"Yes?"
"That if you should change your mind and should want my help, you'd
promptly and freely ask for it."
"I agree to that," said Victor. "Now, let's get it clearly in mind.
No matter what is done about me or the League, you promise not to
interfere in any way, unless I ask you to."
Again Jane hesitated. "No matter what they do?" she pleaded.
"No matter what they do," insisted he.
Something in his expression gave her a great thrill of confidence in
him, of enthusiasm. "I promise," she said. "You know best."
"Indeed I do," said he. "Thank you."
A moment's silence, then she exclaimed: "That was why you let me in
to-day--because you wanted to get that promise from me."
"That was one of the reasons," confessed he. "In fact, it was the
chief reason." He smiled at her. "There's nothing I'm so afraid of as
of enthusiasm. I'm going to be still more cautious and exact another
promise from you. You must not tell any one that you have promised not
to interfere."
"I can easily promise that," said Jane.
"Be careful," warned Victor. "A promise easily made is a promise
easily forgotten."
"I begin to understand," said Jane. "You want them to attack you as
savagely as possible. And you don't want them to get the slightest
hint of your plan."
"A good guess," admitted Victor. He looked at her gravely.
"Circumstances have let you farther into my confidence than any one
else is. I hope you will not abuse it."
"You can rely upon me," said Jane. "I want your friendship and your
respect as I never wanted anything in my life before. I'm not afraid to
say these things to you, for I know I'll not be misunderstood."
Victor's smile thrilled her again. "You were born one of us," he said.
"I felt it the first time we talked together."
"Yes. I do want to be somebody," replied the girl. "I can't content
myself in a life of silly routine ... can't do things that have no
purpose, no result. And if it wasn't for my father I'd come out openly
for the things I believe in. But I've got to think of him. It may be
a weakness, but I couldn't overcome it. As long as my father lives I'll
do nothing that would grieve him. Do you despise me for that?"
"I don't despise anybody for anything," said Victor. "In your place I
should put my father first." He laughed. "In your place I'd probably
be a Davy Hull or worse. I try never to forget that I owe everything
to the circumstances in which I was born and brought up. I've simply
got the ideas of my class, and it's an accident that I am of the class
to which the future belongs--the working class that will possess the
earth as soon as it has intelligence enough to enter into its kingdom."
"But," pursued Jane, returning to herself, "I don't intend to be
altogether useless. I can do something and he--my father, I
mean--needn't know. Do you think that is dreadful?"
"I don't like it," said Victor. But he said it in such a way that she
did not feel rebuked or even judged.
"Nor do I," said she. "I'd rather lead the life I wish to lead--say
the things I believe--do the things I believe in--all openly. But I
can't. And all I can do is to spend the income of my money my mother
left me--spend it as I please." With a quick embarrassed gesture she
took an envelope from a small bag in which she was carrying it.
"There's some of it," she said. "I want to give that to your campaign
fund. You are free to use it in any way you please--any way, for
everything you are and do is your cause."
Victor was lying motionless, his eyes closed.
"Don't refuse," she begged. "You've no right to refuse."
A long silence, she watching him uneasily. At last he said, "No--I've
no right to refuse. If I did, it would be from a personal motive. You
understand that when you give the League this money you are doing what
your father would regard as an act of personal treachery to him?"
"You don't think so, do you?" cried she.
"Yes, I do," said he deliberately.
Her face became deathly pale, then crimson. She thrust the envelope
into the bag, closed it hastily. "Then I can't give it," she murmured.
"Oh--but you are hard!"
"If you broke with your father and came with us--and it killed him, as
it probably would," Victor Dorn went on, "I should respect you--should
regard you as a wonderful, terrible woman. I should envy you having a
heart strong enough to do a thing so supremely right and so supremely
relentless. And I should be glad you were not of my blood--should
think you hardly human. Yet that is what you ought to do."
"I am not up to it," said Jane.
"Then you mustn't do the other," said Victor. "We need the money. I
am false to the cause in urging you not to give it. But--I'm human."
He was looking away, an expression in his eyes and about his mouth that
made him handsomer than she would have believed a man could be. She
was looking at him longingly, her beautiful eyes swimming. Her lips
were saying inaudibly, "I love you--I love you."
"What did you say?" he asked, his thoughts returning from their far
journey.
"My time is up," she exclaimed, rising.
"There are better ways of helping than money," said he, taking her
hand. "And already you've helped in those ways."
"May I come again?"
"Whenever you like. But--what would your father say?"
"Then you don't want me to come again?"
"It's best not," said he. "I wish fate had thrown us on the same side.
But it has put us in opposite camps--and we owe it to ourselves to
submit."
Their hands were still clasped. "You are content to have it so?" she
said sadly.
"No, I'm not," cried he, dropping her hand. "But we are helpless."
"We can always hope," said she softly.
On impulse she laid her hand in light caress upon his brow, then
swiftly departed. As she stood in Mrs. Colman's flowery little front
yard and looked dazedly about, it seemed to her that she had been away
from the world--away from herself--and was reluctantly but inevitably
returning.