Within the space of the eight weeks granted by the Society of the
Friends of Peace for Saul Hartz’s decision, much was to happen to John
Endor and to the inner world of politics in which he moved. Endor’s
own life was linked so closely with the energies of the time that the
recoil of events affected it deeply. Many strange, many pregnant,
things were about to happen.
John’s first act on his return on the Monday to London from his
rather nightmarish visit to Doe Hill was to communicate at once with
Helen Sholto. He arranged that they should lunch together at a quiet
restaurant in Soho.
Here, in privacy, with none to overhear and none to oversee, he
unburdened his heart. He did not think well to let Helen know of the
Society, much less of his own transactions with it: how in spite of
some deep protesting instinct, he had been induced to take the oath of
allegiance; how in the main he had yielded to the powerful arguments
of their friend in common, George Hierons; and how, having taken the
plunge with a full perception of all that it involved, he was ready
to defend his action. For he now saw with a clearness greater than
ever before, that the malign growth which was so rapidly eating its
way to the core of the state must, no matter what the cost to the body
politic, be at once cut out.
One thing, however, Endor decided to do. That was to tell Helen of the
charge this man, Saul Hartz, had laid upon her good name. Such, indeed,
was his real purpose in going to her at once. The impulse of his nature
would not allow him a moment’s rest until the woman he loved was
rescued from the clutches of the monster of infamy whom she was loyally
serving.
Without preface Endor told her what Saul Hartz had said.
“He says you are his mistress.” As word by word her ear felt their
whispered fall, the surge of emotion in his voice filled her with pain.
Before the blow itself, however, not a nerve quivered. But her heart
turned to ice.
“I felt like killing him. But these are not heroic days. Besides, such
_canaille_ are not worth it--if one has a work to do.”
“Not worth it--no,” she said at last, gently, and then, a woman: “Tell
me, what led him, do you suppose, to say that?”
“Pure devilment. He knows you’re leaving him, he understands your
value, and to give you up to me, of all people, is for one of his
nature a bath of vitriol.”
“But it isn’t like him,” said Helen, “to indulge a mere spite. He is
too big a man. There must have been a deeper, a subtler motive.”
“What do you think it can be?”
“He must have reckoned on an outside chance of your believing what he
said.”
John’s look of sheer incredulity gave her a sudden insight into those
hidden depths of character she had yet to penetrate. This new knowledge
brought a glow of light to her eyes.
“I think,” he said, “as soon as you have lunched, you had better go to
the telephone and tell them you are not returning to the Office. Here
and now you must close this man down. You can never go back to Universe
Building.”
She did not answer at once. Seconds only were recorded by heart and
brain, but when she spoke a weight of years had been added to her
voice. “I think you are right,” she said.
He could guess the wrench to such a practical mind as hers to part
with her career, to give up with almost quixotic decision the greatest
prize in her profession. But faced now with the necessity she did not
hesitate. “I have saved very little,” she said quite simply. “And I
don’t quite see how I am going to get work--certainly not immediately,
if at all. The U. P. may be able to close every door. He says they can.
However ... no matter ... there it is. I’ll go and telephone to them
now.”
His own will had steeled hers for the task. So be it! Let the die be
cast! But as he sat at the restaurant table, looking all the facts in
the face, the oppression upon his heart was almost more than he could
bear.
Storm clouds lowered on every hand, heavy with menace. The future was
dark to the verge of the terrible.
As Helen returned, that virile figure, so strong, so sane, so alive
with courage and capacity braced him for his own great throw.
“You’ve cut the painter?”
“Yes,” she said in a low voice.
“Well now, my darling,” he said with the odd tenderness which always
made him so hard to resist, “we stand together or we fall. Let us get
married at once with the least possible fuss.”
She did not yield at once. Elementally she was very feminine. Besides,
there were strong arguments to bring against unseemly haste. It would
be a bitter blow to John’s mother who had quite other views for her ewe
lamb. And what, pray, had they to set up housekeeping upon, now that
Helen had just cast away her princely thousand dollars a month?
John, however, had given thought to all that. The old lady, with
Helen’s consent, should stay on at Wyndham where things might remain
exactly as they were for the rest of her days; and Helen and he could
take a small house in London. At the start, it was true, the house in
London would have to be a very modest affair. He had a few hundred a
year of his own, plus a few hundred more as a member of parliament; but
now that the U. P. had raised the fiery cross, that source of revenue
would probably disappear at the next general election, which by all the
portents could not be long delayed. When his mother died he would have
Wyndham and her entire income, which, however, at the present time was
barely sufficient to keep up an old and much depreciated property.
It would be foolish to shirk the fact that for the time being they
would have to pare cheese. They would find themselves with their backs
to the wall, with calumny and misrepresentation on every hand; but let
them stand shoulder to shoulder, their colors nailed to the mast. No
matter what happened they would go down fighting.
The light in his eyes decided Helen. She, too, belonged to a free
people.
“Yes,” she said, “we’ll stand or fall together.”
He grasped, in his boy’s way, the hand of a good comrade. “We’ll break
the International Newspaper Ring, or it shall break us.”
She was quite ready to buckle on his armor. “Government by newspaper
must end--if civilization is to go on. One has always smiled at the
notion that Saul Hartz can put in any government he chooses and turn
it out if it doesn’t please him, but in the last three weeks one’s eyes
have been opened to many things. And if the Breit Combine joins with
the U. P. as you declare it will, my own country will be in the same
plight.”
“Yes,” said John Endor, “now you really see the malignant growth that
lies at the very root of the Anglo-Saxon world. There can be no hope of
a stable peace while this king of all grafters is free to go on. Well,
thank God, the eyes of some of us are open at last. I’ll go down to the
House this afternoon and air my voice if I get a chance.”
“Do,” she said. “All power to it. Meanwhile, I’ll go and look for a
little house. There are five hundred pounds in my stocking--did I tell
you?--his money, alas!--but I hope honestly earned.”
John took from his pocket a sheaf of notes written in pencil. Much
new material had come to him in the course of the week-end at Doe
Hill for the speech he was meditating in the House of Commons. “But
don’t let us deceive ourselves,” he said. “They are not in the least
likely to listen to a private member. Strong as this indictment is
it will impress neither the Cabinet nor the rank and file. They are
men of straw. The U. P. put them where they are and it can remove
them to-morrow. At least, they believe it can. Shade of Gladstone and
Bright! Shade of Burke and Pitt! that a newspaper trust should have
them all in its pocket.”
As he got up from the table, his face, which still bore the marks of
recent ill-usage, looked strained and curiously old. But any hint of
weakness was effaced by the eyes which burnt with lustre and intensity.