"I know what the company's got up its sleeve. I can put you wise, all
right. What's in it for me?" He waited, expectant.
Pelham choked down his disgust. "Not a cent. If you'd sell out my
father, you'd sell us out as quickly." He walked off in impotent anger
against the go-betweens seeking to fatten on the bitter struggle.
The local mining board assigned Pelham to the property he was most
familiar with: either for that reason, or through a grim irony. As
mining inspector, he secured access to all the books of the company.
This gave him needed statistics for his report on the strike situation,
and kept him busy, and, against his will, away from Jane, and the solace
and spur of the hours with her.
The problem began to shape itself more clearly, now that he had become
to a greater extent weaned from mountain and family. The whole
opposition to the miners' demands was summed up and centered, in his
mind, in that dominant personality of Paul Judson. Similarly he felt
that he embodied the opposing forces. Without his presence, his thinking
told him, the strike would have come just the same; but he knew that his
cordial efforts had stiffened the fight of the workers more than they
imagined.
It was a stake worth fighting for, that vast prone bulk overshadowing
Adamsville, rich with the congealed essence of the ages. His father
fought for himself, and for the group of spoilers who sought to bleed it
for their selfish sakes. The son's cause was the cause of the people--of
the toiling, inarticulate herd fettered by ignorance and immemorial
adjustment to serfdom. Democracy against oppression--it was the real
fight which the Adamsville press short-sightedly claimed was being waged
over sea and sky and land against the war-mad encroachment of autocracy.
The warring causes abroad were cloudy; the local situation was clear. So
he told himself; and the parallel spoke strongly in his stirring
speeches to the patient union fighters.
A new masterfulness radiated in his utterances. As a servant of the
State, as well as a contender for the people, he was close to the
tangled heart of the intricate struggle. He felt surer of himself than
ever.
The mood of restrained audacity found itself cabined and confined in the
irritation of mining statistics. The card for the University Club summer
dance came opportunely; he went, too, through a perverse joy in
embarrassing the good people of Adamsville by his disconcerting
presence, and in studying their varied reactions to his new role.
He joined the group in the grill, a little diffident as to his
reception. Lane Cullom, unchanging adherent of old, caught him by both
hands. "You darned stranger! What'll it be?"
Lane led him and Hallock Withers, a clubman Pelham knew casually, to one
of the cosy benched tables. "Never forget that you're in the presence of
His Honor the State Mining Inspector, Hal. He's a nut in politics, but
he can play tennis."
"Haven't lifted a racket in four months."
The friend laid an affectionate hand on Pelham's flannels. "I brought a
girl you've just got to meet, Pell! She's from New Orleans, and she is
some trotter! Visiting the Tollivers----"
Pelham grimaced.
"Nothing like Nellie, don't worry! Her name is Louise Ree-sharr----"
"What in the world!"
Lane grunted defensively. "Something like that. Old New Orleans family,
and all the rest----"
The prospect did not attract; but the girl did. She had an opulent
fulness that stopped distinctly short of being plump. Her large eyes
reminded him at once of Jane's, and then of his mother's; but there was
an artistry about their seeming candor that seduced his fancy. The burst
of red roses at her waist did not outshine the glow of her complexion;
vivid dark brown hair sparkled with brilliants set in a quaint tortoise
shell comb. Each of the unimportant details assumed significance as
contributing to the totality of full-blown charm.
She laid a proprietary arm in his, as they passed through the rainbow
glimmer of Oriental lanterns swaying between the lawn trees. "Is
Adamsville always as deadly as this? New Orleans is bad enough--but
this!"