character. Not that Davy is a fool—by no means. I'd be the last man to say that—I whom he has just cleverly checkmated in one move."

"You intended not to give bail! You intended to go to jail!" exclaimed Selma abruptly. "I see it all! How stupid I was! Oh, I could cry, Victor! What a chance."

"Spilt milk," said Victor. "We must forget it, and plan to meet the new conditions. We'll start the paper at once. We can't attack him. Very clever of him—very clever! If he were as brave as he is shrewd, I'd almost give up hope of winning this town while he was in politics here. But he lacks courage. And he daren't think and speak honestly. How that does cripple a man!"

"He'll be one of us before very long," said Selma. "You misjudge him, Victor."

Dorn smiled. "Not so long as his own class gratifies his ambitions," replied Victor. "If he came with us it'd be because his own class had failed him and he hoped to rise through and upon—ours."

Selma did not agree with him. But as she always felt presumptuous and even foolish in disagreeing with Victor, she kept silent. And presently Victor began to lay out her share in the task of starting up the New Day. "I shall be all right within a week," said he, "and we must get the first number out the week following." She was realizing now that Hull's move had completely upset an elaborate plan of campaign into which Victor had put all his intelligence and upon which he had staked all his hopes. She marvelled as he talked, unfolding rapidly an entirely new campaign, different in every respect from what the other would have been. How swiftly his mind had worked, and how well! How little time he had wasted in vain regrets! How quickly he had recovered from a reverse that would have halted many a strong man.

And then she remembered how they all, his associates, were like him, proof against the evil effects of set-back and defeat. And why were they so? Because Victor Dorn had trained them to fight for the cause, and not for victory. "Our cause is the right, and in the end right is bound to win because the right is only another name for the sensible"—that had been his teaching. And a hardy army he had trained. The armies trained by victory are strong; but the armies schooled by defeat—they are invincible.

When he had explained his new campaign—as much of it as he deemed it wise at that time to withdraw from the security of his own brain—she said:

"But it seems to me we've got a good chance to win, anyhow."

"A chance, perhaps," replied he. "But we'll not bother about that. All we've got to do is to keep on strengthening ourselves."

"Yes, that's it!" she cried. "One added here—five there—ten yonder. Every new stone fitted solidly against the ones already in place."

"We must never forget that we aren't merely building a new party," said Dorn. "We're building a new civilization—one to fit the new conditions of life. Let the Davy Hulls patch and tinker away at trying to keep the old structure from falling in. We know it's bound to fall and that it isn't fit for decent civilized human beings to live in. And we're getting the new house ready. So—to us, election day is no more important than any of the three hundred and sixty-five."

It was into the presence of a Victor Dorn restored in mind as well as in body that Jane Hastings was shown by his sister, Mrs. Sherrill, one afternoon a week or so later.

All that time Jane had been searching for an excuse for going to see him. She had haunted the roads and the woods where he and Selma habitually walked. She had seen neither of them. When the pretext for a call finally came to her, as usual, the most obvious thing in the world. He must be suspecting her of having betrayed his confidence and brought about the vacating of those injunctions and the quashing of the indictments. She must go to him and clear herself of suspicion.

She felt that the question of how she should dress for this crucial interview, this attempt to establish some sort of friendly relations with him, was of the very highest importance. Should she wear something plain, something that would make her look as nearly as might be like one of his own class? HIS class!

No—no, indeed. The class in which he was accidentally born and bred, but to which he did not belong. Or, should she go dressed frankly as of her own class—wearing the sort of things that made her look her finest and most superior and most beautiful? Having nothing else to do, she spent several hours in trying various toilets. She was not long in deciding against disguising herself as a working woman. That garb might win his mental and moral approval; but not by mental and moral ways did women and men prevail with each other. In plain garb—so Jane decided, as she inspected herself—she was no match for Selma Gordon; she looked awkward, out of her element. So much being settled, there remained to choose among her various toilets. She decided for an embroidered white summer dress, extremely simple, but in the way that costs beyond the power of any but the very rich to afford. When she was ready to set forth, she had never looked so well in her life. Her toilet SEEMED a mere detail. In fact, it was some such subtlety as those arrangements of lines and colors in great pictures, whereby the glance of the beholder is unconsciously compelled toward the central figure, just as water in a funnel must go toward the aperture at the bottom. Jane felt, not without reason, that she had executed a stroke of genius. She was wearing nothing that could awaken Victor Dorn's prejudices about fine clothes, for he must have those prejudices. Yet she was dressed in conformity with all that centuries, ages of experience, have taught the dressmaking art on the subject of feminine allure. And, when a woman feels that she is so dressed, her natural allure becomes greatly enhanced.

She drove down to a point in Monroe Avenue not far from the house where Victor and his family lived. The day was hot; boss-ridden Remsen City had dusty and ragged streets and sidewalks. It, therefore, would not do to endanger the freshness of the toilet. But she would arrive as if she had come all the way on foot. Arrival in a motor at so humble a house would look like ostentation; also, if she were seen going through that street afoot, people would think she was merely strolling a little out of her way to view the ruins of the buildings set on fire by the mob. She did pause to look at these ruins; the air of the neighborhood still had a taint of burnt wood and paper. Presently, when she was sure the street was clear of people of the sort who might talk—she hastily entered the tiny front yard of Victor's house, and was pleased to find herself immediately screened from the street by the luxuriant bushes and creepers.

There was nothing in the least pretentious about the appearance of the little house. It was simply a well built cottage—but of brick, instead of the usual wood, and the slate roof descended at attractive angles. The door she was facing was superior to the usual flimsy-looking door. Indeed, she at once became conscious of a highly attractive and most unexpected air of substantiality and good taste. The people who lived here seemed to be permanent people—long resident, and looking forward to long residence. She had never seen such beautiful or such tastefully grouped sun flowers, and the dahlias and marigolds were far above the familiar commonplace kitchen garden flowers.

The door opened, and a handsome, extremely intelligent looking woman, obviously Victor's sister, was looking pleasantly at her. Said she: "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. But I was busy in the kitchen. This is Miss Hastings, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Jane, smiling friendlily.

"I've heard my brother and Selma talk of you." (Jane wondered WHAT they had said.) "You wish to see Victor?"

"If I'd not be interrupting," said Jane.

"Come right in. He's used to being interrupted. They don't give him five minutes to himself all day long—especially now that the campaign's on. He always does his serious work very early in the morning."

They went through a hall, pleasantly odorous of baking in which good flour and good butter and good eggs were being manufactured into something probably appetizing, certainly wholesome. Jane caught a glimpse through open doors on either side of a neat and reposeful little library-sitting room, a plain delightfully simple little bedroom, a kitchen where everything shone. She arrived at the rear door somehow depressed, bereft of the feeling of upper-class superiority which had, perhaps unconsciously, possessed her as she came toward the house. At the far end of an arbor on which the grape vines were so trellised that their broad leaves cast a perfect shade, sat Victor writing at a table under a tree. He was in his shirt sleeves, and his shirt was open at the throat. His skin was smooth and healthily white below the collar line. The forearms exposed by his rolled up sleeves were strong but slender, and the faint fair hair upon them suggested a man, but not an animal.

Never had she seen his face and head so fine. He was writing rapidly, his body easily erect, his head and neck in a poise of grace and strength. Jane grew pale and trembled—so much so that she was afraid the keen, friendly eyes of Alice Sherrill were seeing. Said Mrs. Sherrill, raising her voice:

"Victor—here's Miss Hastings come to see you." Then to Jane: "Excuse me, please. I don't dare leave that kitchen long."

She departed. Jane waited while Victor, his pencil reluctantly slackening and his glance lingeringly rising from the paper, came back to sense of his surroundings. He stared at her blankly, then colored a little. He rose—stiff, for him formal. Said he:

"How d'you do, Miss Hastings?"

She came down the arbor, recovering her assurance as she again became conscious of herself, so charmingly dressed and no doubt beautiful in his eyes. "I know you're not glad to see me," said she. "But I'm only stopping a very little minute."

His eyes had softened—softened under the influence of the emotion no man can ever fail to feel at least in some degree at sight of a lovely woman. "Won't you sit?" said he, with a glance at the wooden chair near the other side of the table.

She seated herself, resting one gloved hand on the prettily carved end of her white-sunshade. She was wearing a big hat of rough black straw, with a few very gorgeous white plumes. "What a delightful place to work," exclaimed she, looking round, admiring the flowers, the slow ripening grapes, the delicious shade. "And you—how WELL you look!"

"I've forgotten I was ever anything but well," said he.

"You're impatient for me to go," she cried laughing. "It's very rude to show it so plainly."

"No," replied he. "I am not impatient for you to go. But I ought to be, for I'm very busy."

"Well, I shall be gone in a moment. I came only to tell you that you are suspecting me wrongly."

"Suspecting you?—of what?"

"Of having broken my word. I know you must think I got father to set Davy Hull on to upsetting your plans."

"The idea never entered my head," said he. "You had promised—and I know you are honest."

Jane colored violently and lowered her eyes. "I'm not—not up to what you say," she protested. "But at least I didn't break my promise. Davy thought of that himself."

"I have been assuming so."

"And you didn't suspect me?"

"Not for an instant," Victor assured her. "Davy simply made the move that was obviously best for him."

"And now he will be elected," said Jane regretfully.

"It looks that way," replied Victor. And he had the air of one who has nothing more to say.

Suddenly Jane looked at him with eyes shining and full of appeal.

"Don't send me away so quickly," she pleaded. "I've not been telling the exact truth. I came only partly because I feared you were suspecting me. The real reason was that—that I couldn't stay away any longer. I know you're not in the least interested in me——"

She was watching him narrowly for signs of contradiction. She hoped she had not watched in vain.

"Why should you be?" she went on. "But ever since you opened my eyes and set me to thinking, I can do nothing but think about the things you have said to me, and long to come to you and ask you questions and hear more."

Victor was staring hard into the wall of foliage. His face was set. She thought she had never seen anything so resolute, so repelling as the curve of his long jaw bone.

"I'll go now," she said, making a pretended move toward rising.

"I've no right to annoy you."

He stood up abruptly, without looking at her. "Yes, you'd better go," he said curtly.

She quivered—and it was with a pang of genuine pain.

His gaze was not so far from her as it seemed. For he must have noted her expression, since he said hurriedly: "I beg your pardon. It isn't that I mean to be rude. I—I—it is best that I do not see you."

She sank back in the chair with a sigh. "And I—I know that I ought to keep away from you. But—I can't. It's too strong for me."

He looked at her slowly. "I have made up my mind to put you out of my head," he said. "And I shall."

"Don't!" she cried. "Victor—don't!"

He sat again, rested his forearms upon the table, leaned toward her. "Look at me," he said.

She slowly lifted her gaze to his, met it steadily. "I thought so, Victor," she said tenderly. "I knew I couldn't care so much unless you cared at least a little ."

"Do I?" said he. "I don't know. I doubt if either of us is in love with the other. Certainly, you are not the sort of woman I could love—deeply love. What I feel for you is the sort of thing that passes. It is violent while it lasts, but it passes."

"I don't care!" cried she recklessly. "Whatever it is I want it!"

He shook his head resolutely. "No," he said. "You don't want it, and I don't want it. I know the kind of life you've mapped out for yourself—as far as women of your class map out anything. It's the only kind of life possible to you. And it's of a kind with which I could, and would, have nothing to do."

"Why do you say that?" protested she. "You could make of me what you pleased."

"No," said he. "I couldn't make a suit of overalls out of a length of silk. Anyhow, I have made up my life with love and marriage left out. They are excellent things for some people, for most people. But not for me. I must be free, absolutely free. Free to think only of the cause I've enlisted in, free to do what it commands."

"And I?" she said with tremendous life. "What is to become of me, Victor?"

He laughed quietly. "You are going to keep away from me—find some one else to amuse your leisure. That's what's going to become of you, Jane Hastings."

She winced and quivered again. "That—hurts," she said.

"Your vanity? Yes. I suppose it does. But those wounds are healthful—when the person is as sensible as you are."

"You think I am not capable of caring! You think I am vain and shallow and idle. You refuse me all right to live, simply because I happen to live in surroundings you don't approve of."

"I'm not such an egotistical ass as to imagine a woman of your sort could be genuinely in love with a man of my sort," replied he. "So, I'll see to it that we keep away from each other. I don't wish to be tempted to do you mischief."

She looked at him inquiringly.

But he did not explain. He said: "And you are going now. And we shall not meet again except by accident."

She gave a sigh of hopelessness. "I suppose I have lowered myself in your eyes by being so frank—by showing and speaking what I felt," she said mournfully.

"Not in the least," rejoined he. "A man who is anybody or has anything soon gets used to frankness in women. I could hardly have gotten past thirty, in a more or less conspicuous position, without having had some experience.... and without learning not to attach too much importance to—to frankness in women."

She winced again. "You wouldn't say those things if you knew how they hurt," she said. "If I didn't care for you, could I sit here and let you laugh at me?"

"Yes, you could," answered he. "Hoping somehow or other to turn the laugh upon me later on. But really I was not laughing at you. And you can spare yourself the effort of convincing me that you're sincere." He was frankly laughing at her now. "You don't understand the situation—not at all. You fancy that I am hanging back because I am overwhelmed or shy or timid. I assure you I've never been shy or timid about anything I wanted. If I wanted you—I'd—TAKE you."

She caught her breath and shrank. Looking at him as he said that, calmly and confidently, she, for the first time, was in love—and was afraid. Back to her came Selma's warnings: "One may not trifle with love. A woman conquers only by surrender."

"But, as I said to you a while ago," he went on, "I don't want you—or any woman. I've no time for marriage—no time for a flirtation. And though you tempt me strongly, I like you too well to—to treat you as you invite."

Jane sat motionless, stunned by the sudden turning of the tables.

She who had come to conquer—to amuse herself, to evoke a strong, hopeless passion that would give her a delightful sense of warmth as she stood safely by its bright flames—she had been conquered.

She belonged to this man; all he had to do was to claim her.

In a low voice, sweet and sincere beyond any that had ever come from her lips before, she said:

"Anything, Victor—anything—but don't send me away."

And he, seeing and hearing, lost his boasted self-control. "Go—go," he cried harshly. "If you don't go——" He came round the table, seizing her as she rose, kissed her upon the lips, upon the eyes. "You are lovely—lovely!" he murmured. "And I who can't have flowers on my table or in sight when I've got anything serious to do—I love your perfume and your color and the wonderful softness of you——"

He pushed her away. "Now—will you go?" he cried.

His eyes were flashing. And she was trembling from head to foot.

She was gazing at him with a fascinated expression. "I understand what you meant when you warned me to go," she said. "I didn't believe it, but it was so."

"Go—I tell you!" he ordered.

"It's too late," said she. "You can't send me away now—for you have kissed me. If I'm in your power, you're in my power, too."

Moved by the same impulse both looked up the arbor toward the rear door of the house. There stood Selma Gordon, regarding them with an expression of anger as wild as the blood of the steppes that flowed in her veins. Victor, with what composure he could master, put out his hand in farewell to Jane. He had been too absorbed in the emotions raging between him and her to note Selma's expression. But Jane, the woman, had seen. As she shook hands with Victor, she said neither high nor low:

"Selma knows that I care. I told her the night of the riot."

"Good-by," said Victor in a tone she thought it wise not to dispute.

"I'll be in the woods above the park at ten tomorrow," she said in an undertone. Then to Selma, unsmilingly: "You're not interrupting. I'm going." Selma advanced. The two girls looked frank hostility into each other's eyes. Jane did not try to shake hands with her. With a nod and a forced smile of conventional friendliness upon her lips, she passed her and went through the house and into the street.

She lingered at the gate, opening and closing it in a most leisurely fashion—a significantly different exit from her furtive and ashamed entrance. Love and revolt were running high and hot in her veins. She longed openly to defy the world—her world.



VII

Impulse was the dominant strain in Selma Gordon's character—impulse and frankness. But she was afraid of Victor Dorn as we all are afraid of those we deeply respect—those whose respect is the mainstay of our self-confidence. She was moving toward him to pour out the violence that was raging in her on the subject of this flirtation of Jane Hastings. The spectacle of a useless and insincere creature like that trifling with her deity, and being permitted to trifle, was more than she could endure. But Victor, dropping listlessly to his chair and reaching for his pencil, was somehow a check upon her impetuousness. She paused long enough to think the sobering second thought. To speak would be both an impertinence and a folly. She owed it to the cause and to her friend Victor to speak; but to speak at the wrong time and in the wrong way would be worse than silence.

Said he: "I was finishing this when she came. I'll be done in a minute. Please read what I've written and tell me what you think."

Selma took up the loose sheets of manuscript and stood reading his inaugural of the new New Day. As she read she forgot the petty matter that had so agitated her a moment before. This salutatory—this address to the working class—this plan of a campaign to take Remsen City out of the hands of its exploiters and despoilers and make it a city fit for civilized residence and worthy of its population of intelligent, progressive workingmen—this leading editorial for the first number was Victor Dorn at his greatest and best. The man of action with all the enthusiasm of a dreamer. The shrewd, practical politician with the outlook of a statesman. How honest and impassioned he was; yet how free from folly and cant. Several times as she read Selma lifted her eyes to look at him in generous, worshipful admiration. She would not have dared let him see; she would not have dared speak the phrases of adoration of his genius that crowded to her lips. How he would have laughed at her—he who thought about himself as a personality not at all, but only as an instrument.

"Here's the rest of it," said he, throwing himself back in his chair and relighting his pipe.

She finished a moment later, said as she laid the manuscript on the table: "That's the best you've ever done."

"I think so," agreed he. "It seems to me I've got a new grip on things. I needed a turn such as your friend Davy Hull gave me. Nothing like rivalry to spur a man on. The old crowd was so stupid—cunning, but stupid. But Hull injects a new element into the struggle. To beat him we've got to use our best brains."

"We've got to attack him," said Selma. "After all, he is the enemy. We can't let him disarm us by an act of justice."

"No, indeed," said Victor. "But we'll have to be careful. Here's what I'm going to carry on the first page."

He held up a sheet of paper on which he had written with a view to effective display the names of the four most offensive local corporations with their contribution—$25,000 each—to the campaign fund of the Citizens' Alliance. "Under it, in big type," proceeded he, "we'll carry a line asking, 'Is the Citizens' Alliance fooling these four corporations or is it fooling the people?' I think that will be more effective than columns of attack."

"We ought to get that out on wall-bills and dodgers," suggested Selma, "and deluge the town with it once or twice a week until election."

"Splendid!" exclaimed Victor. "I'll make a practical politician of you yet."

Colman and Harbinger and Jocelyn and several others of the League leaders came in one at a time, and the plan of campaign was developed in detail. But the force they chiefly relied upon was the influence of their twelve hundred men, their four or five thousand women and young men and girls, talking every day and evening, each man or woman or youth with those with whom he came into contact. This "army of education" was disciplined, was educated, knew just what arguments to use, had been cautioned against disputes, against arousing foolish antagonisms. The League had nothing to conceal, no object to gain but the government of Remsen City by and for its citizens—well paved, well lighted, clean streets, sanitary houses, good and clean street car service, honest gas, pure water, plenty of good schools—that first of all. The "reform crowd"—the Citizens' Alliance—like every reform party of the past, proposed to do practically the same things. But the League met this with: "Why should we elect an upper class government to do for us what we ought to do for ourselves? And how can they redeem their promises when they are tied up in a hundred ways to the very people who have been robbing and cheating us?"

There were to be issues of the New Day; there were to be posters and dodgers, public meetings in halls, in squares, on street corners. But the main reliance now as always was this educated "army of education"—these six thousand missionaries, each one of them in resolute earnest and bent upon converting his neighbors on either side, and across the street as well. A large part of the time the leaders could spare from making a living was spent in working at this army, in teaching it new arguments or better ways of presenting old arguments, in giving the enthusiasm, in talking with each individual soldier of it and raising his standard of efficiency. Nor could the employers of these soldiers of Victor Dorn's complain that they shirked their work for politics. It was a fact that could not be denied that the members of the Workingmen's League were far and away the best workers in Remsen City, got the best pay, and earned it, drank less, took fewer days off on account of sickness. One of the sneers of the Kelly-House gang was that "those Dorn cranks think they are aristocrats, a little better than us common, ordinary laboring men." And the sneer was not without effect. The truth was, Dorn and his associates had not picked out the best of the working class and drawn it into the League, but had made those who joined the League better workers, better family men, better citizens.

"We are saying that the working class ought to run things," Dorn said again and again in his talks, public and private. "Then, we've got to show the community that we're fit to run things. That is why the League expels any man who shirks or is a drunkard or a crook or a bad husband and father."

The great fight of the League—the fight that was keeping it from power—was with the trades unions, which were run by secret agents of the Kelly-House oligarchy. Kelly and the Republican party rather favored "open shop" or "scab" labor—the right of an American to let his labor to whom he pleased on what terms he pleased. The Kelly orators waxed almost tearful as they contemplated the outrage of any interference with the ancient liberty of the American citizen. Kelly disguised as House was a hot union man. He loathed the "scab." He jeered at the idea that a laborer ought to be at the mercy of the powerful employer who could dictate his own terms, which the laborers might not refuse under stress of hunger. Thus the larger part of the "free" labor in Remsen City voted with Kelly—was bought by him at so much a head. The only organization it had was under the Kelly district captains. Union labor was almost solidly Democratic—except in Presidential elections, when it usually divided on the tariff question.