The fates were at her elbow. As she sent for the _Evening Press_, she
realized that fact to the full. Afraid to turn again to her occupation
of the last three hours, the weighing of her love for John Endor, she
was yet unable to escape the challenge of a dire event. Truly a woman,
yet beyond all things she was an American citizen. No matter what his
spells, she could never marry a man of these ideas. Her country must
stand first.
The _Evening Press_ arrived. Folding back the sheet, the rather
unpretty sheet with its crude headlines and blurred ink, she placed a
finger on the fatal paragraph.
While he read she watched him. But his face was hidden by the paper and
it was not until a slow perusal was at an end that it came again into
view. So great was the change that it struck her almost with fear. The
allure was gone; such a depth of pallor had the look of death itself.
But the eyes were blazing and the large, mobile orator’s mouth was
clenched in a vain effort to control its emotion.
“Blackguards!” he gasped. She saw that in his eyes were tears. Her
brain was numb, yet the glow racing through her veins was sheer joy.
The question was answered; every doubt was laid. So much for the
woman. And in that moment the woman was paramount. But in the balanced
mind, delicately poised, acutely commonsensible, was now a concern
beyond the personal. What was the meaning of it all?
“I knew of course ... I felt ... that you had been ... misreported.”...
Her words were tentative, inadequate. Painfully watching the man
opposite she knew only too well that the John Endor of three minutes
back might never have been. The play, the interplay, of changing lights
upon his face and in his eyes were beyond her ken. Almost for the first
time she began to have a real perception of the infinities within him,
of that central power which could sweep a great audience off its feet.
Of a sudden he sprang fiercely from his chair. “It’s devilish!” His
voice was hoarse. “Absolutely devilish!”
Hardly had he used the words when the pain in her eyes reined him back.
Abruptly as he had risen, he sat down again at the table. “I beg your
pardon!” he said. “But, you see, it’s a stab in the back--from the
world’s most accomplished assassin.”
She saw that his lips were white and that his face was drawn.
“Mayn’t it be just a mere accident?” Courage was needed to say
anything. To say that called for much.
He laughed harshly. The gay irresponsible boy might never have been.
“Accidents don’t happen to the Universal Press.”
“But why shouldn’t they--once in a while?” Her voice had a maternal
caress in it.
“The U. P. is the most efficient machine ever invented. It lives for
and by efficiency--damnable word! That’s the talisman with which it
sways five continents. God help us all! No accident here.”
“Can you really be sure?”
“Internal evidence. The few casual, cut-and-dried phrases I used,
hardly more than a formal returning of thanks, have been so twisted
round that they are the exact opposite of what was meant.”
“Perhaps there’s been a confusion of names.”
“No! no! Much too circumstantial--John Endor--luncheon--this
afternoon--Blackhampton Town Hall. There’s no excuse. And the trick is
so simple, so easy, once you condescend to its use. Take that final
phrase, ‘I believe in the Sword.’”
Helen waited eagerly.
“Knock out the first letter of the last word and you have the phrase I
used.”
She was blinded for a moment by the flood of light let in by this
concrete instance. It went far to prove that his suspicions, which by
nature he was the last man in the world to harbor, were not without
warrant. Such a rebuttal of the charge against himself was complete,
final; at the same time Helen Sholto had a very strong reason of her
own for declining to accept all the implications that now arose.
In a sense she herself was an employee of the Universal Press. For
nearly two years she had been one of the private secretaries of Saul
Hartz, the master spirit of the U. P.--its organizer of victory.
Moreover to the Colossus, as he was playfully called, she had a deep
sense of loyalty. To her he had always seemed a truly great man. Moving
up and down the intensive London world, it was no new thing to hear
harshly criticized the mighty organization of international newspapers
of which he was the head. More than once she had heard its motives
impugned, but she had shrewdly perceived that so great a force in the
life of the time could be wielded only at a price. To Helen Sholto
the Colossus stood forth the _beau idéal_ of a considerate, almost
princely, employer. His foes were many, but none denied his genius. And
in the sight of Helen he was so considerable a man, the admiration he
excited was so keen, her sense of gratitude was so lively and so deep,
that it was almost _lèse majesté_ to traverse his political acts.
It had always been the aim of the Colossus to keep as much as possible
in the background of affairs. None the less, in his own despite, he
was becoming known as the secret power which propelled many a great
movement of the time. It was said that he created and directed public
opinion on more than one continent--to such an extent that he made and
unmade governments; enforced and canceled treaties; in a word, he and
the International Newspaper Ring that he controlled had become a menace
to the world. But Helen Sholto in all her dealings with this man had
never had reason to suspect that he claimed for himself these plenary
powers.
Sensitive as she was for John Endor and jealous for his growing
reputation, it now became her clear duty to defend Saul Hartz. She
believed him to be an honest man. Had one doubt infected her mind
she could not have served him. But in the immediate presence of her
fiancé’s terrible indictment she lost the power to marshal her ideas.
Womanlike she grew a little wounded by such a condemnation of the
Colossus and all his works.
Granted that the blow had shaken John to the foundations and making
allowance for a vivid temperament, she could have wished in this tragic
hour that the sufferer had shown a little more regard for her feelings.
But she had only to exhibit those feelings, or as much of them as pride
would allow, for this impulsive child-of-a-man to be on his knees.
Humbly he owned that his sense of outrage had carried him completely
away. He should have remembered that Mr. Hartz was her patron and
friend. A naïf, almost boyish apology, bound her wound, wiped away her
tears. His outburst was freely forgiven. Perhaps it was forgiven the
more freely inasmuch as Helen felt quite sure in her own mind that she
would soon be able to clear one hero of the charges brought against him
by the other.