"The nearest I ever came to it was with you," replied he. "But that
was, of course, out of the question."
"I don't admit that," said she, with an amusing kind of timid obstinacy.
"Let's be honest and natural with each other," urged he. "Now, Jane,
admit that in your heart of hearts you feel you ought not to marry me."
Her glance avoided his.
"Come--own up!" cried he.
"I have thought of that side of it," she conceded.
"And if I hadn't piqued you by thinking of it, too, you'd never have
lingered on any other side of it," said he. "Well! Now that we've
cleared the ground--there's Davy. He's to be nominated by the
Republicans for Governor next week."
"Davy? I had almost forgotten him. I'll think of Davy--and let you
know ... And you? Who is there for you?"
"Oh--no one you know. My sister has recommended several girls from
time to time. I'll see."
Jane gave the freest and heartiest laugh that had passed her lips in
more than a year. It was thus free and unrestrained because he had not
said what she was fearing he would say--had not suggested the woman
nearest him, the obvious woman. So eager was she to discover what he
thought of Selma, that she could hardly restrain herself from
suggesting her. Before they could say anything more, two men came to
talk with him. Jane could not but leave.
She dined that night at Mrs. Sherlock's--Mrs. Sherlock was Davy's
oldest sister. Davy took her in, they talked--about his
career--through dinner, and he walked home with her in the moonlight.
He was full of his approaching nomination. He had been making what is
known as a good record, as mayor. That is, he had struck out boldly at
sundry petty abuses practised by a low and comparatively uninfluential
class of exploiters of the people. He had been so busy with these
showy trifles that there had been no time for the large abuses. True,
he had publicly warned the gas company about its poor gas, and the
water company about its unwholesome water for the low-lying tenement
districts, and the traction company about the fewness and filthiness of
its cars. The gas company had talked of putting in improved machinery;
the water company had invited estimates on a filtration plant; the
traction company had said a vague something about new cars as soon as
car manufacturers could make definite promises as to delivery. But
nothing had been done--as yet. Obviously a corporation, a large
investment of capital, must be treated with consideration. It would
not do for a conservative, fair minded mayor to rush into demagogery.
So, Davy was content to point proudly to his record of having "made the
big corporations awaken to a sense of their duty." An excellent
record, as good as a reform politician, with a larger career in
prospect, could be expected to make. People spoke well of Mayor Hull
and the three daily papers eulogized him. Davy no longer had qualms of
conscience. He read the eulogies, he listened to the flatteries of the
conservative leading citizens he met at the Lincoln and at the
University, and he felt that he was all that he in young enthusiasm had
set out to be.
When he went to other cities and towns and to county fairs to make
addresses he was introduced as the man who had redeemed Remsen City, as
a shining example of the honest SANE man in politics, as a man the
bosses were afraid of, yet dared not try to down. "You can't fool the
people." And were not the people, notably those who didn't live in
Remsen City and had only read in their newspapers about the reform
Republican mayor--weren't they clamorous for Mayor Hull for governor!
Thus, Davy was high in his own esteem, was in that mood of profound
responsibility to righteousness and to the people wherein a man can get
the enthusiastic endorsement of his conscience for any act he deems it
expedient to commit in safeguarding and advancing his career. His
person had become valuable to his country. His opponents were
therefore anathema maranatha.
As he and Jane walked side by side in the tender moonlight, Jane said:
"What's become of Selma Gordon?"
A painful pause; then Davy, in a tone that secretly amused Jane:
"Selma? I see her occasionally--at a distance. She still writes for
Victor Dorn's sheet, I believe. I never see it."
Jane felt she could easily guess why. "Yes--it is irritating to read
criticisms of oneself," said she sweetly. Davy's self-complacence had
been most trying to her nerves.
Another long silence, then he said: "About--Miss Gordon. I suppose
you were thinking of the things I confided to you last year?"
"Yes, I was," confessed Jane.
"That's all over," said Mayor and prospective Governor Hull. "I found I
was mistaken in her."
"Didn't you tell me that she refused you?" pressed Jane, most unkindly.
"We met again after that," said Davy--by way of proving that even the
most devoted apostle of civic righteousness is yet not without his
share of the common humanity, "and from that time I felt differently
toward her.... I've never been able to understand my folly.... I
wonder if you could forgive me for it?"
Davy was a good deal of a bore, she felt. At least, he seemed so in
this first renewing of old acquaintance. But he was a man of purpose,
a man who was doing much and would do more. And she liked him, and had
for him that feeling of sympathy and comprehension which exists among
people of the same region, brought up in much the same way. Instead of
cutting him off, she temporized. Said she with a serenely careless
laugh that might have let a man more expert in the ways of women into
the secret of how little she cared about him: "You mean forgive you
for dropping me so abruptly and running after her?"
"That's not exactly the way to put it," objected he.
"Put it any way you like," said Jane. "I forgive you. I didn't care
at the time, and I don't care now."
Jane was looking entrancing in that delicate light. Davy was
noting--was feeling--this. Also, he was reflecting--in a high-minded
way--upon the many material, mental and spiritual advantages of a
marriage with her. Just the woman to be a governor's wife--a senator's
wife--a president's wife. Said he:
"Jane, my feeling for you has never changed."
"Really?" said Jane. "Why, I thought you told me at one time that you
were in love with me?"
"And I always have been, dear--and am," said Davy, in his deepest,
tenderest tones. "And now that I am winning a position worthy of
you----"
"I'll see," cut in Jane. "Let's not talk about it tonight." She felt
that if he kept on she might yield to the temptation to say something
mocking, something she would regret if it drove him away finally.
He was content. The ice had been broken. The Selma Gordon business
had been disposed of. The way was clear for straight-away love-making
the next time they met. Meanwhile he would think about her, would get
steam up, would have his heart blazing and his words and phrases all in
readiness.
Every human being has his or her fundamental vanity that must be kept
alive, if life is to be or to seem to be worth living. In man this
vanity is usually some form of belief in his mental ability, in woman
some form of belief in her physical charm. Fortunately--or, rather,
necessarily--not much is required to keep this vanity alive--or to
restore it after a shock, however severe. Victor Dorn had been
compelled to give Jane Hastings' vanity no slight shock. But it
recovered at once. Jane saw that his failure to yield was due not to
lack of potency in her charms, but to extraordinary strength of purpose
in his character. Thus, not only was she able to save herself from any
sense of humiliation, but also she was without any feeling of
resentment against him. She liked him and admired him more than ever.
She saw his point of view; she admitted that he was right--IF it were
granted that a life such as he had mapped for himself was better for
him than the career he could have made with her help.
Her heart, however, was hastily, even rudely thrust to the background
when she discovered that her brother had been gambling in wheat with
practically her entire fortune. With an adroitness that irritated her
against herself, as she looked back, he had continued to induce her to
disregard their father's cautionings and to ask him to take full charge
of her affairs. He had not lost her fortune, but he had almost lost
it. But for an accidental stroke, a week of weather destructive to
crops all over the country, she would have been reduced to an income of
not more than ten or fifteen thousand a year--twenty times the income
of the average American family of five, but for Miss Hastings
straitened subsistence and a miserable state of shornness of all the
radiance of life. And, pushing her inquiries a little farther, she
learned that her brother would still have been rich, because he had
taken care to settle a large sum on his wife--in such a way that if she
divorced him it would pass back to him.
In the course of her arrangings to meet this situation and to prevent
its recurrence she saw much of Doctor Charlton. He gave her excellent
advice and found for her a man to take charge of her affairs so far as
it was wise for her to trust any one. The man was a bank cashier,
Robert Headley by name--one of those rare beings who care nothing for
riches for themselves and cannot invest their own money wisely, but
have a genius for fidelity and wise counsel.
"It's a pity he's married," said Charlton. "If he weren't I'd urge you
to take him as a husband."
Jane laughed. A plainer, duller man than Headley it would have been
hard to find, even among the respectabilities of Remsen City.
"Why do you laugh?" said Charlton. "What is there absurd in a sensible
marriage?"
"Would you marry a woman because she was a good housekeeper?"
"That would be one of the requirements," said Charlton. "I've sense
enough to know that, no matter how much I liked a woman before
marriage, it couldn't last long if she were incompetent. She'd irritate
me every moment in the day. I'd lie awake of nights despising her.
And how she would hate me!"
"I can't imagine you a husband," laughed Jane.
"That doesn't speak well for your imagination," rejoined Charlton. "I
have perfect health--which means that I have a perfect disposition, for
only people with deranged interiors are sour and snappy and moody. And
I am sympathetic and understanding. I appreciate that women are
rottenly brought up and have everything to learn--everything that's
worth while if one is to live comfortably and growingly. So, I
shouldn't expect much at the outset beyond a desire to improve and a
capacity to improve. Yes, I've about all the virtues for a model
husband--a companionable, helpful mate for a woman who wants to be more
of a person every day she lives."
"No, thanks," said Jane, mockingly. "The advertisement reads well, but
I don't care to invest."
"Oh, I looked you over long ago," said Charlton with a coolness that
both amused and exasperated her. "You wouldn't do at all. You are very
attractive to look at and to talk with. Your money would be useful to
some plans I've got for some big sanatoriums along the line of
Schulze's up at Saint Christopher. But---" He shook his head, smiling
at her through a cloud of cigarette smoke.
"Go on," urged Jane. "What's wrong with me?"
"You've been miseducated too far and too deeply. You KNOW too much
that isn't so. You've got the upper class American woman habit of
thinking about yourself all the time. You are an indifferent
housekeeper, and you think you are good at it. You don't know the
practical side of life--cooking, sewing, house furnishing, marketing.
You're ambitious for a show career--the sort Davy Hull--excuse me,
Governor David Hull--is making so noisily. There's just the man for
you. You ought to marry. Marry Hull."
Jane was furiously angry. She did not dare show it; Charlton would
merely laugh and walk away, and perhaps refuse to be friends with her.
It exasperated her to the core, the narrow limitations of the power of
money. She could, through the power of her money, do exactly as she
pleased to and with everybody except the only kind of people she cared
about dominating; these she was apparently the less potent with
because of her money. It seemed to put them on their mettle and on
their guard.
She swallowed her anger. "Yes, I've got to get married," said she.
"And I don't know what to do about it."
"Hull," said Charlton.
"Is that the best advice you can give?" said she disdainfully.
"He needs you, and you need him. You like him--don't you?"
"Very much."
"Then--the thing's done. Davy isn't the man to fail to seize an
opportunity so obviously to his advantage. Not that he hasn't a heart.
He has a big one--does all sorts of gracious, patronizing, kind
things--does no end of harm. But he'd no more let his emotions rule
his life than--than--Victor Dorn--or I, for that matter."
Jane colored; a pathetic sadness tinged the far-away expression of her
eyes.
"No doubt he's half in love with you already. Most men are who know
you. A kindly smile and he'll be kneeling."
"I don't want David Hull," cried Jane. "Ever since I can remember
they've been at me to marry him. He bores me. He doesn't make me
respect him. He never could control me--or teach me--or make me look
up to him in any way. I don't want him, and I won't have him."
"I'm afraid you've got to do it," said Charlton. "You act as if you
realized it and were struggling and screaming against manifest destiny
like a child against a determined mother."
Jane's eyes had a look of terror. "You are joking," said she. "But it
frightens me, just the same."
"I am not joking," replied he. "I can hear the wedding bells--and so
can you."
"Don't!" pleaded Jane. "I've so much confidence in your insight that I
can't bear to hear you saying such things even to tease me.... Why
haven't you told me about these sanatoriums you want?"
"Because I've been hoping I could devise some way of getting them
without the use of money. Did it ever occur to you that almost nothing
that's been of real and permanent value to the world was built with
money? The things that money has done have always been badly done."
"Let me help you," said Jane earnestly. "Give me something to do.
Teach me how to do something. I am SO bored!--and so eager to have an
occupation. I simply can't lead the life of my class.
"You want to be a lady patroness--a lady philanthropist," said
Charlton, not greatly impressed by her despair. "That's only another
form of the life of your class--and a most offensive form."
"Your own terms--your own terms, absolutely," cried Jane in desperation.
"No--marry Hull and go into upper and middle class politics. You'll be
a lady senator or a lady ambassador or cabinet officer, at least."
"I will not marry David Hull--or anybody, just yet," cried Jane. "Why
should I? I've still got ten years where there's a chance of my being
able to attract some man who--attracts me. And after that I can buy as
good a husband as any that offers now. Doctor Charlton, I'm in
desperate, deadly earnest. And I ask you to help me."
"My own terms?"
"I give you my word."
"You'll have to give your money outright. No strings attached. No
chance to be a philanthropist. Also, you'll have to work--have to
educate yourself as I instruct you."
"Yes--yes. Whatever you say."
Charlton looked at her dubiously. "I'm a fool to have anything to do
with this," he said. "You aren't in any way a suitable person--any
more than I'm the sort of man you want to assist you in your schemes.
You don't realize what tests you're to be put through."
"I don't care," said Jane.
"It's a chance to try my theory," mused he. "You know, I insist we are
all absolutely the creatures of circumstance--that character adapts
itself to circumstance--that to change a man or a town or a nation--or
a world--you have only to change their fundamental circumstances."
"You'll try me?"
"I'll think about it," said Charlton. "I'll talk with Victor Dorn
about it."
"Whatever you do, don't talk to him," cried Jane, in terror. "He has no
faith in me--" She checked herself, hastily added--"in anybody outside
his own class."
"I never do anything serious without consulting Victor," said Charlton
firmly. "He's got the best mind of any one I know, and it is foolish
to act without taking counsel of the best."
"He'll advise against it," said Jane bitterly.
"But I may not take his advice literally," said Charlton. "I'm not in
mental slavery to him. I often adapt his advice to my needs instead of
adopting it outright."
And with that she had to be content.
She passed a day and night of restlessness, and called him on the
telephone early the following morning. As she heard his voice she said:
"Did you see Victor Dorn last night?"
"Where are you?" asked Charlton.
"In my room," was her impatient answer.
"In bed?"
"I haven't gotten up yet," said she. "What IS the matter?"
"Had your breakfast?"
"No. I've rung for it. It'll be here in a few minutes."
"I thought so," said Charlton.
"This is very mysterious--or very absurd," said Jane.
"Please ring off and call your kitchen and tell them to put your
breakfast on the dining-room table for you in three-quarters of an
hour. Then get up, take your bath and your exercises--dress yourself
for the day--and go down and eat your breakfast. How can you hope to
amount to anything unless you live by a rational system? And how can
you have a rational system unless you begin the day right?"
"DID you see Victor Dorn?" said Jane--furious at his impertinence but
restraining herself.
"And after you have breakfasted," continued Charlton, "call me up
again, and I'll answer your questions."
With that he hung up his receiver. Jane threw herself angrily back
against her pillow. She would lie there for an hour, then call him
again. But--if he should ask her whether she had obeyed his orders?
True, she might lie to him; but wouldn't that be too petty? She
debated with herself for a few minutes, then obeyed him to the letter.
As she was coming through the front hall after breakfast, he appeared
in the doorway.
"You didn't trust me!" she cried reproachfully.
"Oh, yes," replied he. "But I preferred to talk with you face to face."
"DID you see Mr. Dorn?"
Charlton nodded. "He refused to advise me. He said he had a personal
prejudice in your favor that would make his advice worthless."
Jane glowed--but not quite so thrillingly as she would have glowed in
the same circumstances a year before.
"Besides, he's in no state of mind to advise anybody about anything
just now," said Charlton.
Jane glanced sharply at him. "What do you mean?" she said.
"It's not my secret," replied Charlton.
"You mean he has fallen in love?"
"That's shrewd," said Charlton. "But women always assume a love
affair."
"With whom?" persisted Jane.
"Oh, a very nice girl. No matter. I'm not here to talk about
anybody's affairs but yours--and mine."
"Answer just one question," said Jane, impulsively. "Did he tell you
anything about--me?"
Charlton stared--then whistled. "Are YOU in love with him, too?" he
cried.
Jane flushed--hesitated--then met his glance frankly. "I WAS," said
she.
"WAS?"
"I mean that I'm over it," said she. "What have you decided to do
about me?"
Charlton did not answer immediately. He eyed her narrowly--an
examination which she withstood well. Then he glanced away and seemed
to be reflecting. Finally he came back to her question. Said he:
"To give you a trial. To find out whether you'll do."
She drew a long sigh of relief.
"Didn't you guess?" he went on, smilingly, nodding his round,
prize-fighter head at her. "Those suggestions about bed and
breakfast--they were by way of a beginning."
"You must give me a lot to do," urged she. "I mustn't have a minute of
idle time."
He laughed. "Trust me," he said.
While Jane was rescuing her property from her brother and was
safeguarding it against future attempts by him, or by any of that
numerous company whose eyes are ever roving in search of the most
inviting of prey, the lone women with baggage--while Jane was thus
occupied, David Hull was, if possible, even busier and more absorbed.
He was being elected governor. His State was being got ready to say to
the mayor of Remsen City, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Thou
hast been faithful over a few things; I will make thee ruler over many."
The nomination was not obtained for him without difficulty. The
Republican party--like the Democratic--had just been brought back under
"safe and sane and conservative" leadership after a prolonged debauch
under the influence of that once famous and revered reformer, Aaron
Whitman, who had not sobered up or released the party for its sobering
until his wife's extravagant entertaining at Washington had forced him
to accept large "retainers" from the plutocracy. The machine leaders
had in the beginning forwarded the ambitions of Whitman under the
impression that his talk of a "square deal" was "just the usual dope"
and that Aaron was a "level-headed fellow at bottom." It had
developed--after they had let Aaron become a popular idol, not to be
trifled with--it had developed that he was almost sincere--as sincere
as can be expected of an ambitious, pushing fellow. Now came David
Hull, looking suspiciously like Whitman at his worst-and a more
hopeless case, because he had money a plenty, while Whitman was luckily
poor and blessed with an extravagant wife. True, Hull had the backing
of Dick Kelly--and Kelly was not the man "to hand the boys a lemon."
Still Hull looked like a "holy boy," talked like one, had the popular
reputation of having acted like one as mayor--and the "reform game" was
certainly one to attract a man who could afford it and was in politics
for position only. Perhaps Dick wanted to be rid of Hull for the rest
of his term, and was "kicking him upstairs." It would be a shabby
trick upon his fellow leaders, but justifiable if there should be some
big "job" at Remsen City that could be "pulled off" only if Hull were
out of the way.
The leaders were cold until Dick got his masters in the Remsen City
branch of the plutocracy to pass the word to the plutocracy's general
agents at Indianapolis--a certain well-known firm of political bankers.
Until that certification came the leaders, having no candidate who
stood a chance of winning, were ready to make a losing campaign and
throw the election to the Democrats--not a serious misfortune at a time
when the machines of the two parties had become simply friendly rival
agents for the same rich master.
There was a sharp fight in the convention. The anti-machine element,
repudiating Whitman under the leadership of a shrewd and honest young
man named Joe Bannister, had attacked Hull in the most shocking way.
Bannister had been reading Victor Dorn's New Day and had got a notion
of David Hull as man and mayor different from the one made current by
the newspapers. He made a speech on the floor of the convention which
almost caused a riot and nearly cost Davy the nomination. That
catastrophe was averted by adjournment. Davy gave Dick Kelly's second
lieutenant, Osterman, ten thousand in cash, of which Osterman said
there was pressing need "for perfectly legitimate purposes, I assure
you, Mr. Mayor." Next day the Bannister faction lost forty and odd
sturdy yeomen from districts where the crops had been painfully short,
and Davy was nominated.
In due time the election was held, and Mayor Hull became Governor Hull
by a satisfactory majority for so evenly divided a State. He had
spent--in contributions to the machine campaign fund--upwards of one
hundred thousand dollars. But that seemed a trifling sacrifice to make
for reform principles and for keeping the voice of the people the voice
of God. He would have been elected if he had not spent a cent, for the
Democratic machine, bent on reorganizing back to a sound basis with all
real reformers or reformers tainted with sincerity eliminated, had
nominated a straight machine man--and even the politicians know that
the people who decide elections will not elect a machine man if they
have a chance to vote for any one else. It saddened David Hull, in the
midst of victory, that his own town and county went against him,
preferring the Democrat, whom it did not know, as he lived at the other
end of the State. Locally the offices at stake were all captured by
the "Dorn crowd." At last the Workingmen's League had a judge; at last
it could have a day in court. There would not be a repetition of the
great frauds of the Hull-Harbinger campaign.
By the time David had sufficient leisure to reopen the heart department
of his ambition, Jane was deep in the effort to show Doctor Charlton
how much intelligence and character she had. She was serving an
apprenticeship as trained nurse in the Children's Hospital, where he
was chief of the staff, and was taking several extra courses with his
young assistants. It was nearly two weeks after David's first attempt
to see her when her engagements and his at last permitted this meeting.
Said he:
"What's this new freak?"
"I can't tell you yet," replied she. "I'm not sure, myself."
"I don't see how you can endure that fellow Charlton. They say he's as
big a crank in medicine as he is in politics."
"It's all of a piece," said Jane, tranquilly. "He says he gets his
political views from his medicine and his medical ideas from his
politics."
"Don't you think he's a frightful bounder?"
"Frightful," said Jane.
"Fresh, impudent--conceited. And he looks like a prize fighter."
"At some angles--yes," conceded Jane. "At others, he's almost
handsome."
"The other day, when I called at the hospital and they wouldn't take my
name in to you--" David broke off to vent his indignation--"Did you
ever hear of such impertinence!"
"And you the governor-elect," laughed Jane. "Shall I tell you what
Doctor Charlton said? He said that a governor was simply a public
servant, and anything but a public representative--usually a public
disgrace. He said that a servant's business was attending to his own
job and not hanging round preventing his fellow servants from attending
to their jobs."
"I knew he had low and vulgar views of public affairs," said David.
"What I started to say was that I saw him talking to you that day,
across the court, and you seemed to be enjoying his conversation."
"ENJOYING it? I love it," cried Jane. "He makes me laugh, he makes me
cold with rage, he gives me a different sensation every time I see him."
"You LIKE--him?"
"Immensely. And I've never been so interested or so happy in my life."
She looked steadily at him. "Nothing could induce me to give it up.
I've put everything else out of my mind."
Since the dismal end of his adventure with Selma Gordon, David had
become extremely wary in his dealings with the female sex. He never
again would invite a refusal; he never again would put himself in a
position where a woman might feel free to tell him her private opinion
of him. He reflected upon Jane's words. They could have but the one
meaning. Not so calmly as he would have liked, but without any
embarrassing constraint, he said:
"I'm glad you've found what suits you, at last. It isn't exactly the
line I'd have thought a girl such as you would choose. You're sure you
are not making a mistake?"
"Quite," said Jane.
"I should think you'd prefer marriage--and a home--and a social
circle--and all that," ventured David.
"I'll probably not marry."
"No. You'd hardly take a doctor."
"The only one I'd want I can't get," said Jane.
She wished to shock David, and she saw with pleasure that she had
succeeded. Indeed so shocked was he that in a few minutes he took
leave. And as he passed from her sight he passed from her mind.
Victor Dorn described Davy Hull's inaugural address as "an
uninteresting sample of the standard reform brand of artificial milk
for political infants." The press, however, was enthusiastic, and
substantial people everywhere spoke of it as having the "right ring,"
as being the utterance of a "safe, clean man whom the politicians can't
frighten or fool." In this famous speech David urged everybody who was
doing right to keep on doing so, warned everybody who was doing wrong
that they would better look out for themselves, praised those who were
trying to better conditions in the right way, condemned those who were
trying to do so in the wrong way. It was all most eloquent, most
earnest. Some few people were disappointed that he had not explained
exactly what and whom he meant by right and by wrong; but these carping
murmurs were drowned in the general acclaim. A man whose fists
clenched and whose eyes flashed as did David Hull's must "mean
business"--and if no results came of these words, it wouldn't be his
fault, but the machinations of wicked plutocrats and their political
agents.
"Isn't it disgusting!" exclaimed Selma, reading an impassioned
paragraph aloud to Victor Dorn. "It almost makes me despair when I see
how people--our sort of people, too--are taken in by such guff. And
they stand with their empty picked pockets and cheer this man, who's
nothing but a stool pigeon for pickpockets."
"It's something gained," observed Victor tranquilly, "when politicians
have to denounce the plutocracy in order to get audiences and offices.
The people are beginning to know what's wrong. They read into our
friend Hull's generalities what they think he ought to mean--what they
believe he does mean. The next step is--he'll have to do something or
they'll find him out."
"He do anything?" Selma laughed derisively. "He hasn't the courage--or
the honesty."
"Well--'patience and shuffle the cards,' as Sancho Panza says. We're
winning Remsen City. And our friends are winning a little ground here,
and a little there and a little yonder--and soon--only too soon--this
crumbling false politics will collapse and disappear. Too soon, I
fear. Before the new politics of a work-compelling world for the
working class only is ready to be installed."
Selma had been only half attending. She now said abruptly, with a
fluttering movement that suggested wind blowing strongly across open
prairies under a bright sky:
"I've decided to go away."
"Yes, you must take a vacation," said Victor. "I've been telling you
that for several years. And you must go away to the sea or the
mountains where you'll not be harassed by the fate of the human race
that you so take to heart."
"I didn't mean a vacation," said Selma. "I meant to Chicago--to work
there."
"You've had a good offer?" said Victor. "I knew it would come. You've
got to take it. You need the wider experience--the chance to have a
paper of your own--or a work of your own of some kind. It's been
selfishness, my keeping you all this time."
Selma had turned away. With her face hidden from him she said, "Yes, I
must go."
"When?" said Victor.
"As soon as you can arrange for some one else."
"All right. I'll look round. I've no hope of finding any one to take
your place, but I can get some one who will do."
"You can train any one," said Selma. "Just as you trained me."
"I'll see what's to be done," was all he said.
A week passed--two weeks. She waited; he did not bring up the subject.
But she knew he was thinking of it; for there had been a change in his
manner toward her--a constraint, a self-consciousness theretofore
utterly foreign to him in his relations with any one. Selma was
wretched, and began to show it first in her appearance, then in her
work. At last she burst out:
"Give that article back to me," she cried. "It's rotten. I can't
write any more. Why don't you tell me so frankly? Why don't you send
me away?"
"You're doing better work than I am," said he. "You're eager to be
off--aren't you? Will you stay a few days longer? I must get away to
the country--alone--to get a fresh grip on myself. I'll come back as
soon as I can, and you'll be free. There'll be no chance for vacations
after you're gone."
"Very well," said she. She felt that he would think this curtness
ungracious, but more she could not say.
He was gone four days. When he reappeared at the office he was
bronzed, but under the bronze showed fatigue--in a man of his youth and
strength sure sign of much worry and loss of sleep. He greeted her
almost awkwardly, his eyes avoiding hers, and sat down to opening his
accumulated mail. Although she was furtively observing him she started
when he abruptly said:
"You know you are free to go--at any time."
"I'll wait until you catch up with your work," she suggested.
"No--never mind. I'll get along. I've kept you out of all reason....
The sooner you go the better. I've got to get used to it, and--I hate
suspense."
"Then I'll go in the morning," said Selma. "I've no arrangements to
make--except a little packing that'll take less than an hour. Will you
say good-by for me to any one who asks? I hate fusses, and I'll be back
here from time to time."
He looked at her curiously, started to speak, changed his mind and
resumed reading the letter in his hand. She turned to her work, sat
pretending to write. In fact she was simply scribbling. Her eyes were
burning and she was fighting against the sobs that came surging. He
rose and began to walk up and down the room. She hastily crumpled and
flung away the sheet on which she had be scrawling; he might happen to
glance at her desk and see. She bent closer to the paper and began to
write--anything that came into her head. Presently the sound of his
step ceased. An uncontrollable impulse to fly seized her. She would
get up--would not put on her hat--would act as if she were simply going
to the street door for a moment. And she would not return--would
escape the danger of a silly breakdown. She summoned all her courage,
suddenly rose and moved swiftly toward the door. At the threshold she
had to pause; she could not control her heart from a last look at him.
He was seated at his table, was staring at its litter of letters,
papers and manuscripts with an expression so sad that it completely
transformed him. She forgot herself. She said softly:
"Victor!"
He did not hear.
"Victor," she repeated a little more loudly.
He roused himself, glanced at her with an attempt at his usual friendly
smile of the eyes.
"Is there something wrong that you haven't told me about?" she asked.
"It'll pass," said he. "I'll get used to it." With an attempt at the
manner of the humorous philosopher, "Man is the most adaptable of all
the animals. That's why he has distanced all his relations. I didn't
realize how much our association meant to me until you set me to
thinking about it by telling me you were going. I had been taking you
for granted--a habit we easily fall into with those who simply work
with and for us and don't insist upon themselves."
She was leaning against the frame of the open door into the hall, her
hands behind her back. She was gazing out of the window across the
room.
"You," he went on, "are as I'd like to be--as I imagined I was. Your
sense of duty to the cause orders you elsewhere, and you go--like a
good soldier, with never a backward glance."
She shook her head, but did not speak.
"With never a backward glance," he repeated. "While I--" He shut his
lips together firmly and settled himself with fierce resolution to his
work. "I beg your pardon," he said. "This is--cowardly. As I said
before, I shall get myself in hand again, and go on."
She did not move. The breeze of the unseasonably warm and brilliant
day fluttered her thick, loosely gathered hair about her brow. Her
strange, barbaric little face suggested that the wind was blowing
across it a throng of emotions like the clouds of a driven storm.
A long silence. He suddenly flung out his arms in a despairing gesture
and let them fall to the table. At the crash she startled, gazed
wildly about.
"Selma!" he cried. "I must say it. I love you."
A profound silence fell. After a while she went softly across the room
and sat down at her desk.
"I think I've loved you from the first months of your coming here to
work--to the old office, I mean. But we were always together--every
day--all day long--working together--I thinking and doing nothing
without your sharing in it. So, I never realized. Don't
misunderstand. I'm not trying to keep you here. It's simply that I've
got the habit of telling you everything--of holding back nothing from
you."
"I was going," she said, "because I loved you."
He looked at her in amazement.
"That day you told me you had decided to get married--and asked my
advice about the girls among our friends--that was the day I began to
feel I'd have to go. It's been getting worse ever since."
Once more silence, both looking uneasily about, their glances avoiding
each other. The door of the printing room opened, and Holman, the
printer, came in, his case in his grimy hand. Said he:
"Where's the rest of that street car article?"
"I beg your pardon," said Selma, starting up and taking some manuscript
from her desk and handing it to him.
"Louis," said Victor, as Holmes was retreating, "Selma and I are going
to be married."
Louis paused, but did not look round. "That ain't what'd be called
news," said he. "I've known it for more than three years."
He moved on toward his room. "I'll be ready for that leading article
in half an hour. So, you'd better get busy."
He went out, closing the door behind him. Selma and Victor looked at
each other and burst out laughing. Then--still laughing--they took
hold of hands like two children. And the next thing they knew they
were tight in each other's arms, and Selma was sobbing wildly.
X
When Jane had finished her apprenticeship, Doctor Charlton asked her to
marry him. Said Jane:
"I never knew you to be commonplace before. I've felt this coming for
some time, but I expected it would be in the form of an offer to marry
me."
She promptly accepted him--and she has not, and will not regret it. So
far as a single case can prove a theory, Jane's case has proved
Charlton's theory that environment determines character. His
alternations of tenderness and brusqueness, of devotion to her and
devotion to his work, his constant offering of something new and his
unremitting insistence upon something new from her each day make it
impossible for her to develop the slightest tendency toward that
sleeping sickness wherewith the germ of conventionality inflicts any
mind it seizes upon.
David Hull, now temporarily in eclipse through over caution in radical
utterance, is gathering himself for a fresh spurt that will doubtless
place him at the front in politics again. He has never married. The
belief in Remsen City is that he is a victim of disappointed love for
Jane Hastings. But the truth is that he is unable to take his mind off
himself long enough to be come sufficiently interested in another human
being. There is no especial reason why he has thus far escaped the
many snares that have been set for him because of his wealth and
position. Who can account for the vagaries of chance?
The Workingmen's League now controls the government of Remsen City. It
gives an honest and efficient administration, and keeps the public
service corporations as respectful of the people as the laws will
permit. But, as Victor Dorn always warned the people, little can be
done until the State government is conquered--and even then there will
be the national government to see that all the wrongs of vested rights
are respected and that the people shall have little to say, in the
management of their own affairs. As all sensible people know, any
corrupt politician, or any greedy plutocrat, or any agent of either is
a safer and better administrator of the people's affairs than the
people themselves.
The New Day is a daily with a circulation for its weekly edition that
is national. And Victor and Selma are still its editors, though they
have two little boys to bring up.
Jane and Selma see a great deal of each other, and are friendly, and
try hard to like each other. But they are not friends.
Dick Kelly's oldest son, graduated from Harvard, is the leader of the
Remsen City fashionable set. Joe House's only son is a professional
gambler and sets the pace among the sports.