 CHAPTER XIV On clear Sundays, Anthony Cardew played golf all day. He kept his religious observances for bad weather, but at such times as he attended service, he did it with the decorum and dignity of a Cardew who bowed to his God but to nothing else. He made the responses properly and with a certain unction and sat during the sermon with a vigilant eye on the choir boys who wriggled. Now and then, however, the eye wandered to the great stained glass window which was a memorial to his wife. It said beneath, in memoriam, Lillian Lethbridge Cardew. He thought there was too much yellow in John the Baptist. On the Sunday afternoon following her ride into the city with Louis Acres, Lillie found herself alone. Anthony was golfing and Grace and Howard had motored out of town for luncheon. In a small office near the rear of the hall the second man dozed waiting for the doorbell. There would be people in for tea later, as always on Sunday afternoons. Girls and men walking through the park are motoring up in smart cars. The men are trifle-bored because they were not golfing or riding. The girls, chattering about the small, inessentials which somehow they made so important. Lillie was wretchedly unhappy. For one thing she had begun to feel that Mamoiselle was exercising over her a sort of gentle espionage and she thought her grandfather was behind it. Out of sheer rebellion she had gone again to the house on Cardew Way to find Eleanor out and Jim Doyle riding at his desk. He had received her cordially and had talked to her as an equal. His deferential attitude had soothed her wounded pride and she had told him something very little of the situation at home. Then you are still forbidden to come here? Yes, as if what happened years ago matters now, Mr. Doyle. He eyed her. Don't let them break your spirit, Lillie, he had said. Success can make people very hard. I don't know myself what success would do to me. Plenty, probably, he smiled. It isn't the past your people won't forgive me, Lillie. It's my failure to succeed in what they call success. It isn't that, she had said hastily. It is. They say you are inflammatory. Of course they don't understand. I have tried to tell them, but... There are fires that purify, he had said smilingly. She had gone home discontented with her family's lack of vision and with herself. She was in a curious frame of mind. The thought of Louis Aker is repelled her but she thought of him constantly. She analyzed him clearly enough. He was not fine and not sensitive. He was not even kind. Indeed, she felt that he could be both cruel and ruthless. And if she was the first good woman he had ever known then he must have had a hateful past. The thought that he had kissed her turned her hot with anger and shame at such times, but the thought recurred. Had she had occupation perhaps she might have been saved but she had nothing to do. The house went on with its disciplined service. Lent had made its small demands as to church services and was over. The weather was bad and the golf links still soggy with the spring rains. Her wardrobe was long ago replenished and that small interest gone. And somehow there had opened a breach between herself and the little intimate group that had been hers before the war. She wondered sometimes what they would think of Louis Aker's. They would admire him at first for his opulent good looks but very soon they would recognize what she knew so well, the golf between him and the men of their own world, so hard a distinction to divine yet so real for all that. They would know instinctively that under his veneer of good manners was something coarse and crude as she did and they would politely snub him. She had no name and no knowledge for the urge in the man that she vaguely recognized and resented. But she had a full knowledge of the obsession he was becoming in her mind. If I could see him here, she reflected more than once, I'd get over thinking about him. It's because they forbid me to see him, it's sheer contrariness. But it was not and she knew it. She had never heard of his theory about the Mark on a woman. She was hating herself very vigorously on that Sunday afternoon. Mademoiselle and she had lunched alone in Lily's sitting room and Mademoiselle had dozed off in her chair afterwards, the novel on her knee. Lily was wandering about downstairs when the telephone rang and she had a quick conviction that it was Louis Aker's. It was only Willie Cameron, however, asking her if she cared to go for a walk. I have promised Jinx one all day, he explained, and we might as well combine if you are not busy. She smiled at that. I'd love it, she said, in the park. Wait a moment. Then, yes, Jinx says the park is right. His wholesome nonsense was good for her. She drew a long breath. You are precisely the person I need today, she said, and come soon because I shall have to be back at five. When he came he was very neat indeed and most scrupulous as to his heels being polished. He was also slightly breathless. Had to sew a button on my coat, he explained. Then I found I'd sewn in one of my fingers and had to start all over again. Lily was conscious of a change in him. He looked older, she thought, and thinner. His smile when it came was as boyish as ever, but he did not smile so much and seen in full daylight he was shabby. He seemed totally unconscious of his clothes, however. What do you do with yourself, Willie? she asked. I mean, when you are free. Read and study. I want to take up metallurgy pretty soon. There's a night-course at the college. We use metallurgists in the mill. When you are ready I know father would be glad to have you. He flushed at that. Thanks, he said, I'd rather get in wherever I go by what I know or not who I know. She felt considerably snubbed, but she knew his curious pride. After a time when he threw a stick into the park lake and jinx retrieved it, he said, What do you do with yourself these days, Lily? Nothing. I've forgotten how to work, I'm afraid. And I'm not very happy, Willie. I ought to be, but I'm just not. You've learned what it is to be useful, he observed gravely, and now it hardly seems worthwhile just to live and nothing else. Is that it? I suppose. Isn't there anything you can do? They won't let me work and I hate to study. There was a silence. Willie Cameron sat on the bench bent and staring ahead. Jinx brought the stick and receiving no attention insinuated a dripping body between his knees. He patted the dog's head absently. I have been thinking about the night I went to dinner at your house, he said at last. I had no business to say what I said then. I've got a miserable habit of saying just what comes into my mind and I've been afraid ever since that it would end and you're not wanting to see me again. Just try to forget it happened, won't you? I knew it was an impulse, but it made me very proud, Willie. All right, he said quietly, and that's that. Now about your grandfather. I've had him on my mind, too. He is an old man and sometimes they are peculiar. I am only sorry I upset him. And you are to forget that, too. In spite of herself she laughed rather helplessly. Is there anything I am to remember? He smiled, too, and straightened himself like a man who has got something off his chest. Certainly there is, Miss Cardew, me, myself. I want you to know that I'm around, ready to fetch and carry like Jinx here and about as necessary, I suppose. We are a good bit alike, Jinx and I. We're satisfied with a bone and we give a lot of affection. You won't mind a bone now and then? His cheerful tone reassured the girl. There was no real hurt then. That's nice of you, you know. Well, he said slowly, you know there are men who prefer a dream to reality. Perhaps I'm like that. Anyhow, that's enough about me. Do you know that there is a strike coming? Yes, I ought to tell you, Willie. I think the men are right. He stared at her incredulously. Right, he said, why, my dear child, most of them want a strike about as much as I want delirium tremens. I've talked to them and I know. A slave may be satisfied if he has never known freedom. Oh, fudge, said Willie Cameron rudely. Where do you get all that? You're quoting, aren't you? This strike, any strike, is an acknowledgment of weakness. It is a resort to the physical because the collective mentality of labor isn't as strong as the other side. Or labor thinks it isn't, which amounts to the same thing. And there is a fine line between the fellow who fights for a principal and the one who knocks people down to show how strong he is. This is a fight for a principal, Willie. Fine little car do you are, he scoffed. Don't make any mistake. There have been fights by labor for a principal and the principal one as good as always wins over evil. But this is different. It's a direct play by men who don't realize what they are doing into the hands of a lot of—well, we'll call them anarchists. It's Germany's way of winning the war. By indirection. If by anarchist you mean men like my uncle. I do, he said grimly. That's a family accident and you can't help it. But I do mean Doyle. Doyle and a pole named Waslowski and a scoundrel of an attorney here in town named Acres, among others. Mr. Acres is a friend of mine, Willie. He stared at her. If they have been teaching you their dirty doctrines, Lily, he said at last, I can only tell you this. They can disguise it in all the fine terms they want. It is treason and they are traitors. I know I've had a talk with the chief of police. I don't believe it. Well, well, do you know Louis Acres? Not very well. But there were spots of vivid color flaming her cheeks. He drew a long breath. I can't retract it, he said. I didn't know, of course. Shall we start back? They were very silent as they walked. Willie Cameron was pained and anxious. He knew Acres' type rather than the man himself, but he knew the type well. Every village had one, the sleek, handsome animal who attracted girls by sheer impudence and good humor, who made passionate, pagan love promiscuously, and put the responsibility for the misery they caused on the creator because he had made them as they were. He was agonized by another train of thought. For him, Lily had always been something fine, beautiful, infinitely remote. There were other girls, girls like Edith Boyd, who were touched some more, some less with the soil of life. Even when they kept clean, they saw it all about them and looked on it with shrewd, sophisticated eyes. But Lily was… Lily. The very thought of Louis Acres looking at her as he had seen him look at Edith Boyd made him cold with rage. Do you mind if I say something? That sounds disagreeable, is it? Maybe, but I'm going to anyhow, Lily. I don't like to think of you seeing Acres. I don't know anything against him, and I suppose if I did I wouldn't tell you. But he is not your sort. An impulse of honesty prevailed with her. I know that as well as you do. I know him better than you do. But, he stands for something at least, she added rather hotly. None of the other men I know stand for anything very much, even you, Lily. I stand for the preservation of my country, he said gravely. I mean, I represent a lot of people who… well, who don't believe that change always means progress and who do intend that the changes, Doyle and Acres in that lot want they won't get. I don't believe, if you say you want what they want, that you know what you are talking about. Perhaps I am more intelligent than you think I am. He was, of course, utterly wretched impressed by the futility of arguing with her. Do your people know that you are seeing Louis Acres? You are being rather solicitous, aren't you? I am being rather anxious. I wouldn't dare, of course, if we hadn't been such friends. But Acres is wrong, wrong every way, and I have to tell you that, even if it means that you will never see me again. He takes a credulous girl, thank you, and talks bunk to her and possibly makes love to her. Haven't we had enough of Mr. Acres? Lily asked coldly. If you cannot speak of anything else, please don't talk. The result of which was a frozen silence until they reached the house. Good-bye, she said primely. It was very nice of you to call me up. Good-bye, jinx. She went up the steps, leaving him bare-headed and rather haggard looking after her. He took the dog and went out into the country on foot, trapping through the mud without noticing it, and now and then making little despairing gestures. He was helpless. He had cut himself off from her like a fool. Acres. Acres and Edith Boyd. Other women. Acres and other women. And now Lily. Good God, Lily! Jinx was tired. He begged to be carried, planting two muddy feet on his master's shabby trouser leg and pleading with low winds. Willie Cameron stooped and gathering up the little animal tucked him under his arm. When it commenced to rain he put him under his coat and plunged his head through the mud and went toward home. Lily had entered the house in a white fury but a moment later she was remorseful. For one thing her own anger bewildered her. After all, he had meant well and it was like him to be honest, even if it cost him something he valued. She ran to the door and looked around for him, but he had disappeared. She went in again, remorseful and unhappy. But had come over her to treat him like that. He had looked almost stricken. Mr. Acres is calling Miss Cardew, said the footman. He is in the drawing-room. Lily went in slowly. Louis Acres had been waiting for some time. He had lounged into the drawing-room with an ease assumed for the servant's benefit and had immediately lighted a cigarette. That done and the servant departed he had carefully appraised his surroundings. He liked the stiff formality of the room. He liked the servant in his dark maroon livery. He liked the silence and decorum. Most of all he liked himself in these surroundings. He wandered around, touching a bowl here, a vase there, eyeing carefully the ancient altar cloth that lay on a table, the old needlework tapestry on the chairs. He saw himself fitted into this environment, a part of it, coming down the staircase followed by his wife and getting into his waiting-limousine, sitting at the head of his table while the important men of the city listened to what he had to say. It would come as sure as God made little fishes. And Doyle was a fool. He, Louis Acres, would marry Lily Cardew and block that other game. But he would let the Cardews know who it was who had blocked it and saved their skins. They'd have to receive him after that. They would cringe to him. Unexpectedly he had one of the shocks of his life. He had gone to the window and through it he saw Lily and Lily Cameron outside. He clutched at the curtain and cursed under his breath apprehensively. But Lily Cameron did not come in. Acres watched him up the street with calculating slightly narrowed eyes. The fact that Lily Cardew knew the clerk at the Eagle pharmacy was an unexpected complication. His surprise was lost in anxiety. But Lily entering the room a moment later rather pale and unsmiling found him facing the door, his manner easy, his head well up, and drawn to his fallen rather overwhelming height. She found her poise entirely gone and it was he who spoke first. I know, he said, you didn't ask me but I came anyhow. She held out her hand rather primly. It is very good of you to come. Good! I couldn't stay away. She took her outstretched hand, smiling down at her and suddenly made an attempt to draw her to him. You know that, don't you? Please! He let her go at once. He had not played his little game so long without learning its fine points. There were times to woo a woman with a strong arm and there were other times that required other methods. Right oh! he said. I'm sorry. I have been thinking about you so much that I dare say I have got farther in our friendship than I should. Do you know that you haven't been out of my mind since that ride we had together? Really? Would you like some tea? Thanks, yes. Do you dislike my telling you that? She rang the bell and then stood facing him. I don't mind, no, but I am trying very hard to forget that ride and I don't want to talk about it. When a beautiful thing comes into a man's life he likes to remember it. How can you call it beautiful? Isn't it rather fine when two people, a man and a woman, suddenly find a tremendous attraction that draws them together, in spite of the fact that everything else is conspiring to keep them apart? I don't know, she said, uncertainly. It just seemed all wrong somehow. And non-as dimples is never wrong. I don't want to discuss it, Mr. Acres. It is over. While he was away from her, her attraction for him loomed less than the things she promised of power and gratified ambition. But he found her with her gentle aloofness, exceedingly appealing, and with the tact of the man who understands women, he adapted himself to her humor. You are making me very unhappy, Miss Lily, he said. If you'll only promise to let me see you now and then, I'll promise to be as mild as dishwater. Will you promise? She was still struggling, still remembering Willie Cameron, still trying to remember all the things that Louie Acres was not. I think I ought not to see you at all. Then, he said slowly, you are going to cut me off from the one decent influence in my life. She was still revolving that in her mind when tea came. Acres, having shot his bolt, watched with interest the preparation for the little ceremony, the old Georgian teaspoons, the crowned derby cups, the bell-shaped Queen Anne teapot, beautifully chased, the old pierced sugar basin. Almost his gaze was proprietary. And he watched Lily, her casual handling of those priceless treasures, her taking for granted of service and beauty, her acceptance of quality because she had never known anything else, watched her with possessive eyes. When the servant had gone, he said, you are being very nice to me in view of the fact that you did not ask me to come, and also remembering that your family does not happen to care about me. They are not at home. I knew that, or I should not have come. I don't want to make trouble for you, child. His voice was infinitely caressing. As it happens, I know your grandfather's Sunday habits, and I met your father and mother on the road going out of town at noon. I knew they had not come back. How do you know that? He smiled down at her. I have ways of knowing quite a lot of things. Especially when they are as vital to me as this few minutes alone with you. He bent toward her as he sat behind the tea-table. You know how vital this is to me, don't you? He said, you are not going to cut me off, are you? He stood over her, big, compelling, dominant, and put his hand under her chin. I am insane about you. He whispered and waited. Slowly, irresistibly, she lifted her face to his kiss. CHAPTER XV On the first day of May, William Wallace Cameron moved his trunk, the framed photograph of his mother, eleven books, an alarm clock, and jinks to the Boyd House. He went for two reasons. First, after his initial call at the dreary little house, he began to realize that something had to be done in the Boyd family. The second reason was his dog. He began to realize that something had to be done in the Boyd family as soon as he had met Mrs. Boyd. I don't know what's come over the children, Mrs. Boyd said fretfully. She sat rocking persistently in the dreary little parlor. Her chair inch steadily along the doll carpet, and once or twice she brought up just as she was about to make a gradual exit from the room. They act so queer lately. She hitched the chair into place again. Edith had gone out. It was her idea of an evening call to serve cakes and coffee, and a strong and accurate odor was seeping through the doorway. There's Dan come home from the war, and when he gets back from the mill he just sits and stares ahead of him. He won't even talk about the war, although he's got a lot to tell. It takes some time for the men who were over to get settled down again, you know. Well there's Edith, continued the quarrelous voice. You'd think the cat had got her tongue, too. I tell you, Mr. Cameron, there are meals here, when if I didn't talk there wouldn't be a word spoken. Mr. Cameron looked up. It had occurred to him lately, not precisely, that a cat had got away with Edith's tongue, but that something undeniably had got away with her cheerfulness. There were entire days in the store when she neglected to manicure her nails and stood looking out past the fading primrose in the window to the street, but there were no longer any shrewd comments on the passers-by. Of course the house isn't very cheerful, sighed Mrs. Boyd. I'm a sick woman, Mr. Cameron. My bag hurts most of the time. It just aches and aches. I know, said Mr. Cameron. My mother has that sometimes. If you like I'll mix you up some liniment, and Ms. Edith can bring it to you. Thanks, I've tried most everything. Edith wants to rent a room so we can keep a hired girl, but it's hard to get a girl. They want all the money on earth, and they eat something awful. That's a nice friendly dog of yours, Mr. Cameron. It was perhaps Jinx who decided Willie Cameron. Jinx was at that moment occupying the only upholstered chair, but he had developed a strong liking for the frail little lady with a quarrelous voice in the shabby black dress. He had, indeed, insisted shortly after his entrance on leaping into her lap, and had thus sat for some time, completely eclipsing his hostess. Just let him sit, Mrs. Boyd said placidly. I like a dog, and you can't hurt this skirt I've got on. It's on its last legs. With which bit of unconscious humor Willie Cameron had sat down? Something warm and kindly glowed in his heart. He felt that dogs have a curious instinct for knowing what lies concealed in the human heart, and that Jinx had discovered something worthwhile in Edith's mother. It was later in the evening, however, that he said over Edith's bakery cakes and her atrocious coffee. If you really mean that about a rumour, I know of one. He glanced at Edith. Very neat, careful with matches. Hard to get up in the morning, but interesting, highly intelligent and a clever talker. That's his one fault. When he is interested in a thing he spouts all over the place. Really? said Mrs. Boyd. Well, talk would be a change here. He sounds kind of pleasant. Who is he? This pharagon of beauty and intellect sits before you, said Willie Cameron. You'll have to excuse me. I didn't recognize you by the description, said Mrs. Boyd unconsciously. Well, I don't know. I'd like to have this dog around. Even Edith laughed at that. She had been very silent all evening, sitting most of the time with her hands in her lap and her eyes on Willie Cameron. Rather like Jinx's eyes they were steady, unblinking, loyal, and with something else in common with Jinx which Willie Cameron never suspected. I wouldn't come if I were you, she said unexpectedly. Why, Edie, you've been thinking of asking him right along. We don't know how to keep a house, she persisted to him. We can't even cook. You know that's rotten coffee. I'll show you the room if you like, but I won't feel hurt if you don't take it. I'll be worried if you do. Mrs. Boyd watched them perplexedly as they went out, the tall young man with his uneven step, and Edith, who had changed so greatly in the last few weeks and blew hot one minute and called the next. Now that she had seen Willie Cameron, Mrs. Boyd wanted him to come. He would bring new life into the little house. He was cheerful. He was not glum like Dan or discontented like Edie. And the dog. She got up slowly and walked over to the chair where Jinx sat, eyes watchfully on the door. Nice Jinx, she said, and stroked his head with a thin, stringy hand. Nice doggy. She took a cake from the plate and fed it to him, bit by bit. She felt happier than she had for a long time since her children were babies and needed her. I meant it, said Edith on the stairs. You stay away. We're a poor lot and we're unlucky too. Don't get mixed up with us. Maybe I'm going to bring you luck. The best luck for me would be to fall down these stairs and break my neck. He looked at her anxiously, and any doubts he might have had, born of the dreariness, the orders of stale food and of the musty cellar below, of the shabby room she proceeded to show him, died in an impulse to somehow, some way, lift this small group of people out of the slough of despondency which seemed to be engulfing them all. Why, what's the matter with the room? He said, just wait until I've got busy in it. I'm a paper-hanger and a painter and. You're a deer, too, said Edith. So on the first of May he moved in, and for some evenings political economy and history and travel and the rest gave way to anxious cuttings and fittings of wallpaper and a pungent odor of paint. The old house took on new life and activity, the latter sometimes pernicious, as when Willie Cameron fell down the cellar's stairs with a pail of paint in his hand, or Dan digging up some bricks in the back yard for a border the seeds of which were already sprouting in a flat box in the kitchen, ran a pickaxe into his foot. Some changes were immediate, such as the whitewashing of the cellar and the unpainted fence in the yard where Willie Cameron visualized later on, great draperies of morning glories. He papered the parlor and coaxed Mrs. Boyd to wash the curtains, although she protested that with the mill smoke it was useless labor. But there were some changes that he knew only time would affect. Sometimes he went to his bed worn out both physically and spiritually as though the burden of lifting three life sodden souls was too much. Not that he thought of that, however. What he did know was that the food was poor. No servant had been found and years of lack of system had left Mrs. Boyd's mind confused and erratic. She would spend hours concocting expensive desserts while the vegetables boiled dry and scorched and meat turned to leather only to bring pridefully to the table some flavorless mixture garnished according to a picture in the cookbook and totally unedible. She would have ambitious cleaning days too, starting late and leaving off with beds unmade to prepare the evening meal. Dan, home from the mill and newly adopting Willie Cameron's system of cleaning up for supper would turn sullen then and leave the moment the meal was over. Hell of a way to live, he said once. I'd get married, but how can a fellow know whether a girl will make a home for him or give him this? And then there would be babies too. The relations between Dan and Edith were not particularly cordial. Willie Cameron found their bickering understandable enough but he was puzzled sometimes to find that Dan was surreptitiously watching his sister. Edith was conscious of it too and one evening she broke into irritated speech. I wish you'd quit staring at me, Dan Boyd. I was wondering what has come over you, said Dan ungraciously. You used to be an ice kid, now you're an angel one minute and a devil the next. Willie spoke to him that night when they were setting out rows of seedlings under the supervision of jinx. I wouldn't worry her, Dan, he said. It is the spring probably. It gets into people you know. I'm that way myself. I'd give a lot to be in the country just now. Dan glanced at him quickly but whatever he may have had in his mind he said nothing just then. However, later on he volunteered. She's got something on her mind. I know her but I won't have her talking back to mother. A week or so after Willie Cameron had moved Mr. Hendricks rang the bell of the Boyd House and then after his amiable custom walked in. Oh Cameron, he bawled. Upstairs came Willie Cameron's voice somewhat thickened with carpet tacks. So Mr. Hendricks climbed part of the way when he found his head on a level with that of the young gentleman he sought who was nailing a rent in the carpet. Don't stop, said Mr. Hendricks. Merely friendly call and for heaven's sake don't swallow a tax on. I'm going to need you. What for? Inquired Willie Cameron through his nose. Don't know yet, make speeches probably. If Howard Cardew or any Cardew thinks he's going to be mayor of this town he's got to think again. I don't give a tinker's damn who's mayor of this town so long as he gives it honest government. That's right, said Mr. Hendricks approvingly. Old Cardew's been running it for years and you could put all the honest government he's given us in a hollow tooth. If you'll stop that hammering I'd like to make a proposition to you. Willie Cameron took an admiring squint at his handiwork. Sorry to refuse you Mr. Hendricks but I don't want to be mayor. Mr. Hendricks chuckled as Willie Cameron led the way to his room. He wandered around the room while Cameron opened a window and slid the dog off his second chair. Great snakes, he said. Spargo's Bolshevism, political economy, history of what are you planning to be Mr. President? I haven't decided yet. It's a hard job and mighty thankless but I won't be your mayor even for you. Mr. Hendricks sat down. All right, he said. Of course if you'd wanted it. He took two large cigars from the row in his breast pocket and held one out but Willie Cameron refused it and got his pipe. Well, he said. Mr. Hendricks' face became serious and very thoughtful. I don't know that I have ever made it clear to you Cameron, he said, but I've got a peculiar feeling for this city. I like it the way some people like their families. It's, well, it's home to me for one thing. I like to go out in the evenings and walk round and I say to myself, this is my town and we, it and me, are sending stuff all over the world. I like to think that somewhere, maybe in China, they are riding on our rails and fighting with guns made from our steel. Maybe you don't understand that. I think I do. Well, that's the way I feel about it anyhow and this walsh of his stuff gets under my skin. I've got a home and a family here. I started in to work when I was 13 and all I've got I've made and saved right here. It isn't much, but it's mine. Willie Cameron was lighting his pipe. He nodded. Mr. Hendricks bent forward and pointed a finger at him. And to govern this city, who do you think the labor element is going to put up and probably elect? We're an industrial city son with a big labor vote and if it stands together, they're being swindled into putting up as an honest candidate, one of the dirtiest radicals in the country, that man acres. He got up and closed the door. I don't want Edith to hear me. He said, he's a friend of hers, but he's a bad actor, son. He's wrong with women for one thing and when I think that's all he's got to oppose him is Howard Cardew. Mr. Hendricks got up and took a nervous turn about the room. Maybe you know that Cardew has a daughter. Yes. Well, I heard a good many things, one way and another and my wife likes a bit of gossip. She knows them both by sight and she ran into them one day in the tea room of the St. Elmo sitting in a corner and the girl had her back to the room. I don't like the look of that, Cameron. Willie Cameron got up and closed the window. He stood there with his back to the light for a full minute, then. I think there must be some mistake about that, Mr. Hendricks. I have met her. She isn't the sort of girl who would do clandestine things. Mr. Hendricks looked up quickly. He had made it his business to study men and there was something in Willie Cameron's voice that caught his attention and turned his shrewd mind to speculation. Maybe, he conceded. Of course anything a Cardew does is likely to be magnified in this town. If she's as keen as the men in her family, she'll get wise to him pretty soon. Willie Cameron came back then, but Mr. Hendricks kept his eyes on the tip of his cigar. We've got to lick Cardew, he said, but I'm cursed if I want to do it with acres. When there was no comment, he looked up. Yes, the boy had had a blow. Mr. Hendricks was sorry. If that was the way the wind blew, it was hopeless. It was more than that. It was tragic. Sorry I said anything, Cameron. Didn't know you knew her. That's all right. Of course I don't like to think she is being talked about. The Cardews are always being talked about. You couldn't drop her a hint, I suppose. She knows what I think about Louis Acres. He made a violent effort and pulled himself together. So it is Acres and Howard Cardew and one's a nave and one's a poor bet. Right, said Mr. Hendricks. And one's Bolshevist, if I know anything, and the other is capital, and has about as much chance as a rich man to get through the eye of a needle. Which was slightly mixed, owing to a repressed excitement now making itself evident in Mr. Hendricks' voice. Why not run an independent candidate? Willie Cameron asked quietly. I've been shouting about the plain people. Why shouldn't they elect a mayor? There is a lot of them. That's the talk, said Mr. Hendricks, letting his excitement have full sway. They could. They could run this down and run it right if they'd take the trouble. Now look here, son. I don't usually talk about myself, but I'm honest. I don't say I wouldn't get off a streetcar without paying my fare if the conductor didn't lift it, but I'm honest. I don't lie. I keep my word. And I live clean, which you can't say for Lou Acres. Why shouldn't I run on an independent ticket? I mightn't be elected, but I'd make a damn good try. He stood up and Willie Cameron rose also and held out his hand. I don't know that my opinion is of any value, Mr. Hendricks, but I hope you get it, and I think you have a good chance. If I can do anything... Do anything? What do you suppose I came here for? You're going to elect me. You're going to make speeches and kiss babies and tell the ordinary folks there were something after all. You got me started on this thing, and now you've got to help me out. The future maker of mayors here stepped back in his amazement and jinks emitted a piercing howl. When peace was restored, the FM of M had got his breath, and he said, I couldn't remember my own name before an audience, Mr. Hendricks. Here flew into nothing that back room of yours. That's different. The people were going after don't want oratory. They want good straight talk and a fellow behind it who doesn't believe the country's headed straight for perdition. We've had enough calamity bowlers. You've got the way out, the plain people, the hope of the nation, and by God you love your country and not for what you can get out of it. That's a thing a fellow's got to have inside him. He can't pretend it and get it over. In the end, the FM of M capitulated. It was late when Mr. Hendricks left. He went away with all the old envelopes in his pockets covered with memoranda. Just wait a minute, son, he would say. I've got to make some speeches myself. Repeat that now. Sins of a mission are as great even greater than sins of commission. The lethargic citizen throws open the gates to revolution. How do you spell lethargic? But it was not Hendricks in his campaign that kept the FM of M awake until dawn. He sat in front of his soft coal fire and, when it died to gray-white ash, he still sat there, unconscious of the chill of the spring night. Mostly he thought of Lily and of Louie Acre's big and handsome of his insolent eyes in his self-indulgent mouth. Into that curious whirlpool that is the mind came now and then other visions. His mother asleep in her chair, the men in the war department who had turned him down, a girl at home who had loved him and made him feel desperately unhappy because he could not love her in return. Was love always like that? If it was what he intended, why was it so often without reciprocation? He took to walking about the room according to his old habit and obediently jinx followed him. It was war by his alarm clock when Edith knocked at his door. She was in a wrapper flung over her nightgown and with her hair flying loose she looked childish and very small. I wish you would go to bed, she said rather petulantly. Are you sick or anything? I was thinking, Edith, I'm sorry, I'll go at once. Why aren't you asleep? I don't sleep much lately. Their voices were cautious. I never go to sleep until you're settled down anyhow. Why not? Am I noisy? It's not that. She went away a drooping, listless figure that climbed the stairs slowly and left him in the doorway, puzzled and uncomfortable. At six that morning, Dan, tiptoeing downstairs to warm his leftover coffee and get his own breakfast, heard a voice from Willie Cameron's room and opened the door. Willie Cameron was sitting up in bed with his eyes closed and his arms extended and was concluding a speech to a dream audience in deep and oratorical tones. By God, it is time the plain people know their power. Dan grinned, and his ideas of humour, being rather primitive, he edged his way into the room and filled the orator's sponge with icy water from the pitcher. All right, old top, he said, but it is also time the plain people got up. Then he flung the sponge and departed with extreme expedition. End of chapters 14 and 15. Chapter 16 and 17 of A Poor Wise Man by Mary Roberts Reinhart. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 16. It was not until a week had passed after Louis Aker's visit to the house that Lily's family learned of it. Lily's state of mind during that week had been an unhappy one. She magnified the incident until her nerves were on edge and Grace, finding her alternating between almost demonstrative affection and strange aloofness, was bewildered and hurt. Mademoiselle watched her secretly, shook her head and set herself to work to find out what was wrong. It was in the end Mademoiselle who precipitated the crisis. Lily had not intended to make a secret of the visit but as time went on she found it increasingly difficult to tell about it. She should, she knew, have spoken at once and it would be hard to explain why she had delayed. She meant to go to her father with it. It was he who had forbidden her to see Aker's for one thing and she felt near to her father and to her mother, always. Since her return she had developed an almost passionate admiration for Howard, found it perhaps on her grandfather's attitude toward him. She was strongly partisan and she watched her father day after day fighting his eternal battles with Anthony, sometimes winning, often losing but standing for a principle like a rock while the seas of old Anthony's wrath washed over him and often engulfed him. She was rather wistful those days struggling with her own perplexities and blindly reaching out for a hand to help her but she could not bring herself to confession. She would wander into her father's dressing room before she went to bed and sitting on the arm of his deep chair would try indirectly to get him to solve the problems that were troubling her but he was in articulate and rather shy with her. He had difficulty sometimes after her long absence at school and camp in realizing her as the little girl who had once begged for his neckties to make into dollfrocks. Once she said, could you love a person you didn't entirely respect, father? Love is founded on respect, Lily. She pondered that, she felt that he was wrong but it does happen, doesn't it? She had persisted. He had been accustomed to her searchings for interesting abstractions for years. She used to talk about religion in the same way so he smiled and said, there is a sort of infatuation that is based on something quite different. On what? But he had rather floundered there. He could not discuss physical attraction with her. We're getting rather deep for 11 o'clock at night, aren't we? After a short silence, do you mind speaking about Aunt Alenor, father? No, dear, although it is rather a painful subject but if she is happy, why is it painful? Well, because Doyle is the sort of man he is. You mean because he is unfaithful to her or was? He was very uncomfortable. That is one reason for it, of course. There are others. But if he is faithful to her now, father, don't you think whatever a man has been, if he really cares for a woman it makes him over? Sometimes, not always. The subject was painful to him. He did not want his daughter to know the sordid things of life, but he added gallantly. Of course a good woman can do almost anything she wants with a man if he cares for her. She lay awake almost all night, thinking that over. On the Sunday following Louis Aker's call, Mademoiselle learned of it by the devious route of the servants' hall and she went to Lillie at once, yearning and anxious and in her best lace collar. She needed courage and to be dressed in her best gave her moral strength. It is not, she said, that they wish to curtail your liberty, Lillie, but to have that man come here when he knows he is not wanted to force himself on you. I need not have seen him. I wanted to see him. Mademoiselle waved her hands despairingly. If they find it out, she wailed. They will, I intend to tell them. But Mademoiselle made her error there. She was fearful of Grace's attitude unless she forewarned her and Grace, frightened, immediately made it a matter of a family conclave. She had not intended to include Anthony, but he came in on an excited speech from Howard and heard it all. The result was that instead of Lillie going to them with her confession, she was summoned to find her family a unit for once and combined against her. She was not to see Louis Aker's again or the doils. They demanded a promise, but she refused. Yet even then, standing before them, forced to a defiance she did not feel, she was puzzled as well as angry. They were wrong, and yet in some strange way they were right too. She was cardew enough to get their point of view, but she was cardew enough too to defy them. She did it rather gently. You must understand, she said, her hands folded in front of her, that it is not so much that I care to see the people you are talking about. It is that I feel I have the right to choose my own friends. Friends, sneered old Anthony, a third-rate lawyer, that is not the point, grandfather. I went away to school when I was a little girl. I have been away for five years. You cannot seem to realize that I am a woman now, not a child. You bring me in here like a bad child. In the end, old Anthony had slammed out of the room. There were arguments after that, tears on Grace's part, persuasion on Howard's. But Lily had frozen against what she considered their tyranny, and Howard found in her a sort of passive resistance that drove him frantic. Very well, he said finally, you have the arrogance of youth and its cruelty, Lily, and you are making us all suffer without reason. Don't you think I might say that too, father? Are you in love with this man? I have only seen him four times. If you would give me some reasons for all this fuss, there are things I cannot explain to you. You wouldn't understand about his moral character. Howard was rather shocked. He hesitated. Yes. Will you tell me what they are? Good heavens know, he exploded. The man's a radical too. That in itself ought to be enough. You can't condemn a man for his political opinions. Political opinions? Besides, she said looking at him with her direct gaze. Isn't there some reason in what the radicals believe, father? Maybe it is a dream that can't come true, but it is rather a fine dream, isn't it? It was then that Howard followed his father's example and flung out of the room. After that, Lily went very deliberately and without secrecy to the house on Cardew Way. She found a welcome there, not so marked on her Aunt Olliner's part as on Doyle's, but a welcome. She found approval too, where at home she had only suspicion and solicitude based on anxiety. She found a clever little circle there and sometimes a cultured one, underpaid, disgruntled, but brilliant professors from the college, a journalist or two, a city councilman, even prosperous merchants and now and then strange bearded foreigners who were passing through the city and who talked brilliantly of the vision of Lenin in the future of Russia. She learned that the true League of Nations was not a political alliance, but a union of all the leveled peoples of the world. She had no curiosity as to how this leveling was to be brought about. All she knew was that these brilliant dreamers made her welcome and that instead of the dinner chat at home, small personalities, old Anthony's comments on his food, her father's heavy silence here was world talk, vast in its scope, idealistic, intoxicating. Almost always Louis Akers was there. It pleased her to see how the other men listened to him, deferred to his views, laughed at his wit. She did not know the care exercised in selecting the group she was to meet, the restraints imposed on them. And she could not know that from her visits the Doyle establishment was gaining a prestige totally new to it and almost respectability. Because of those small open forums sometimes noted in the papers, those innocuous gatherings, it was possible to hold in that very room other meetings, not open and not innocuous, where practical plans took the place of discontented yearnings and where the talk was more often a fighting than a brotherhood. She was, by the first of May, frankly infatuated with Louis Akers, yet with a curious knowledge that what she felt was infatuation only. She would lie wide-eyed at night and rehearse painfully the weaknesses she saw so clearly in him. But the next time she saw him she would yield to his arms passively, but without protest. She did not like his caresses, but the memory of them thrilled her. She was following the first uncurbed impulse of her life. Guarded and more or less isolated from other youth, she had always lived a strong inner life, purely mental, largely interrogative. She had had strong childish impulses, sometimes of pure affection, occasionally of sheer contrariness, but always her impulses had been curbed. "'Do be a little lady,' Memoiselle would say. She had got somehow to feel that impulse was wrong. It ranked with disobedience. It partook of the nature of sin. People who did wicked things did them on impulse and were sorry ever after, but then it was too late. As she grew older, she added something to that. Impulses of the mind led to impulses of the body and impulse was wrong. Passion was an impulse of the body, therefore it was sin. It was the one sin one could not talk about so one was never quite clear about it. However, one thing seemed beyond dispute. It was predominatingly a masculine wickedness. Good women were beyond and above it. It's victims sometimes, like those girls at the camp or its toys, like the sodden creatures in the segregated district who hung smiling their tragic smiles around their doorways in the late afternoons. But good women were not like that. If they were, then they were not good. They did not lie awake, remembering the savage clasp of a man's arms, knowing all the time that this was not love but something quite different. Or if it was love, that it was painful and certainly not beautiful. Sometimes she thought about Willie Cameron. He had had very exalted ideas about love. He used to be rather oratorical about it. It's the fundamental principle of the universe, he would say, waving his pipe wildly. But it means suffering dear child. It feeds on martyrdom and fattens on sacrifice. And as the H.C. of L doesn't affect either commodity it lives forever. What does it do, Willie, if it hasn't any martyrdom and sacrifice to feed on? Do you mean to say that when it is returned and everybody is happy, it dies? Practically, he had said, it then becomes domestic contentment and expresses itself in the shape of butcher's bills and roast chicken on Sundays. But that had been in the old carefree days before Willie had thought he loved her and before she had met Louis. She made a desperate effort one day to talk to her mother. She wanted somehow to be set right in her own eyes. But Grace could not meet her even halfway. She did not know anything about different sorts of love, but she did know that love was beautiful if you met the right man and married him. But it had to be someone who was your sort because in the end marriage was only a sort of glorified companionship. The moral in that, so obviously pointed at Louis' acres, invalidated the rest of it for Lily. She was in a state of constant emotional excitement by that time and it was only a night or two after that she quarreled with her grandfather. There had been a dinner party, a heavy pompous affair, largely attended, for although spring was well advanced, the usual may had jara to the country or the coast had not yet commenced. Industrial conditions in and around the city were too disturbed for the large employers to get away and following Lent there had been a sort of sporadic gaiety covering a vast uneasiness. There was to be no polo after all. Lily, doing her best to make the dinner a success, found herself contrasting it with the gatherings at the Doyle House and found it very dull. These men with their rigidity of mind invited because they held her grandfather's opinions or because they kept their own convictions to themselves seemed to her of a bygone time. She did not see in them a safe counter-poise to a people which in its reaction from the old order was ready to swing to anything that was new. She saw only a dozen or so elderly gentlemen, immaculate and prosperous, peering through their glasses after a world which had passed them by. They were very grave that night. The situation was serious. The talk turned inevitably to the approaching strike and from that to a possible attempt on the part of the radical element toward violence. The older men poo-pooed that but the younger ones were uncertain. Isolated riotings, yes, but a coordinated attempt against the city, no. Labor was greedy but it was law-abiding. Ah, but it was being fired by incendiary literature. Then what were the police doing? They were doing everything. They were doing nothing. The governor was secretly a radical. Nonsense, the governor was saying little but was waiting and watching. A general strike was only another word for revolution. No, it would be attempted perhaps but only to demonstrate the solidarity of labor. After a time Lily made a discovery. She found that even into that carefully selected gathering had crept a surprising spirit based on the necessity for a concession. A few men who shared her father's convictions and went even further. One or two even who cautiously for fear of old Anthony's ears voiced a belief that before long invested money would be given a fixed return all surplus profits to be divided among the workers, the owners and the government. What about the lean years? Someone asked. The government's share of all business was to form a contingent fund for such emergencies it seemed. Lily listened attentively. Was it because they feared that if they did not voluntarily divide their profits they would be taken from them? Enough for all and to none too much. Was that what they feared? Or was it a sense of justice, belated but real? She remembered something Jim Doyle had said. Labor has learned its weakness alone it strength united. But capital has not learned that lesson. It will not take a loss for a principle. It will not unite. It is suspicious and jealous so it fights its individual battles alone and loses in the end. But then to offset that there was something Willie Cameron had said one day frying donuts for her in one hand and waving the fork about with the other. Don't forget this, oh representative of the plutocracy he had said. Capital has its side and a darned good one too. It's got a sense of responsibility to the country which labor may have individually but hasn't got collectively. These men at the table were grave burdened with responsibility. Her father, even her grandfather. It was no longer a question of profit. It was a question of keeping the country going. They were like men forced to travel and resting a strong headwind. There were some there who would turn in time and travel with the gale. But there were others like her grandfather, obstinate and secretly frightened who would refuse. Who would, to change the figure, sit like misers over their treasure and eye on the window of life for thieves. She went upstairs, perplexed and thoughtful. Sometime later she heard the family ascending, the click of her mother's high heels on the polished wood of the staircase, her father's sturdy tread and a moment or two later her grandfather's slow rather weary step. Suddenly she felt sorry for him, for his age, for his false gods of power and pride, for the disappointment she was to him. She flung open her door impulsively and confronted him. I just wanted to say good night, grandfather, she said breathlessly, and that I'm sorry. Sorry for what? Sorry, she hesitated, because we see things so differently. Lily was almost certain that she got a flash of tenderness in his eyes and certainly his voice had softened. You looked very pretty tonight, he said. But he passed on and she had again the sense of rebuff with which he met all her small overtures at that time. However, he turned at the foot of the upper flight. I would like to talk to you, Lily, will you come upstairs? She had been summoned before to those mysterious upper rooms of his where entrance was always by request and generally such requests besaged trouble. But she followed him lightheartedly enough then. His rare compliment had pleased and touched her. The lamp beside his high-backed, almost throne-like chair was lighted and in the dressing room beyond, his valet was moving about preparing for the night. Anthony dismissed the man and sat down under the lamp. You heard the discussion downstairs tonight, Lily. Personally, I anticipate no trouble, but if there is any, it may be directed at this house. He smiled grimly. I cannot rely on my personal popularity to protect me, I fear. Your mother obstinately refuses to leave your father, but I have decided to send you to your great Aunt Caroline. Aunt Caroline? She doesn't care for me, grandfather, she never has. That is hardly pertinent, is it? The situation is this. She intends to open the Newport House early in June and at my request she will bring you out there. Next fall we will do something here. I haven't decided just what. There was a sudden, wild surge of revolt in Lily. She hated Newport. Great Aunt Caroline was a terrible person. She was like Anthony, domineering and cruel and with even less control over her tongue. I need not point out the advantages of the plan, said Anthony swobbly. There may be trouble here, although I doubt it, but in any event you will have to come out and this seems an excellent way. Is it a good thing to spend a lot of money now, grandfather, when there is so much discontent? Old Anthony had a small jagged vein down the center of his forehead and in anger or his rare excitement, it stood out like a scar. Lily saw it now, but his voice was quiet enough. I consider it vitally important to the country to continue its social life as before the war. You mean to show we are not frightened? Frightened? Good God, nobody's frightened. It will take more than a handful of demagogues to upset this government, which brings me to a subject you insist on reopening by your conduct. I have reason to believe that you are still going to that man's house. He never called Doyle by name if he could avoid it. I have been there several times. After you were forbidden, his tone roused every particle of antagonism in her. She flushed. Perhaps because I was forbidden, she said slowly, hasn't it occurred to you that I may consider your attitude very unjust? If she looked for an outburst from him, it did not come. He stood for a moment deep in thought. You understand that this Doyle once tried to assassinate me? I know that he tried to beat you, grandfather. I am sorry, but that was long ago. And there was a reason for it, wasn't there? I see, he said slowly. What you are conveying to me not too delicately is that you have definitely allied yourself with my enemies, that here in my own house, you intend to defy me, that regardless of my wishes or commands, while eating my food, you purpose to traffic with a man who has sworn to get me sooner or later, am I correct? I have only said that I see no reason why I should not visit Aunt Allanor, and that you intend to. Do I understand also that you refuse to go to Newport? I dare say I shall have to go if you send me. I don't want to go. Very well. I am glad we have had this little talk. It makes my own course quite plain. Good night. He opened the door for her, and she went out and down the stairs. She felt very calm, and as though something irrevocable had happened. With her anger at her grandfather, there was mixed a sort of pity for him because she knew that nothing he could do would change the fundamental situation. Even if he locked her up, and that was possible, he would know that he had not really changed things or her. She felt surprisingly strong. All these years that she had feared him, and yet when it came to a direct issue, he was helpless. What had he but his wicked tongue, and what did that matter to deaf ears? She found her maid gone, and Mademoiselle waiting to help her undress. Mademoiselle often did that. It made her feel still essential in Lily's life. A long séance, she said. Your mother told me to-night. It is Newport. He wants me to go. Unhook me, Mademoiselle, and then run off and go to bed. You ought not to wait up like this. Newport, said Mademoiselle, deftly slipping off the white and silver that was Lily's gown. It will be wonderful, dear, and you will be a great success. You are very beautiful. I am not going to Newport, Mademoiselle. Mademoiselle broke into rapid expostulation in French. Every girl wanted to make her debut at Newport. Here it was all industry, money, dirt. Men who slaved in offices daily. At Newport was gathered the real leisure class of America, those who knew how to play, who lived. But Lily taking off her birthday pearls before the mirror of her dressing table only shook her head. I am not going, she said. I might as well tell you, for you'll hear about it later. I have quarreled with him very badly. I think he intends to lock me up. C'est impossible, cried Mademoiselle. But a glance at Lily's set face in the mirror told her it was true. She went away very soon, sadly troubled. There were bad times coming. The old peaceful quiet days were gone, for age and obstinacy had met youth and the arrogance of youth, and it was to be battle. Chapter 17. But there was a truce for a time. Lily came and went without interference and without comment. Nothing more was said about Newport. She motored on bright days to the country club, lunched and played golf or tennis, rode along the country lanes with Pink Denslow, accepted such invitations as came her way cheerfully enough but without enthusiasm and was very gentle to her mother. But Mademoiselle found her tense and restless as though she were waiting. And there were times when she disappeared for an hour or two in the afternoons, preferring no excuses, and came back flushed and perhaps a little frightened. On the evenings that followed those small excursions, she was particularly gentle to her mother. Mademoiselle watched and waited for the blow she feared was about to fall. She felt sure that the girl was seeing Louie Acres and that she would ultimately marry him. In her despair she fell back on Willie Cameron and persuaded Grace to invite him to dinner. It was meant to be a surprise for Lily but she had telephoned at seven o'clock that she was dining at the doils. It was that evening that Willie Cameron learned that Mr. Hendricks had been right about Lily. He and Grace dined alone for Howard was away at a political conference and Anthony had dined at his club. And in the morning room after dinner Grace found herself giving him her confidence. I have no right to burden you with our troubles, Mr. Cameron, Grace said, but she is so fond of you and she has great respect for your judgment. If you could only talk to her about the anxiety she is causing. These doils, or rather Mr. Doyle, the wife is Mr. Cardew's sister, are putting all sorts of ideas into her head. And she has met a man there, Mr. Acres, and I'm afraid she thinks she is in love with him, Mr. Cameron. He met her eyes gravely. Have you tried not forbidding her to go to the doils? I have forbidden her nothing. It is her grandfather. Then it seems to be Mr. Cardew who needs to be talked to, doesn't it? He said, I wouldn't worry too much, Mrs. Cardew. And don't hold too tight a reign. He was very downhearted when he left. Grace's last words placed a heavy burden on him. I simply feel, she said, that you can do more with her than we can and that if something isn't done she will ruin her life. She is too fine and wonderful to have her do that. To picture Lily as willfully going her own gait at that period would be most unfair. She was suffering cruelly. The impulse that led her to meet Louis Acres against her family's wishes was irresistible but there was a new angle to her visits to the Doyle House. She was going there now not so much because she wished to go as because she began to feel that her Aunt Eleanor needed her. There was something mysterious about her Aunt Eleanor, mysterious and very sad. Even her smile had pathos in it and she was smiling less and less. She sat in those bright little gatherings in them but not of them, unbrilliant and very quiet. Sometimes she gave Lily the sense that like Lily herself she was waiting. Waiting for what? Lily had a queer feeling too once or twice that Eleanor was afraid but again afraid of what? Sometimes she wondered if Eleanor Doyle was afraid of her husband. Certainly there were times when they were alone when he dropped his unctuous mask and held Eleanor up to smiling contempt. You can see what a clever wife I have, he said once. Sometimes I wonder Eleanor how you have lived with me so long and absorb so little of what really counts. Perhaps the difficulty, Eleanor had said quietly, is because we differ as to what really counts. Lily brought Eleanor something she needed, of youth and irresponsible chatter and in the end the girl found the older woman depending on her. To cut her off from that small solace was unthinkable and then too she formed Eleanor's soul link with her former world, a world of dinners and receptions of clothes and horses and men who habitually dressed for dinner, of the wealth and panoply of life, a world in which her interests strangely persisted. What did you wear at the country club dance last night? She would ask. A rose colored chiffon over yellow, it gives the oddest effect like an Ophelia rose or at the main wearings, George or Albert. The Alberts, did they ever have any children? One day she told her about not going to Newport and was surprised to see Eleanor troubled. Why won't you go? It is a wonderful house. I don't care to go away Aunt Nellie. She called her that sometimes. Eleanor had knitted silently for a while. Then, do you mind if I say something to you? Say anything you like, of course. I just, Lily, don't see too much of Louis Aker's. Don't let him carry you off your feet. He is good looking, but if you marry him, you will be terribly unhappy. That isn't enough to say Aunt Nellie, she said gravely. You must have a reason. Eleanor hesitated. I don't like him. He is a man of very impure life. That's because he has never known any good women. Lily rose valiantly to his defense, but the words hurt her. Suppose a good woman came into his life. Couldn't she change him? I don't know, Eleanor said helplessly, but there is something else. It will cut you off from your family. You did that. You couldn't stand it either. You know what it's like. There must be some other way. That is no reason for marriage. But suppose I care for him. Lily said shyly. You wouldn't live with him a year. There are different ways of caring Lily. There is such a thing as being carried away by a man's violent devotion, but it isn't the violent love that lasts. Lily considered that carefully, and she felt that there was some truth in it. When Louis Aker's came to take her home that night, he found her unresponsive and thoughtful. Mrs. Doyle's been talking to you, he said at last. She hates me, you know. Why should she hate you? Because with all her vicissitudes she's still a snob, he said roughly. My family was nothing, so I'm nothing. She wants me to be happy, Louis. And she thinks you won't be with me. I am not at all sure that I would be. She made an effort then to throw off the strange bond that held her to him. I should like to have three months, Louis, to get A. Well, a sort of perspective. I can't think clearly when you're around and... And I'm always around. Thanks. But she had alarmed him. You're hurting me awfully, little girl, he said in a different tone. I can't live without seeing you and you know it. You're all I have in life. You have everything, well, friends, position. You could play for three months and never miss me, but you are all I have. In the end, she capitulated. Jim Doyle was very content those days. There had been a time when Jim Doyle was the honest advocate of labor, a flaming partisan of those who worked with their hands. But he had traveled a long road since then, from dreamer to conspirator. Once he had planned to build up, now he plotted to tear down. His weekly paper had enormous power. To the workers he had begun to preach class consciousness and the doctrine of being true to their class. From class consciousness to class hatred was but a step. Ostensibly he stood for a vast equality, worldwide and beneficent. Actually he preached an inflammable doctrine of unearth with a last shall be first. He advocated the overthrow of all centralized government and considered the wages system robbery. Under it workers were slaves and employers of worker slave masters. It was with such phrases that he had for months been consistently inflaming the inflammable foreign element in and around the city and not the foreign element only. A certain percentage of American born workmen fell before the hammer-like blows of his words repeated and driven home each week. He had no scruples and preached none. He preached only revolt and in that revolt defiance of all existing laws. He had no religion. Christ to him was a pitiful weakling, a historic victim of the same system that still crucified those who fought the established order. In his new world there would be no churches and no laws. He advocated bloodshed, arson, sabotage of all sorts as a means to an end. Fanatic he was, but practical fanatic and the more dangerous for that. He had viewed the failure of the plan to capture a city in the Northwest in February with irritation, but without discouragement. They had acted prematurely there and without sufficient secrecy. That was all. The plan in itself was right. And he had watched the scant reports of the uprising in the newspapers with amusement and scorn. The very steps taken to suppress the facts showed the uneasiness of the authorities and left the nation with a feeling of false security. The people were always like that. Twice in a hundred years, France had experienced the commune. Each time she had been mourned and each time she had waited too long. Ever so often in the life of every nation came these periodic outbursts of discontent, economic in their origin and ran their course like diseases, contagious, violent and deadly. The commune always followed long and costly wars. The people would dance, but they revolted at paying the piper. The plan in Seattle had been well enough conceived. The city light plant was to have been taken over during the early evening of February 6th and at 10 o'clock that night the city was to have gone dark. But the reign of terrorization that was to follow had revolted Jim Osborne, one of their leaders, and from his hotel bedroom he had notified the authorities. Ward had gone out to get Osborne. If it had not been for Osborne and the conservative element behind him, a flame would have been kindled at Seattle that would have burnt across the nation. Doyle watched Gompers cynically. He considered his advocacy of patriotic cooperation between labor and the government during the war the skillful attitude of an opportunist. Gompers could do better with public opinion behind him than without it. He was an opportunist riding the wave which would carry him farthest. Playing both ends against the middle and the middle himself. He saw Gompers watching the release of tension that followed the armistice and seeing the great child he had fathered grown now and conscious of its power. Watching it, fully aware that it had become stronger than he. Gompers, according to Doyle, had ceased to be a leader and become a follower into strange and difficult paths. The war had made labor's day. No public move was made without consulting organized labor and a certain element in it had grown drunk with power. To this element Doyle appealed. It was Doyle who wrote the carefully prepared incendiary speeches which were learned verbatim by his agents for delivery. For Doyle knew one thing and knew it well. Labor, thinking along new lines must think along the same lines. Be taught the same doctrines. Be pushed in one direction. There were then two Doyles, one the poser, flaunting his outrageous doctrines with a sardonic grin, gathering about him a small circle of the intelligentsia and two openly heterodox to be dangerous. And the other, secretly plotting against the city, wary, cautious, practical and deadly, waiting to overthrow the established order and substitute it for chaos. It was only incidental to him that old Anthony should go with the rest. But he found a Saturnine pleasure in being old Anthony's nemesis. He meant to be that. He steadily widened the breach between Lily and her family and he watched the progress of her affair with Louis Acre's with Relish. He had not sought this particular form of revenge, but fate had thrust it into his hands and he meant to be worthy of the opportunity. He was in no hurry. He had an extraordinary patience and he rather liked sitting back and watching the slow development of his plans. It was like chess. It was deliberate and inevitable. One made a move and then sat back waiting and watching while the other side countered it or fell with slow agonizing into the trap. A few days after Lily had had her talk with Eleanor, Doyle found a way to widen the gulf between Lily and her grandfather. Eleanor seldom left the house and Lily had done some shopping for her. The two women were in Eleanor's bedroom opening small parcels when he knocked and came in. I don't like to disturb the serenity of this happy family group, he said, but I am inclined to think that a certain gentleman standing not far from a certain young lady's taxicab belongs to a certain department of our great city government and from his unflattering lack of interest in me that he, Eleanor, half rose terrified. Not the police, Jim. Sit down, he said in a tone Lily had never heard amused before. And to Lily, more gently, I am not altogether surprised. As a matter of fact, I have known it for some time. Your esteemed grandfather seems to take a deep interest in your movements these days. Do you mean that I am being followed? I'm afraid so. You see, you are a very important person and if you will venture in the slums which surround the Cardew mills, you should be protected. But any time, for instance, Aunt Eleanor and I may dispoil you of those pearls you wear so casually and... Don't talk like that, Jim, Eleanor protested. She was very pale. Are you sure he is watching Lily? He gave her an ugly look. Who else? He inquired swavly. Lily sat still, frozen with anger. So this was her grandfather's method of dealing with her. He could not lock her up, but he would know day by day and hour by hour what she was doing. She could see him reading carefully his wicked little notes on her day. Perhaps he was watching her mail, too. Then, when he had secured a hateful total, he would go to her father and together they would send her away somewhere. Away from Louis Acres. If he was watching her mail, too, he would know that Louis was in love with her. They would rake up all the things that belonged in the past he was done with and recite them to her, as though they mattered now. She went to the window and looked out. Yes, she had seen the detective before. He must have been hanging around for days, his face unconsciously impressing itself upon her. When she turned, Louis coming to dinner, isn't he? Yes. If you don't mind, Aunt Nellie, I think I'll dine out with him somewhere. I want to talk to him alone. But the detective, if my grandfather uses low and detestable means to spy on me, Aunt Nellie, he deserves what he gets, doesn't he? When Louis Acres came at half past six, he found that she had been crying, but she greeted him calmly enough with her head held high. Eleanor, watching her, thought she was very like old Anthony himself just then. End of chapter 16 and 17.