Jane knocked at the door of her father's little office. "Are you
there, father?" said she.
"Yes--come in, Jinny." As she entered, he went on, "But you must go
right away again. I've got to 'tend to this strike." He took on an
injured, melancholy tone. "Those fool workingmen! They're certain to
lose. And what'll come of it all? Why, they'll be out their wages and
their jobs, and the company lose so much money that it can't put on the
new cars the public's clamorin' for. The old cars'll have to do for
another year, anyhow--maybe two."
Jane had heard that lugubrious tone from time to time, and she knew
what it meant--an air of sorrow concealing secret joy. So, here was
another benefit the company--she preferred to think of it as the
company rather than as her father--expected to gain from the strike.
It could put off replacing the miserable old cars in which it was
compelling people to ride. Instead of losing money by the strike, it
would make money by it. This was Jane's first glimpse of one of the
most interesting and important truths of modern life--how it is often
to the advantage of business men to have their own business crippled,
hampered, stopped altogether.
"You needn't worry, father," said she cheerfully. "The strike's been
declared off."
"What's that?" cried her father.
"A girl from down town just called. She says the union has called the
strike off and the men have accepted the company's terms."
"But them terms is withdrawn!" cried Hastings, as if his daughter were
the union. He seized the telephone. "I'll call up the office and
order 'em withdrawn."
"It's too late," said she.
Just then the telephone bell rang, and Hastings was soon hearing
confirmation of the news his daughter had brought him. She could not
bear watching his face as he listened. She turned her back, stood
gazing out at the window. Her father, beside himself, was shrieking
into the telephone curses, denunciations, impossible orders. The one
emergency against which he had not provided was the union's ending the
strike. When you have struck the line of battle of a general, however
able and self-controlled, in the one spot where he has not arranged a
defense, you have thrown him--and his army--into a panic. Some of the
greatest tactitians in history have given way in those circumstances;
so, Martin Hastings' utter loss of self-control and of control of the
situation only proves that he had his share of human nature. He had
provided against the unexpected; he had not provided against the
impossible.
Jane let her father rave on into the telephone until his voice grew
hoarse and squeaky. Then she turned and said: "Now, father--what's
the use of making yourself sick? You can't do any good--can you?" She
laid one hand on his arm, with the other hand caressed his head. "Hang
up the receiver and think of your health."
"I don't care to live, with such goings-on," declared he. But he hung
up the receiver and sank back in his chair, exhausted.
"Come out on the porch," she went on, tugging gently at him. "The air's
stuffy in here."
He rose obediently. She led him to the veranda and seated him
comfortably, with a cushion in his back at the exact spot at which it
was most comfortable. She patted his shrunken cheeks, stood off and
looked at him.
"Where's your sense of humor?" she cried. "You used to be able to
laugh when things went against you. You're getting to be as solemn and
to take yourself as seriously as Davy Hull."
The old man made a not unsuccessful attempt to smile. "That there
Victor Dorn!" said he. "He'll be the death of me, yet."
"What has he done now?" said Jane, innocently.
Hastings rubbed his big bald forehead with his scrawny hand. "He's
tryin' to run this town--to run it to the devil," replied he, by way of
evasion.
"Something's got to be done about him--eh?" observed she, in a fine
imitation of a business-like voice.
"Something WILL be done," retorted he.
Jane winced--hid her distress--returned to the course she had mapped
out for herself. "I hope it won't be something stupid," said she.
Then she seated herself and went on. "Father--did you ever stop to
wonder whether it is Victor Dorn or the changed times?"
The old man looked up abruptly and sharply--the expression of a shrewd
man when he catches a hint of a new idea that sounds as if it might
have something in it.
"You blame Victor Dorn," she went on to explain. "But if there were no
Victor Dorn, wouldn't you be having just the same trouble? Aren't men
of affairs having them everywhere--in Europe as well as on this
side--nowadays?"
The old man rubbed his brow--his nose--his chin--pulled at the tufts of
hair in his ears--fumbled with his cuffs. All of these gestures
indicated interest and attention.
"Isn't the real truth not Victor Dorn or Victor Dorns but a changed and
changing world?" pursued the girl. "And if that's so, haven't you
either got to adopt new methods or fall back? That's the way it looks
to me--and we women have got intuitions if we haven't got sense."
"_I_ never said women hadn't got sense," replied the old man. "I've
sometimes said MEN ain't got no sense, but not women. Not to go no
further, the women make the men work for 'em--don't they? THAT'S a
pretty good quality of sense, _I_ guess."
But she knew he was busily thinking all the time about what she had
said. So she did not hesitate to go on: "Instead of helping Victor
Dorn by giving him things to talk about, it seems to me I'd USE him,
father."
"Can't do anything with him. He's crazy," declared Hastings.
"I don't believe it," replied Jane. "I don't believe he's crazy. And
I don't believe you can't manage him. A man like that--a man as clever
as he is--doesn't belong with a lot of ignorant tenement-house people.
He's out of place. And when anything or anybody is out of place, they
can be put in their right place. Isn't that sense?"
The old man shook his head--not in negation, but in uncertainty.
"These men are always edging you on against Victor Dorn--what's the
matter with them?" pursued Jane. "_I_ saw, when Davy Hull talked about
him. They're envious and jealous of him, father. They're afraid he'll
distance them. And they don't want you to realize what a useful man he
could be--how he could help you if you helped him--made friends with
him--roused the right kind of ambition in him."
"When a man's ambitious," observed Hastings, out of the fullness of his
own personal experience, "it means he's got something inside him,
teasing and nagging at him--something that won't let him rest, but
keeps pushing and pulling--and he's got to keep fighting, trying to
satisfy it--and he can't wait to pick his ground or his weapons."
"And Victor Dorn," said Jane, to make it clearer to her father by
putting his implied thought into words, "Victor Dorn is doing the best
he can--fighting on the only ground that offers and with the only
weapons he can lay hands on."
The old man nodded. "I never have blamed him--not really," declared
he. "A practical man--a man that's been through things--he understands
how these things are," in the tone of a philosopher. "Yes, I reckon
Victor's doing the best he can--getting up by the only ladder he's got
a chance at."
"The way to get him off that ladder is to give him another," said Jane.
A long silence, the girl letting her father thresh the matter out in
his slow, thorough way. Finally her young impatience conquered her
restraint. "Well--what do you think, popsy?" inquired she.
"That I've got about as smart a gel as there is in Remsen City,"
replied he.
"Don't lay it on too thick," laughed she.
He understood why she was laughing, though he did not show it. He knew
what his much-traveled daughter thought of Remsen City, but he held to
his own provincial opinion, nevertheless. Nor, perhaps, was he so far
wrong as she believed. A cross section of human society, taken almost
anywhere, will reveal about the same quantity of brain, and the quality
of the mill is the thing, not of the material it may happen to be
grinding.
She understood that his remark was his way of letting her know that he
had taken her suggestion under advisement. This meant that she had
said enough. And Jane Hastings had made herself an adept in the art of
handling her father--an accomplishment she could by no means have
achieved had she not loved him; it is only when a woman deeply and
strongly loves a man that she can learn to influence him, for only love
can put the necessary sensitiveness into the nerves with which moods
and prejudices and whims and such subtle uncertainties can be felt out.
The next day but one, coming out on the front veranda a few minutes
before lunch time she was startled rather than surprised to see Victor
Dorn seated on a wicker sofa, hat off and gaze wandering delightedly
over the extensive view of the beautiful farming country round Remsen
City. She paused in the doorway to take advantage of the chance to
look at him when he was off his guard. Certainly that profile view of
the young man was impressive. It is only in the profile that we get a
chance to measure the will or propelling force behind a character. In
each of the two main curves of Dorn's head--that from the top of the
brow downward over the nose, the lips, the chin and under, and that
from the back of the head round under the ear and forward along the
lower jaw--in each of these curves Dorn excelled.
She was about to draw back and make a formal entry, when he said,
without looking toward her:
"Well--don't you think it would be safe to draw near?"
The tone was so easy and natural and so sympathetic--the tone of Selma
Gordon--the tone of all natural persons not disturbed about themselves
or about others--that Jane felt no embarrassment whatever. "I've heard
you were very clever," said she, advancing. "So, I wanted to have the
advantage of knowing you a little better at the outset than you would
know me."
"But Selma Gordon has told me all about you," said he--he had risen as
she advanced and was shaking hands with her as if they were old
friends. "Besides, I saw you the other day--in spite of your effort to
prevent yourself from being seen."
"What do you mean?" she asked, completely mystified.
"I mean your clothes," explained he. "They were unusual for this part
of the world. And when anyone wears unusual clothes, they act as a
disguise. Everyone neglects the person to center on the clothes."
"I wore them to be comfortable," protested Jane, wondering why she was
not angry at this young man whose manner ought to be regarded as
presuming and whose speech ought to be rebuked as impertinent.
"Altogether?" said Dorn, his intensely blue eyes dancing.
In spite of herself she smiled. "No--not altogether," she admitted.
"Well, it may please you to learn that you scored tremendously as far
as one person is concerned. My small nephew talks of you all the
time--the 'lady in the lovely pants.'"
Jane colored deeply and angrily. She bent upon Victor a glance that
ought to have put him in his place--well down in his place.
But he continued to look at her with unchanged, laughing, friendly blue
eyes, and went on: "By the way, his mother asked me to apologize for
HIS extraordinary appearance. I suppose neither of you would recognize
the other in any dress but the one each had on that day. He doesn't
always dress that way. His mother has been ill. He wore out his
play-clothes. If you've had experience of children you'll know how
suddenly they demolish clothes. She wasn't well enough to do any
tailoring, so there was nothing to do but send Leonard forth in his big
brother's unchanged cast-offs."
Jane's anger had quite passed away before Dorn finished this simple,
ingenuous recital of poverty unashamed, this somehow fine laying open
of the inmost family secrets. "What a splendid person your sister must
be!" exclaimed she.
She more than liked the look that now came into his face. He said:
"Indeed she is!--more so than anyone except us of the family can
realize. Mother's getting old and almost helpless. My brother-in-law
was paralyzed by an accident at the rolling mill where he worked. My
sister takes care of both of them--and her two boys--and of me--keeps
the house in band-box order, manages a big garden that gives us most of
what we eat--and has time to listen to the woes of all the neighbors
and to give them the best advice I ever heard."
"How CAN she?" cried Jane. "Why, the day isn't long enough."
Dorn laughed. "You'll never realize how much time there is in a day,
Miss Jane Hastings, until you try to make use of it all. It's very
interesting--how much there is in a minute and in a dollar if you're
intelligent about them."
Jane looked at him in undisguised wonder and admiration. "You don't
know what a pleasure it is," she said, "to meet anyone whose sentences
you couldn't finish for him before he's a quarter the way through them."
Victor threw back his head and laughed--a boyish outburst that would
have seemed boorish in another, but came as naturally from him as song
from a bird. "You mean Davy Hull," said he.
Jane felt herself coloring even more. "I didn't mean him especially,"
replied she. "But he's a good example."
"The best I know," declared Victor. "You see, the trouble with Davy is
that he is one kind of a person, wants to be another kind, thinks he
ought to be a third kind, and believes he fools people into thinking he
is still a fourth kind."
Jane reflected on this, smiled understandingly. "That sounds like a
description of ME," said she.
"Probably," said Victor. "It's a very usual type in the second
generation in your class."
"My class?" said Jane, somewhat affectedly. "What do you mean?"
"The upper class," explained Victor.
Jane felt that this was an opportunity for a fine exhibition of her
democracy. "I don't like that," said she. "I'm a good American, and I
don't believe in classes. I don't feel--at least I try not to
feel--any sense of inequality between myself and those--those
less--less--fortunately off. I'm not expressing myself well, but you
know what I mean."
"Yes, I know what you mean," rejoined Victor. "But that wasn't what I
meant, at all. You are talking about social classes in the narrow
sense. That sort of thing isn't important. One associates with the
kind of people that pleases one--and one has a perfect right to do so.
If I choose to have my leisure time with people who dress a certain
way, or with those who have more than a certain amount of money, or
more than a certain number of servants or what not--why, that's my own
lookout."
"I'm SO glad to hear you say that," cried Jane. "That's SO sensible."
"Snobbishness may be amusing," continued Dorn, "or it may be
repulsive--or pitiful. But it isn't either interesting or important.
The classes I had in mind were the economic classes--upper, middle,
lower. The upper class includes all those who live without
work--aristocrats, gamblers, thieves, preachers, women living off men
in or out of marriage, grown children living off their parents or off
inheritances. All the idlers."
Jane looked almost as uncomfortable as she felt. She had long taken a
secret delight in being regarded and spoken of as an "upper class"
person. Henceforth this delight would be at least alloyed.
"The middle class," pursued Victor, "is those who are in part parasites
and in part workers. The lower class is those who live by what they
earn only. For example, you are upper class, your father is middle
class and I am lower class."
"Thank you," said Jane demurely, "for an interesting lesson in
political economy."
"You invited it," laughed Victor. "And I guess it wasn't much more
tiresome to you than talk about the weather would have been. The
weather's probably about the only other subject you and I have in
common."
"That's rude," said Jane.
"Not as I meant it," said he. "I wasn't exalting my subjects or
sneering at yours. It's obvious that you and I lead wholly different
lives."
"I'd much rather lead your life than my own," said Jane. "But--you are
impatient to see father. You came to see him?"
"He telephoned asking me to come to dinner--that is, lunch. I believe
it's called lunch when it's second in this sort of house."
"Father calls it dinner, and I call it lunch, and the servants call it
IT. They simply say, 'It's ready.'"
Jane went in search of her father, found him asleep in his chair in the
little office, one of his dirty little account books clasped in his
long, thin fingers with their rheumatic side curve. The maid had seen
him there and had held back dinner until he should awaken. Perhaps
Jane's entrance roused him; or, perhaps it was the odor of the sachet
powder wherewith her garments were liberally scented, for he had a
singularly delicate sense of smell. He lifted his head and, after the
manner of aged and confirmed cat-nappers, was instantly wide awake.
"Why didn't you tell me Victor Dorn was coming for dinner?" said she.
"Oh--he's here, is he?" said Hastings, chuckling. "You see I took your
advice. Tell Lizzie to lay an extra plate."
Hastings regarded this invitation as evidence of his breadth of mind,
his freedom from prejudice, his disposition to do the generous and the
helpful thing. In fact, it was evidence of little more than his
dominant and most valuable trait--his shrewdness. After one careful
glance over the ruins of his plan, he appreciated that Victor Dorn was
at last a force to be reckoned with. He had been growing,
growing--somewhat above the surface, a great deal more beneath the
surface. His astonishing victory demonstrated his power over Remsen
City labor--in a single afternoon he had persuaded the street car union
to give up without hesitation a strike it had been planning--at least,
it thought it had been doing the planning--for months. The Remsen City
plutocracy was by no means dependent upon the city government of Remsen
City. It had the county courts--the district courts--the State courts
even, except where favoring the plutocracy would be too obviously
outrageous for judges who still considered themselves men of honest and
just mind to decide that way. The plutocracy, further, controlled all
the legislative and executive machinery. To dislodge it from these
fortresses would mean a campaign of years upon years, conducted by men
of the highest ability, and enlisting a majority of the voters of the
State. Still, possession of the Remsen City government was a most
valuable asset. A hostile government could "upset business," could
"hamper the profitable investment of capital," in other words could
establish justice to a highly uncomfortable degree. This victory of
Dorn's made it clear to Hastings that at last Dorn was about to unite
the labor vote under his banner--which meant that he was about to
conquer the city government. It was high time to stop him and, if
possible, to give his talents better employment.
However, Hastings, after the familiar human fashion, honestly thought
he was showing generosity, was going out of his way to "give a likely
young fellow a chance." When he came out on the veranda he stretched
forth a graciously friendly hand and, looking shrewdly into Victor's
boyishly candid eyes, said:
"Glad to see you, young man. I want to thank you for ending that
strike. I was born a working man, and I've been one all my life and,
when I can't work any more, I want to quit the earth. So, being a
working man, I hate to see working men make fools of themselves."
Jane was watching the young man anxiously. She instinctively knew that
this speech must be rousing his passion for plain and direct speaking.
Before he had time to answer she said: "Dinner's waiting. Let's go in."
And on the way she made an opportunity to say to him in an undertone:
"I do hope you'll be careful not to say anything that'll upset father.
I have to warn every one who comes here. His digestion's bad, and the
least thing makes him ill, and--" she smiled charmingly at him--"I HATE
nursing. It's too much like work to suit an upper-class person."
There was no resisting such an appeal as that. Victor sat silent and
ate, and let the old man talk on and on. Jane saw that it was a severe
trial to him to seem to be assenting to her father's views. Whenever
he showed signs of casting off his restraint, she gave him a pleading
glance. And the old man, so weazened, so bent and shaky, with his bowl
of crackers and milk, was--or seemed to be--proof that the girl was
asking of him only what was humane. Jane relieved the situation by
talking volubly about herself--her college experiences, what she had
seen and done in Europe.
After dinner Hastings said:
"I'll drive you back to town, young man. I'm going in to work, as
usual. I never took a vacation in my life. Can you beat that record?"
"Oh, I knock off every once in a while for a month or so," said Dorn.
"The young fellows growing up nowadays ain't equal to us of the old
stock," said Martin. "They can't stand the strain. Well, if you're
ready, we'll pull out."
"Mr. Dorn's going to stop a while with me, father," interposed Jane
with a significant glance at Victor. "I want to show him the grounds
and the views."
"All right--all right," said her father. He never liked company in his
drives; company interfered with his thinking out what he was going to
do at the office. "I'm mighty glad to know you, young man. I hope
we'll know each other better. I think you'll find out that for a devil
I'm not half bad--eh?"
Victor bowed, murmured something inarticulate, shook his host's hand,
and when the ceremony of parting was over drew a stealthy breath of
relief--which Jane observed. She excused herself to accompany her
father to his trap. As he was climbing in she said:
"Didn't you rather like him, father?"
Old Hastings gathered the reins in his lean, distorted hands. "So so,"
said he.
"He's got brains, hasn't he?"
"Yes; he's smart; mighty smart." The old man's face relaxed in a
shrewd grin. "Too damn smart. Giddap, Bet."
And he was gone. Jane stood looking after the ancient phaeton with an
expression half of amusement, half of discomfiture. "I might have
known," reflected she, "that popsy would see through it all."
When she reappeared in the front doorway Victor Dorn was at the edge of
the veranda, ready to depart. As soon as he saw her he said gravely:
"I must be off, Miss Hastings. Thank you for the very interesting
dinner." He extended his hand. "Good day."
She put her hands behind her back, and stood smiling gently at him.
"You mustn't go--not just yet. I'm about to show you the trees and the
grass, the bees, the chickens and the cows. Also, I've something
important to say to you."