Pelham writhed. Even after his father's manifestly unfair speech, he had
expected intellectual honesty from him. He had dodged both parts of
Jensen's question. Surface brilliancy--but the questions were still
unanswered. The intense disappointment in his father wracked him with
physical pain.
As she felt Pelham's body commence to rise, Jane's hand clenched his
arm. "Don't do it; it will only make a scene. Let's leave."
Ignoring the pleading grasp, he rose unsteadily. Against the walls of
his chest his heart pounded irregularly; he feared for a flashed instant
that it would burst its way out, and he would fall dead. Gripping the
seat ahead more tightly, he found his voice. "Mr. Speaker----"
Paul looked at him, for the moment surprised and displeased. The
cautious smile reappeared faintly.
"About this question of wages. Isn't it a fact that, the smaller the
dividends, the larger the wages? Both come from the same fund, the
wealth produced; doesn't the prosperity of one cut against the
prosperity of the other? So that, for labor to get its full product,
profit must be abolished, and cooperation introduced?"
There was a gasp of surprise from the few in the audience who recognized
the pale figure as the speaker's son. A scattering rattle of applause
shook parts of the crowd.
Paul moistened his lips, and explained: "The questioner asks, will not
labor's prosperity come when profit has been abolished, and cooperation
substituted. There is something to be said for that as an air-spun
theory. It has never worked in practice. We--all of us--must feed on our
daily bread, not on economic theories," he finished with crisp
decisiveness.
There was a generous hand at this.
Pelham's quiet words to Jane whistled between clenched teeth. "All
untrue, all unfair. A thing cannot be good in theory and bad in
practice. Something is wrong with a theory, if it does not take into
account all facts, all reality. He can't even think honestly!"
She squeezed his hand in the darkness.
In dazed agony he sat--his father had left unperceived by the stage
exit--while the delegates, their discussion carefully guided by the
administration machine, voted, three to one, against the mining law on
which he and Jane had built such hopeful fancies.
The summer stars hung muddily above the western horizon when he ran his
car into the garage, and slipped quietly up to his room.
The rest of the Cottage was dark.