 CHAPTER XVIII Willie Cameron came home from a night-class in metallurgy the evening after the day Lily had made her declaration of independence and let himself in with his night-key. There was a light in the little parlor and Mrs. Boyd's fragile silhouette against the window-shade. He was not surprised at that. She had developed a maternal affection for him stronger than any she showed for either Edith or Dan. She revealed it in mother-touching ways, too, keeping accounts when he accused her of gross extravagance, for she spent Dan's swollen wages wastefully, making him coffee late at night and forcing him to drink it, although it kept him awake for hours, and never going to bed until he was safely closeted in his room at the top of the stairs. He came in as early as possible, therefore, for he had had Dr. Smolley in to see her, and the result had been unsatisfactory. "'Heart's bad,' said the doctor, when they had retired to Willie's room. Leaks like a sieve. And there may be an aneurysm. Looks like it anyhow.' "'What is there to do?' Willie asked, feeling helpless and extremely shocked. We might send her somewhere. Nothing to do. Don't send her away. She'd die of loneliness. Keep her quiet and keep her happy. Don't let her worry. She only has a short time, I should say, and you can't lengthen it. It could be shortened, of course, if she had a shock or anything like that. Shall I tell the family? What's the use?' asked Dr. Smolley philosophically. If they fuss over her she'll suspect something.' As he went down the stairs he looked about him. The hall was fresh with new paper and white paint, and in the yard at the rear visible through an open door the border of annuals was putting out its first blossoms. "'Nice little place you've got here,' he observed. I think I see the fine hand of Miss Edith, eh?' "'Yes,' said Willie Cameron gravely. He had made renewed efforts to get a servant after that, but the invalid herself balked him. When he found an applicant Mrs. Boyd would sit very much the grand dame and question her, although she always ended by sending her away. "'She looked like the sort that would be running out at nights,' she would say. Or she wouldn't take telling, and I know the way you like your things, Willie. I could see by looking at her that she couldn't cook at all.' She cherished the delusion that he was improving and gaining flesh under her administrations, and there was a sort of jealousy in her care for him. She wanted to yield to no one the right to sit proudly behind one of her heavy tasteless pies and say, "'Now I made this for you, Willie, because I know country boys like pies. Just see if that crust isn't nice.' "'You don't mean to say you made it?' "'I certainly did.' "'And to please her,' he would clear his plate. He rather ran to digestive tablets those days, and Edith, surprising him with one at the kitchen sink one evening, accused him roundly of hypocrisy. "'I don't know why you stay anyhow,' she said, staring into the yard, where jinx was bearing a bone in the heliotrope bed. "'The food's awful. I'm used to it, but you're not.' "'You don't eat anything, Edith.' "'I'm not hungry. Willie, I wish you'd go away. What right we got to tie you up with us, anyhow?' "'We're a poor lot. You're not comfortable, and you know it. Do you know where she is now?' "'She, in the vernacular of the house, was always Mrs. Boyd. "'She forgot to make your bed, and she's doing it now.' He ran up the stairs, and forcibly putting Mrs. Boyd in a chair made up his own bed, awkwardly, and with a nigh on her chest which rose and fell alarmingly. It was after that that he warned Edith.' "'She's not strong,' he said. "'She needs care and—well, to be happy. That's up to the three of us. For one thing, she must not have a shock.' "'I'm going to warn Dan against exploding paper bags. She goes white every time.' Dan was at a meeting, and Willie dried the supper dishes for Edith. She was silent and morose. Finally, she said, "'She's not very strong for me, Willie. "'You needn't look so shocked. She loves Dan and you, but not me. I don't mind, you know. She doesn't know it, but I do.' "'She is very proud of you.' "'That's different. You're right, though.' "'Pride's her middle name.' "'It nearly killed her at first to take a rumor because she is always thinking of what the neighbours will say. That's why she hates me sometimes.' "'I wish you wouldn't talk that way.' "'But it's true.' "'That fool, hodgewoman at the corner, came here one day last winter and filled her up with a lot of talk about me, and she's been queer to me ever since.' "'You are a very good daughter.' She eyed him furtively. If only he wouldn't always believe in her. It was almost worse than to have him know the truth. But he went along with his head in the clouds. All women were good, and all men meant well. Sometimes it worked out. Dan, for instance. Dan was trying to live up to him, but it was too late for her. Forever too late. It was Willie Cameron's night off, and they went the three of them to the movies that evening. To Mrs. Boyd, the movies was the acme of dissipation. She would, if warned in advance, spend the entire day with her hair in curlers, and once there she feasted her starved romantic soul to repletion. But that night the building was stifling, and without any warning Edith suddenly got up and walked toward the door. There was something odd about her walk, and Willie followed her, but she turned on him almost fiercely outside. "'I wish you'd let me alone,' she said, and then swayed a little. But she did not faint. "'I'm going home,' she said. "'You stay with her, and for heaven's sake don't stare at me like that. I'm all right.' Nevertheless he had taken her home. Edith obstinately silent and sullen and Willie anxious and perplexed. At the door she said, "'Now go back to her and tell her I just got sick of the picture. It was the smells in that rotten place. They'd turn a pig's stomach.' "'I wish you'd see a doctor.' She looked at him with suspicious eyes. "'If you run smally in on me, I'll leave home. Will you go to bed? I'll go to bed, all right?' He had found things rather more difficult after that. Two women, both ill and refusing to acknowledge it, and the prospect of Dan's being called out by the union. Try as he would he could not introduce any habit of thrift into the family. Dan's money came and went, and on Saturday nights, there was not only nothing left but often a deficit. Dan, skillfully worked upon outside, began to develop grievance also, and on his rare evenings at home or at the table he would voice his wrongs. "'It's just Dan to mouth all the time,' he would grumble. A fellow working for the card who's never gets ahead. What chance has he got anyhow? It takes all he can get to live!' Willie Cameron began to see that the trouble was not with Dan, but with his womenfolk. And Dan was one of thousands. His wages went for food, too much food, food spoiled in cooking. There were men with able women behind them making less than Dan and saving money. "'Keep some of it out and bank it,' he suggested, but Dan sneered. "'And have a store-bill a mile long. You know mother as well as I do. She means well, but she's a fool with money.' He counted his hours from the time he entered the mill until he left it, but he revealed once that there were long idle periods when the heating was going on, when he and the other men of the furnace grew sad and waited to doing nothing. "'But I'm there all right,' he said. "'I'm not playing golf or riding in my automobile. I'm on the job.' "'Well,' said Willie Cameron, "'I'm on the job about eleven hours a day, and I wear out more shoe leather than trousers seats at that. But it doesn't seem to hurt me.' "'It's a question of principle,' said Dan doggedly. "'I've got no personal kick, you understand. Only I'm not getting anywhere, and something's got to be done about it.'" So on the evening of the day after Lily had made her declaration of independence, Willie Cameron made his way rather heavily toward the Boyd House. He was very tired. He had made one or two speeches for Hendricks already before local ward organizations, and he was working hard at his night-class in metallurgy. He had had a letter from his mother too and he thought he read homesickness between the lines. He was not at all sure where his duty lay, yet to quit now, to leave Mr. Hendricks and the Boyd's flat seemed impossible. He had tried to see Lily too and failed. She had been very gentle over the telephone, but attuned as he was to every inflection of her voice, he had thought there was unhappiness in it. Almost despair. But she had pleaded a week of engagements. "'I'm sorry,' she had said. "'I'll call you up next week sometime. "'I have a lot of things I want to talk over with you.' But he knew she was avoiding him. And he knew that he ought to see her. Through Mr. Hendricks he had learned something more about Jim Doyle, the real Doyle and not the poser, and he felt she should know the nature of the accusations against him. Lily mixed up with a band of traitors. Lily of the White Flame of patriotism was unthinkable. She must not go to the house on Cardew Way. A man's loyalty was like a woman's virtue. It could not be questionable. There was no middle ground. He heard voices as he entered the house and to his amazement found Ellen in the parlor. She was sitting very stiff on the edge of her chair, her hat slightly crooked, and a suitcase and brown paper bundle at her feet. Mrs. Boyd was visibly entertaining her. "'I made it a point to hold my head high,' she was saying. I guess there was a lot of talk when I took a border, but is that you, Willie?' "'Why, Miss Ellen,' he said, and looking as though headed for a journey.' Ellen's face did not relax. She had been sitting there for an hour, letting Mrs. Boyd's prattle pour over her like a rain, and thinking, meanwhile, her own bitter thoughts. "'I am, Willie. Only I didn't wait for my money and the banks closed, and I came to borrow ten dollars if you have it. That,' told him, she was in trouble, but Mrs. Boyd, amably hospitable and reveling in a fresh audience, showed no sign of departing. "'She says she's been living at the Cardoos,' she put in, rocking valiantly. I guess most any place would seem tame after that. I do hear, Miss Hart, that Mrs. Howard Cardo only wears her clothes once and then gives them away.' She hitched the chair away from the fireplace where it showed every indication of going up the chimney. "'I call that downright wasteful,' she offered.' Willie glanced at his watch which had been his father's and bore the inscription, James Duncan Cameron, 1876, inside the case. "'Eleven o'clock,' he said sternly, and me, promising the doctor, I'd have you in bed at ten sharp every night. Now off with you.' "'But, Willie!' "'Or I shall have to carry you,' he threatened. It was an old joke between them, and she rose, smiling, her thin face illuminated with the sense of being looked after. "'He's that domineering,' she said to Ellen, that I can't call my soul my own.' "'Good night,' Ellen said briefly.' Willie stood at the foot of the stairs and watched her going up. He knew she liked him to do that, that she would expect to find him there when she reached the top and looked down, panting slightly. "'Good night,' he called. Both windows open. I shall go outside to see.' Then he went back to Ellen, still standing primly over her laries and penities. "'Now tell me about it,' he said. "'I've left them. There has been a terrible fuss, and when Miss Lily left tonight, I did too.' She left her home?' She nodded. "'It's awful, Willie. I don't know all of it, but they've been having her followed, or her grandfather did. I think there's a man in it, followed, and her a good girl. Her grandfather's been treating her like a dog for weeks. We all noticed it. And tonight there was a quarrel, with all of them at her like a pack of dogs, and her governess crying in the hall. I just went up and packed my things. Where did she go? I don't know. I got her a taxicab, and she only took one bag. I went right off to the housekeeper and told her I wouldn't stay, and they could send my money after me. Did you notice the number of that taxicab? I never thought of it.' He saw it all with terrible distinctness. The man was Acre's, of course. Then if she had left her home rather than give him up, she was really in love with him. He had too much common sense to believe for a moment that she had fled to Louis Acre's protection, however. That was the last thing she would do. She would have gone to a hotel or to the doil-house. She shouldn't have left home, Ellen. They drove her out, I tell you, Ellen cried irritably. At least that's what it amounted to. There are things no high-minded girl will stand. Can you lend me some money, Willie? He felt in his pocket producing a handful of loose money. Of course you can have all I've got," he said. But you must not go to night, Miss Ellen. It's too late. I'll give you my room and go in with Dan Boyd." And he prevailed over her protests in the end. It was not until he saw her settled there, hiding her sense of strangeness under an impassive mask, that he went downstairs again and took his hat from its hook. Lily must go back home, he knew. It was unthinkable that she would break with her family and go to the doils. She had too little self-consciousness to question the propriety of his own interference, too much love for her to care whether she resented that interference. And he was filled with a vast anger at Jim Doyle. He saw in all this somehow, Doyle's work, how it would play into Doyle's plans to have Anthony Cardew's granddaughter a member of his household. He would take her away from there if he had to carry her. He was a long time in getting to the mill district and a longer time still in finding Cardew way. At an all night pharmacy he learned which was the house and his determined movements took on a sort of uncertainty. It was very late. Ellen had waited for him for some time. If Lily were in that sinister darkened house across the street, the family had probably retired. And for the first time, too, he began to doubt if Doyle would let him see her. Lily herself might even refuse to see him. Nevertheless, the urgency to get her away from there if she were there prevailed at last and a strip of light in an upper window, as from an imperfectly fitted blind, assured him that someone was still awake in the house. He went across the street and opening the gates showed up the walk. Almost immediately he was confronted by the figure of a man who had been concealed by the trunk of one of the trees. He lounged forward, huge, menacing, yet not entirely hostile. Who is it? demanded the figure blocking his way. I want to see Mr. Doyle. What about? I'll tell him that, said Willie Cameron. What's your name? That's my business, too, said Mr. Cameron, with disarming pleasantness. Damn private about your business, aren't you? jeered the sentries still in cautious tones. Well, you can write it down on a piece of paper and mail it to him. He's busy now. All I want to do, persisted Mr. William Wallace Cameron, growing slightly giddy with repressed fury, is to ring that doorbell and ask him a question. I'm going to do it, too. There was rather an interesting moment, then, because the figure lunged at Mr. Cameron, and Mr. Cameron stooping low and swiftly as well as to one side, and, at the same instant, becoming a fighting scot, which means a cool-eyed madman, got in one or two rather neat effects with his fists. The first took the shadow just below his breastbone, and the left caught him at that angle of the jaw where a small cause sometimes produces a large effect. The figure sat down on the brick walk and grunted, and Mr. Cameron, judging that he had about ten seconds leeway, felt in the dazed person's right-hand pocket for the revolver he knew would be there and secured it. The sitting figure made puffing feeble attempts to prevent him, but there was no real struggle. Mr. Cameron himself was feeling extremely triumphant and as strong as a lion. He was rather sorry no one had seen the affair, but that, of course, was subconscious. And he was more cheerful than he had been for some days. He had been up against so many purely intangible obstacles lately that it was a relief to find one he could use his fists on. Now I'll have a few words with you, my desperate friend," he said. I've got your gun, and I am hell with a revolver because I've never fired one, and there's a sort of homicidal beginner's luck about the thing. If you move or speak, I'll shoot it into you first, and when it's empty I'll choke it down your throat and strangle you to death." After which ferocious speech he strolled up the path, revolver, in hand, and rang the doorbell. He put the weapon in his pocket then, but he kept his hand upon it. He had read somewhere that a revolver was quite usable from a pocket. There was no immediate answer to the bell, and he turned and surveyed the man under the tree, faintly distinguishable in the blackness. It had occurred to him that the number of guns a man may carry is only limited to his pockets, which are about fifteen. There were heavy, deliberate footsteps inside, and the door was flung open. No glare of light followed it, however. There was a man there, alarmingly tall, who seemed to stare at him and then beyond him into the yard. Well? Are you Mr. Doyle? I am. My name is Cameron, Mr. Doyle. I have had a small difference with your watchdog, but he finally let me by. I'm afraid I don't understand. I have no dog. The century you posted then. Mr. Cameron disliked fencing. Ah, said Mr. Doyle, or vainly. You have happened on one of my good friends, I see. I have many enemies, Mr. Cameron. Was that the name? And my friends sometimes like to keep an eye on me. It is rather touching. He was smiling, Mr. Cameron knew, and his anger rose afresh. Very touching, said Mr. Cameron. But if he bothers me going out, you may be short one friend. Mr. Doyle, Miss Lily Cardew, left her home to-night. I want to know if she is here. Where are you sent by her family? I have asked you if she is here. Jim Doyle apparently deliberated. My niece is here, although just why you should interest yourself. May I see her? I regret to say she has retired. I think she would see me. A door opened into the hall, throwing a shaft of light on the wall across and letting out the sounds of voices. Shut that door, said Doyle, wheeling sharply. It was closed at once. Now, he said, turning to his visitor, I'll tell you this. My niece is here. He emphasized the my. She has come to me for refuge, and I intend to give it to her. You won't see her tonight, and if you come from her people you can tell them she came here of her own free will, and that if she stays it will be because she wants to. Joe, he called into the darkness. Yes, came a sullen voice after a moment's hesitation. Show this gentleman out. All at once Willie Cameron was staring at a closed door, on the inner side of which a bolt was being slipped. He felt absurd and futile, and not at all like a lion. With the revolver in his hand he went down the steps. Don't bother about the gate, Joe, he said. I like to open my own gates. And don't try any tricks, Joe. Get back to your kennel. Fearful mutterings followed that, but the shadow retired, and he made an undisturbed exit to the street. Once on the streetcar, the entire episode became unreal and theatrical, with only the drag of Joe's revolver in his coat pocket to prove its reality. It was after midnight when, shoes in hand, he crept up the stairs to Dan's room and careful not to disturb him, slipped into his side of the double bed. He did not sleep at all. He lay there, facing the fact that Lily had delivered herself voluntarily into the hands of the enemy of her house, and not only of her house, an enemy of the country. That conference that night was a sinister one. Brought to book about it, Doyle might claim it as a labor meeting. Organizers planning a strike might, did indeed, hold secret conferences, but they did not post armed guards. They opened business offices and brought in the press men and shouted their grievances for the world to hear. This was different. This was anarchy. And in every city it was going on, this rallying of the mal-contents, the idlers, the envious and the dangerous, to the red flag. Organized labor gathered together the workmen, but men like Doyle were organizing the riff-raff of the country. They secured a small percentage of idealist and pseudo-intellectuals and taught them a so-called internationalism which under the name of brotherhood was nothing but a raid on private property, a scheme of pillage and arson. They allied with themselves imported laborers from Europe, men with everything to gain and nothing to lose, and by magnifying real grievances and inflaming them with imaginary ones, were building out of this material the rank and file of an anarchist army. And against it, what? He remembered something and sat bolt upright in bed. Edith had once said something about knowing of a secret telephone. She had known Louis-Aker's very well. He might have told her what he knew or have shown her in some braggart moment. A certain type of man was unable to keep a secret from a woman, but that would imply. For the first time he wondered what Edith's relations with Louis-Aker's might have been. The surface piece of the house on Cardew Way, the even-tenner of her days there, the feeling she had of sanctuary did not offset Lily's clear knowledge that she had done a cruel and impulsive thing. Even her grandfather, whose anger had driven her away, she remembered now as a feeble old man fighting his losing battle in a changing world and yet with a sort of mistaken heroism hoisting his cutters to the end. She had determined that first night in Eleanor's immaculate guest room to go back the next day. They had been right at home by all the tenets to which they had heard so religiously. She had broken the unwritten law not to break bread with an enemy of her house. She had done what they had expressly forbidden, done it over and over. On top of all this, old Anthony had said after reading the tale of her delinquencies from some notes in his hand, you dined last night openly at the St. Elmo Hotel with the same Louis Acres, a man openly my enemy and openly of him pure life. I do not believe he is your enemy. He is one of the band of anarchists who have repeatedly threatened to kill me. Oh, Lily, Lily! said her mother. But it was to her father standing grave and still that Lily replied. I don't believe that, father, he is not a murderer. If you would let him come here. Over in this house, said old Anthony, savagely crushing notes in his hand, he will come here over my dead body. You have no right to condemn a man unheard. Unheard? I tell you I know all about him. The man is an anarchist, a rake, a dog. Just a moment, father, Howard had put in quietly. Lily, do you care for this man? I mean by that do you want to marry him? He has asked me. I have not given him an answer yet. I don't want to marry a man my family will not receive. It wouldn't be fair to him. Which speech drove old Anthony into a frenzy and led him to a bitterness of language that turned Lily cold and obstinate. She heard him through with her father vainly trying to break in and save the situation, then she said coldly, I am sorry you feel that way about it, and turned and left the room. She had made no plan, of course. She hated doing theatrical things. But shut in her bedroom with the doors locked, Anthony's furious words came back, his threats, his bitter sneers. She felt strangely alone, too. In all the great house she had no one to support her. Mademoiselle, her father and mother, even the servants were tacitly aligned with the opposition, except Ellen. She had felt lately that Ellen in her humble way had espoused her cause. She had sent for Ellen. In spite of the warmth of her greeting Lily had felt a reserve in Aunt Eleanor's welcome. It was as though she was determinately making the best of a bad situation. I had to do it Aunt Eleanor, she said, when they had gone upstairs. There was a labour conference Doyle had explained being held below. I know, said Eleanor, I understand. I'll pin back the curtains so you can open your windows. The night air is so smoky here. I am afraid Mother will grieve terribly. I think she will, said Eleanor with her quiet gravity. You are all she has. She has father. She cares more for him than for anything in the world. Would you like some ice water, dear? Some time later Lily roused from the light sleep of emotional exhaustion. She had thought she heard Willie Cameron's voice. But that was absurd, of course, and she lay back to toss uneasily for hours. Out of all her thinking there emerged at last her real self so long overlaid with her infatuation. She would go home again and make what amends she could. They were wrong about Louie Acre's, but they were right, too. Lying there as the dawn slowly turned her windows to gray she saw him with a new clarity. She had a swift vision of what life with him would mean. Intervals of passionate loving, of boyish dependence on her, and then a new face. Never again was she able to see him with such clearness. He was incapable of loyalty to a woman even though he loved her. He was born to be a wanderer in love and experimenter in passion. She even recognized in him an incurable sensuous curiosity about women that would be quite remote from his love for her. He would see nothing wrong with his infidelities so long as she did not know and did not suffer. And he would come back to her from them, watchful for suspicion, relieved when he did not find it, and bringing her small gifts which would be actually burnt offerings to his own soul. She made up her mind to give him up. She would go home in the morning, make her peace with them all, and never see Louie Acre's again. She slept after that, and at ten o'clock Eleanor awakened her with the word that her father was downstairs. Eleanor was very pale. It had been a shock to her to see her brother in her home after all these years and a still greater one when he had put his arm around her and kissed her. I am so sorry, Howard, she had said. This sight of him had set her lips trembling. He patted her shoulder. Poor Eleanor, he said. Poor old girl. We're a queer lot, aren't we? Oh, but you! An obstinate do and be damned a lot, he said slowly. I'd like to see my little girl, Nellie. We can't have another break in the family. He held Lily in much the same way when she came down, an arm around her, his big shoulders thrown back as though he would guard her against the world. But he was very uneasy and depressed at that. He had come on a difficult errand, and because he had no finesse he blundered badly. It was some time before she gathered the full meaning of what he was saying. Aunt Cornelias, she exclaimed. Or, if you and your mother want to go to Europe, he put in hastily seeing her puzzled face, I think I can arrange about passports. Does that mean he won't have me back, father? Really dear, he said, hoarse with anxiety. We simply have to remember that he is a very old man and that his mind is not elastic. He is feeling very bitter now, but he will get over it. And I am to travel around waiting to be forgiven. I was ready to go back, but he won't have me. Is that it? Only just for the present. He threw out his hands. I have tried everything. I suppose in a way I could insist, make a point of it, but there are other things to be considered. His age, for one thing, and then the strike. If he takes an arbitrary stand against me, no concession, no argument with the men, it makes it very difficult in many ways. I see. It is wicked that any one man should have such power. The city, the mills, his family—it's wicked. But she was conscious of no deep anger against Anthony now. She merely saw that between them, they, she and her grandfather, had dug a gulf that could not be passed. And in Howard's efforts she saw the temporizing that her impatient youth resented. I am afraid it is a final break, father, she said. And if he shuts me out I must live my own life. But I am not going to run away to add Cornelia or Europe. I shall stay here. He had to be content with that. After all, his own sister. But he wished it were not Jim Doyle's house. Not that he regarded Lily's shift toward what he termed Bolshevism very seriously. All youth had a slant toward socialism and outgrew it. But he went away sorely troubled after a few words with Eleanor Doyle alone. You don't look unhappy, Nellie. Things have been much better the last few years. Is he kind to you? Not always, Howard. He doesn't drink now, so that is over. And I think there are no other women. But when things go wrong I suffer, of course. She stared past him toward the open window. Why don't you leave him? I couldn't go home, Howard. You know what it would be. Worse than Lily. And I'm too old to start out by myself. My habits are formed and besides, I— She checked herself. I could take a house somewhere for both of you, Lily and yourself. He said eagerly. That would be a wonderful way out for everybody. She shook her head. We'll manage all right, she said. I'll make Lily comfortable and as happy as I can. He felt that he had to make his own case clear or he might have noticed with what care she was choosing her words. His father's age, his unconscious dependence on Grace, his certainty to retire soon from the arbitrary stand he had taken. Eleanor hardly heard him. Months afterwards he was to remember the distant look in her eyes, a sort of half-frightened determination, but he was too self-engrave just then. I can't persuade you, he finished. No, but it is good of you to think of it. You know what the actual trouble was last night. It was not her coming here. I know, Howard. Don't let her marry him, Nellie. Better than anyone, you ought to know what that would mean. I knew too, Howard, but I did it. In the end he went away not greatly comforted to fight his own battles, to meet committees from the Union and having met them to find himself facing the fact that, driven by some strange urge he could not understand, the leaders wished a strike. There were times when he wondered what would happen if he should suddenly yield every point make every concession. They would only make further demands, he felt. They seemed determined to put him out of business. If only he could have dealt with the men directly, instead of with their paid representatives, he felt that he would get somewhere. But always interposed between himself and his workmen was this barrier of their own erecting. It was like representative government. It did not always represent. It too was founded on representation in good faith, but there was not always good faith. The Union system was wrong. It was like politics. The few handled the many. The Union, with its all powerful leaders, was only another form of autocracy. It was Prussian. Yet the ideal behind the Union was sound enough. He had no quarrel with the Union. He puzzled it out, travelling unaccustomed mental paths. The country was founded on liberty. All men were created free and equal. Free, yes, but equal? Was not equality along way ahead along a thorny road? Men were not equal in the effort they made, nor did equal efforts bring equal result. If there was class antagonism behind all this unrest, would there not always be those who rose by dint of ceaseless effort? Equality of opportunity, yes. Equality of effort and result, no. To destroy the chance of gain was to put a premium on inertia, to kill ambition, to reduce the high without raising the low. At noon on the same day Willie Cameron went back to the house on Cardew Way to find Lily composed and resigned instead of the militant figure he had expected. Lily asked her to go home, and she told him then that she had no longer a home to go to. I meant to go, Willie, she finished. I meant to go this morning. But you see how things are. He had stood for a long time, looking at nothing very hard. I see, he said, finally. Of course, your grandfather will be sorry in a day or two, but he may not swallow his pride very soon. That rather hurt her. What about my pride? Lily asked. You can afford to be magnanimous with all your life before you. Then he faced her. Besides, Lily, you're wrong. Dead wrong. You've hurt three people, and all you've got out of it has been your own way. There is such a thing as liberty. I don't know about that, and a good many crimes have been committed in its name. Even in his unhappiness he was controversial. We are never really free so long as we love people and they love us. Well... He picked up his old felt hat and absolutely turned down the brim. It was raining. I'll have to go back. I've overstayed my lunch-hour as it is. You haven't had any luncheon? I wasn't hungry. He had said and had gone away. His coat-caller turned up against the shower. Lily had had a presentiment that he was taking himself out of her life, that he had given her up as a bad job. She felt depressed and lonely and not quite so sure of herself as she had been. Rather, although she did not put it that way as though something fine had passed her way, like Pippa singing and had then gone on. She settled down as well as she could to her new life, making no plans, however, and always with a stricken feeling that she had gained her own point at the cost of much suffering. She telephoned to her mother daily, broken little conversations with long pauses while Grace steadied her voice. Once her mother hung up the receiver hastily and Lily guessed that her grandfather had come in. She felt very bitter toward him. But she found the small oanage interesting in a quiet way, to make her own bed and mend her stockings. Grace had sent her a trunkful of clothing and on the elderly maid's afternoon out to help Eleanor with the supper. She seldom went out, but Louis Acres came daily and on the sixth day of her stay she promised to marry him. She had not meant to do it, but it was difficult to refuse him. She had let him think she would do it ultimately for one thing. And however clearly she might analyze him in his absences, this strange attraction reasserted itself when he was near. But her acceptance of him was almost stoical. But not soon, Louis, she said, holding him off. And I ought to tell you, I don't think we will be happy together. Why not? Because she found it hard to put into words. Because love with you is a sort of selfish thing, I think. I'll lie down now and let you tramp on me, he said exultantly and held out his arms. But even as she moved toward him she voiced her inner perplexity. I never seemed to be able to see myself married to you. Then the sooner the better, so you can. You won't like being married, you know. That's all you know about it, Lily. I'm mad about you. I'm mad for you. There was a new air of maturity about Lily those days, and sometimes a sort of aloofness that both maddened him and increased his desire to possess her. He went into his arms, but when he held her closest she sometimes seemed farthest away. I want you now. I want to be engaged a long time, Louis. We have so much to learn about each other. He thought that rather childish. But whatever had been his motive in the beginning he was desperately in love with her by that time, and because of that he frightened her sometimes. He was less sure of himself too even after she had accepted him, and to prove his continued dominance over her he would bully her. Come here, he would say from the hearth rug or by the window. Certainly not. Come here. Sometimes she went to be smothered in his hot embrace. Sometimes she did not. But her infatuation persisted, although there were times when his inordinate vitality in his caresses gave her a sense of physical weariness, times when sheer contact revolted her. He seemed always to want to touch her. Festitiously reared taught a sort of aloofness from childhood, Lily found herself wondering if all men in love were like that, always having to be held off. End of CHAPTERS 18 AND 19 CHAPTERS 20 AND 21 OF A POUR WISEMAN by Mary Roberts Reinhart. Ellen was staying at the Boyd house. She went downstairs the morning after her arrival and found the bread, bakery bread, toasted and growing cold on the table while a slice of ham ready to be cooked was not yet on the fire, and Mrs. Boyd had run out to buy some milk. Dan had already gone and his half-empty cup of black coffee was on the kitchen table. Dan sniffed it and raised her eyebrows. She rolled up her sleeves, put the toast in the oven and the ham in the frying pan, with much the same grimness with which she had sat the night before listening to Mrs. Boyd's monologue. If this was the way they looked after Willie Cameron no wonder he was thin and pale. She threw out the coffee, which she suspected had been made by the time-saving method of pouring water on last night's grounds and made a fresh pot of it. After that she inspected the tea-towels and getting a tin dishpan and set them to boil in it on the top of the range. Enough to give him typhoid, she reflected. Ellen disapproved of her surroundings. She disapproved of any woman who did not boil her tea-towels. And when Edith came down carefully dressed and undeniably rouged, she formed a disapproving opinion of that young lady, which was that she was trying to land Willie Cameron and that he would be better dead than landed. She met Edith's stare of surprise with one of thinly veiled hostility. Hello, said Edith, when did you blow in and where from? I came to see Mr. Cameron last night and he made me stay. A friend of Willie's? Well, I guess you needn't pay for your breakfast by cooking it. Mothers probably run out for something. She never has anything in the house and is talking somewhere. I'll take that fork. But Ellen proceeded to turn the ham. I'll do it, she said. You might spoil your hands. But Edith showed no offence. All right, she exceeded indifferently. If you're going to eat it, you'd better cook it. We're rotten housekeepers here. I should think if you're going to keep boarders somebody would learn to cook. Mr. Cameron's mother is the best housekeeper in town and he was raised on good food and plenty of it. Her tone was treculant. Ellen's world, the world of short hours and easy service, of the decorum of the Cardew servants' hall, of luxury and dignity and good pay had suddenly gone to pieces about her. She was feeling very bitter, especially toward a certain chauffeur who had prophesied the end of all service. He had made the statement that before long all people would be equal. There would be no above and below stairs, no servants' hall. They'll drive their own cars then, damn them, he had said once, if they can get any to drive, and answer their own bills, if they've got any to ring, and get up and cook their own breakfast. Which you won't have any to cook, Grayson had said irritably from the head of the long table. Just a word, my man, that sort of talk is forbidden here. One word more and I go to Mr. Cardew. The chauffeur had not sulked, however. All right, Mr. Grayson, he said halfably. But I can go on thinking, I dare say, and some of these days you'll be wishing you'd climbed on the bandwagon before it's too late. Ellen turning the ham carefully was conscious that her revolt had been only partially on Lily's account. It was not so much Lily's plight as the abuse of power, although she did not put it that way that had driven her out. Ellen then had carried out her own small revolution and where had it put her? She had lost a good home, and what could she do? All she knew was service. Edith poured herself a cup of coffee and taking a piece of toast from the oven stood nibbling it. The crumbs fell on the not-over-clean floor. Why don't you go into the dining-room to eat? Ellen demanded. Got out of the wrong side of the bed, didn't you? Edith asked. Lily's bed, I suppose? I'm not hungry, and I always eat breakfast like this. I wish she would hurry, we'll be late. Ellen stared. It was her first knowledge that this girl, this painted hussy, worked in Lily's pharmacy and her suspicions increased. She had a quick vision, as she had once had of Lily, of Edith in the Cameron House. Edith reading or embroidering on the front porch while Willie's mother slaved for her. Edith on the same porch in the evening with all the boys in town around her. She knew the type, the sort that set an entire village by the ears and in the end left home and husband and ran away with a traveling salesman. Ellen had already got Willie married and divorced when Mrs. Boyd came in. She carried the milk-pale, but her lips were blue and she sat down in a chair and held her hand to her heart. I'm that short of breath, she gasped. I declare I could hardly get back. I'll give you some coffee right off. When Willie Cameron had finished his breakfast she followed him into the parlor. His pallor was not lost on her or his sunken eyes. He looked badly fed, shabby and harassed, and he bore the marks of his sleepless night on his face. Are you going to stay here? She demanded. Why, yes, Miss Ellen. Your mother would break her heart if she knew the way you're living. I'm very comfortable. We've tried to get a sir. He changed colour at that. In the simple life of the village at home a woman whose only training was the town standard of good housekeeping might go into service in the city and not lose caste. But she was never thought of as a servant. Help, he substituted. But we can't get anyone and Mrs. Boyd is delicate. It is hard trouble. Does that girl work where you do? Yes, why? Is she engaged to you? She calls you Willie. He smiled into her eyes. Not a bit of it or thinking of it. How do you know what she's thinking? It's all over her. It's Willie this and Willie that. And men are such fools. They're flashed into his mind certain things that he had tried to forget, Edith at his doorway with that odd look in her eyes. Edith never going to sleep until he had gone to bed. And recently certain things she had said that he had passed over lightly and somewhat uncomfortably. That's ridiculous, Miss Ellen. But even if it were true, which it isn't, don't you think it would be rather nice of her? He smiled. I do not. I heard you going out last night, Willie. Did you find her? She is at the doils. I didn't see her. That'll finish it, Ellen prophesied somberly. She glanced around the parlor at the dust on the furniture, at the unwashed baseboard, at the unwound clock on the mantel shelf. If you're going to stay here, I will, she announced abruptly. I owe that much to your mother. I've got some money. I'll take what they'd pay some foreigner who throw out enough to keep another family. Then seeing hesitation in his eyes. That woman's sick, and you've got to be looked after. I could do all the work, if that, if the girl would help in the evenings. He demurred at first. She would find it hard. They had no luxuries, and she was accustomed to luxury. There was no room for her. But in the end he called Edith and Mrs. Boyd and was rather touched to find Edith offering to share her upper bedroom. It's a whole, she said, cold and winter and hot as blazes in summer, but there's room for a cot, and I guess we can let each other alone. I wish you'd let me move up there, Edith, he said, for perhaps the twentieth time since he had found out where she slept. And you would take my room. No chance, she said cheerfully. Mother would raise the devil if you tried it. She glanced at Ellen's face. If that word shocks you, here do for a few shocks, you know. The way you talk is your business, not mine, said Ellen Osteerly. When they finally departed on a half-run, Ellen was established as a fixture in the Boyd House, and was already piling all the cooking utensils into a wash boiler, and with grim efficiency was searching for lye with which to clean them. Two weeks later, the end of June, the strike occurred. It was not in spite of predictions a general walkout. Some of the mills, particularly the smaller plants, did not go down at all, and with reduced forces kept on, but the chain of cardew mills was closed. There was occasional rioting by the foreign element in outlying districts, but the state constabulary handled it easily. Dan was out of work, and the loss of his spay was a serious matter in the little house. He had managed to lay by a hundred dollars, and Willie Cameron had banked it for him, but there was a real problem to be faced. On the night of the day the cardew mills went down, Willie called a meeting of the household after supper, around the dining-room table. He had been in to see Mr. Hendricks, who had been laid up with bronchitis, and Mr. Hendricks had predicted a long strike. The irresistible force and the immovable body, son, he said, they'll stay set this time. And unless I miss my guess that is playing Doyle's hand for him all right, his chance will come when the men have used up their savings and are growing bitter. Every strike plays into the hands of the enemy, son, and they know it. The moment production ceases prices go up, and soon all the money in the world won't pay them wages enough to live on. He had a store of homely common sense and a gift of putting things into few words. Willie Cameron, going back to the little house that evening, remembered the last thing he had said. The only way to solve this problem of living, he said, is to see how much we can work and not how little. He's working ten hours a day and producing. We're talking about six and loafing and fighting while we talk. So Willie went home and called his meeting, and, knowing Mrs. Boyd's regard for figures, sat down and added or subtracted, he placed a pad and pencil on the table before him. It was an odd group. Dan, sullen, resenting the strike and the causes that had led to it. Ellen, austere and competent. Mrs. Boyd with a lace fissue pinned around her neck, now that she had achieved the dignity of hired help, and Edith. Edith, silent, morose and fixing now and then rather haggard eyes on Willie Cameron's unruly hair. She seldom met his eyes. First of all, said Willie, we'll take our weekly assets. Of course Dan will get something temporarily, but we'll leave that out for the present. The weekly assets turned out to be his salary and Edith's. Why, Willie, said Mrs. Boyd, you can't turn all your money over to us. You are all the family I have just now. Why not? Anyhow, I have to keep out lunch money and car fare, and so will Edith. Now as to expenses. Ellen had made a great reduction in expenses, but food was high. And there was gas and coal and Dan's small insurance and the rent. There was absolutely no margin and a sort of silence fell. What about your tuition at night school? Edith asked suddenly. Spring term ended this week. But you said there was a summer one. Well, I'll tell you about that, Willie said, feeling for words. I'm going to be busy helping Mr. Hendricks in his campaign. Then next fall. Well, I'll either go back or Hendricks will make me chief of police or something. He smiled around the table. I ought to get some sort of graft out of it. Mother! Edith protested. He mustn't sacrifice himself for us. What are we to him anyhow? A lot of stones hung around his neck, that's all. It was after Willie had declared that this was his home now, and he had a right to help keep it going, and after Ellen had observed that she had some money laid by it would not take any wages during the strike, that the meeting threatened to become emotional. Mrs. Boyd shed a few tears, and as she never by any chance carried a handkerchief let them flow over her fissure. And Dan shook Willie's hand and Ellen's and said that if he'd had his way he'd be working and not sitting round like a stiff letting other people work for him. But Edith got up and went into the little back garden and did not come back until the meeting was both actually and morally broken up. When she heard Dan go out and Ellen and Mrs. Boyd go upstairs, chatting in a new amiability brought about by trouble and sacrifice she put on her hat and left the house. Ellen, rousing on her cot in Edith's upper room, heard her come in some time later and undress and get into bed. Her old suspicion of the girl revived and she sat upright. Where I come from girls don't stay out alone until all hours, she said. Oh, let me alone! Ellen fell asleep and in her sleep she dreamed that Mrs. Boyd had taken sick and was moaning. The moaning was terrible. It failed the little house. Ellen wakened suddenly. It was not moaning. It was strange, heavy breathing, strangling, and it came from Edith's bed. Are you sick? She called and, getting up, her knees hardly holding her, she lighted the gas at its unshaded bracket on the wall and ran to the other bed. Edith was lying there, her mouth open, her lips bleached and twisted. Her sturturous breathing filled the room and overall was the odor of carboidic acid. Edith forgot sake. The girl was only partially conscious. Ellen ran down the stairs and into Willie's room. Get up! She cried, shaking him. That girl's killed herself. Lily! No, Edith, carboidic acid. Even then he remembered her mother. Don't let her hear anything, it will kill her, he said and ran up the stairs. Almost immediately he was down again, searching for alcohol. He found a small quantity and poured that down the swollen throat. He roused Dan then and sent him running madly for Dr. Smiley, with a warning to bring him past Mrs. Boyd's door quietly and to bring an intubation set with him in case her throat should close. Then on one of his innumerable journeys up and down the stairs he encountered Mrs. Boyd herself in her nightgown and terrified. What's the matter, Willie? She asked. Is it a fire? Edith is sick, I don't want you to go up. It may be contagious, it's her throat. And from that Mrs. Boyd deduced diphtheria. She sat on the stairs in her nightgown, a shaken helpless figure, asking countless questions of those that hurried past. But they reassured her, and after a time she went downstairs and made a pot of coffee. Enscossed with it in the lower hall and milk bottle in hand, she waylayed them with it as they hurried up and down. Upstairs the battle went on. There were times when the paralyzed muscles almost stopped lifting the chest walls when each breath was a new miracle. Her throat was closing fast, too, and at eight o'clock came a brisk young surgeon and with Willie Cameron's assistance an operation was performed. After that and for days Edith breathed through a tube in her neck. The fiction of diphtheria was kept up and Mrs. Boyd having a child-like faith in medical men betrayed no anxiety after the first hour or two. She saw nothing incongruous in Ellen going down through the house while she herself was kept out of that upper room where Edith lay, conscious now but sullen, disfigured, silent. She was happy, too, to have her old domain hers again while Ellen nursed, to make again her flavorless desserts, her mounds of rubber-like gelatin, her pies. She brewed broths daily, and when Edith could swallow she sent up the results of hours of cooking which Ellen cooled, skimmed the crust of grease from the top, and heated again over the gas flame. She never guessed the conspiracy against her. Between Ellen and Edith there was no real liking. Ellen did her duty and more, got up at night, was gentle with rather heavy hands, bathed the girl and brushed and braided her long hair. But there were hours during that simulated quarantine when a brooding silence held in the sick room and when Ellen, turning suddenly, would find Edith's eyes on her full of angry distrust. At those times Ellen was glad that Edith could not speak. For at the end of a few days Ellen knew and Edith knew, she knew. Edith could not speak. She wrote her wands with a stub of pencil or made signs. One day she motioned toward a mirror and Ellen took it to her. You needn't be frightened, she said, when those scabs come up the doctor says you'll hardly be marked at all. But Edith only glanced at herself and threw the mirror aside. Another time she wrote, Willie, he's all right. They've got a girl at the store to take your place. But I guess you can go back if you want to. Then seeing the hunger in the girl's eyes. He's out a good bit these nights. He's making speeches for that Mr. Hendricks. As if he could be elected against Mr. Cardew. The confinement told on Ellen. She would sit for hours wondering what had become of Lily. Had she gone back home? Was she seeing that other man? Perhaps her valiant loyalty to Lily faded somewhat during those days because she began to guess Willie Cameron's secret. If a girl had no eyes in her head and couldn't see that Willie Cameron was the finest gentleman who ever stepped in shoe leather, that girl had something wrong about her. Then sometimes she wondered how Edith's condition was going to be kept from her mother. She had measured Mrs. Boyd's pride by that time, her almost terrible respectability. She rather hoped that the sick woman would die some night easily and painlessly in her sleep because death was easier than some things. She liked Mrs. Boyd. She felt a slightly contemptuous but real affection for her. Then one night Edith heard Willie's voice below and indicated that she wanted to see him. He came in, stooping under the sheet which Mrs. Boyd had heard belonged in the doorway of Diphtheria and stood looking down at her. His heart ached. He sat down on the bed beside her and stroked her hand. Poor little girl, he said, we've got to make things very happy for her to make up for all this. But Edith freed her hand and, reaching out for paper and pencil stub, wrote something and gave it to Alan. Alan read it. Tell him. I don't want to, Edith. You wait and do it yourself. But Edith made an insistent gesture and Alan, flushed and wretched, had to tell. He made no sign but sat stroking Edith's hand only he stared rather fixedly at the wall, conscious that the girl's eyes were watching him for a single gesture of surprise or anger. He felt no anger, only a great perplexity and sadness, an older brother grief. I'm sorry, little sister, he said, and did the kindest thing he could think of, bent over and kissed her on the forehead. Of course I know how you feel, but it is a big thing to bear a child, isn't it? It is the only miracle we have these days. A child with no father, said Alan stonely. Even then, he persisted, it's a big thing. We would have this one come under happier circumstances if we could, but we will welcome and take care of it anyhow. A child's a child and mighty valuable. And, he added, I appreciate your wanting me to know Edith. He stayed a little while after that, but he read aloud, choosing a humorous story and laughing very hard at all the proper places. In the end he brought a faint smile to Edith's blistered lips and a small lift to the cloud that hung over her now, day and night. He made a speech that night, and into it he put all of his aching anxious soul. Edith and Dan and Lily were behind it. Acres and Doyle. It was at a meeting in the hall over the city market and the audience a new men's nonpartisan association. Sometimes, he said, I am asked what it is that we want, we men who are standing behind Hendricks as an independent candidate. He was supposed to bring Mr. Hendricks' name in as often as possible. I answer that we want honest government, law and order, and end to this conviction that the country is owned by the unions and the capitalists, a fair deal for the plain people, which is you and I, my friends. But I answer still further. We want one thing more, a greater thing, and that thing we shall have. All through this great country tonight are groups of men hoping and planning for an incredible thing. They are not great in numbers. They are, however, organized, competent, intelligent, and deadly. They plow the land with disgor to sow the seeds of sedition. And the thing they want is civil war. And against them what? The people like you and me, the men with homes they love, the men with little businesses they have fought and labored to secure, the clerks, the preachers, the doctors, the honest laborers, the God-fearing rich. I tell you we are the people, and it is time we knew our power. And this is the thing we want, we, the people, the greater thing, the thing we shall have, that this government, this country which we love, which has three times been saved at such cost of blood, shall survive. It was after that speech that he met Pink Denslow for the first time. A square, solidly built young man edged his way through the crowd and shook hands with him. Names Denslow, said Pink, liked what you said. Have you time to run over to my club with me and have a high ball and a talk? I've got all the rest of the night. Right, oh, said Pink, who had brought back a phrase or two from the British. It was not until they were in the car that Pink said, I think you're a friend of Miss Cardoos, aren't you? I know Miss Cardoo, said Willie Cameron guardedly. And they were both rather silent for a long time. That night proved to be a significant one for them both as it happened. They struck up a curious sort of friendship, based on a humble admiration on Pink's part and with Willie Cameron on sheer hunger for the society of his kind. He had been suffering a real mental starvation. He had been constantly giving out and getting nothing in return. Pink developed a habit of dropping into the pharmacy when he happened to be nearby. He was rather wistfully envious of that year in the camp when Nilly Cardoos and Cameron had been together and at first it was the bond of Lily that sent him to the shop. In the beginning the shop irritated him because it seemed an incongruous background for the fiery young orator. But later on he joined the small open forum in the back room and perhaps for the first time in his idle years he began to think. He had made the sacrifice of his luxurious young life to go to war, had slept in mud and risked his body and been hungry and cold and often frightfully homesick. And now it appeared that a lot of madmen were going to try to undo all that he had helped to do. He was surprised and highly indignant. Even a handful of agitators it seemed could do incredible harm. One night he and Willie Cameron slipped into a meeting of a Russian society wearing old clothes which with Willie was not difficult and shuffling up dirty stairs without molestation. They came away thoughtful. "'Looks like it's more than talk,' Pink said after a time. "'They're not dangerous,' Willie Cameron said. "'That's talk, but it shows a state of mind. "'They're real incendiaries don't show their hand like that. You think it's real, then?' Some boils don't come to a head, but most do.' It was after a mob of foreigners had tried to capture the town of Donison near Pittsburgh and had been turned back by a hastily armed body of its citizens, doctors, lawyers, and shopkeepers that a nebulous plan began to form in Willie Cameron's act of mind. If one could unite the plain people politically or against a foreign war, why could they not be united against an enemy at home? The South had had a similar problem, and the result was the Ku Klux Klan. The chief of police was convinced that a plan was being formulated to repeat the Seattle experiment against the city. The mayor was dubious. He was not a strong man. He had a conviction that because a thing never had happened, it never could happen. "'The mob has done it before,' urged the chief of police one day. They took Paris and it was damn disagreeable." The mayor was a trifle weak in history. "'Maybe they did,' he agreed, "'but this is different. This is America.' He was rather uneasy after that. It had occurred to him that the chief might have referred to Paris, Illinois. Now and then pink-coaxed Willie Cameron to his club, and for those rare occasions he provided always a little group of men like themselves—young, eager, loyal, and struggling with the new problems of the day. In this environment Willie Cameron received as well as gave. Most of the men had been in the army, and he found in them an eager anxiety to face the coming situation and combat it. In the end the nucleus of the new vigilance committee was formed there. Not immediately. The idea was of slow growth, even with its originator, and it only reached the point of speech when Mr. Hendrick stopped in one day at the pharmacy and brought a bundle which he slapped down on the prescription desk. "'Read that dynamite,' he said, his face flushed and lowering. A man I know got it translated for me. Read it, and then tell me whether I'm an alarmist and a plain fool or if it means trouble around here.' There was no question in Willie Cameron's mind as to which it meant. Louis Aker's had by that time announced his candidacy for mayor, and organized labor was behind him to an alarming extent. When Willie Cameron went with Pink to the club that afternoon he found Aker's under discussion, and he heard some facts about that gentleman's private life which left him silent and morose. Pink knew nothing of Lily's friendship with Aker's. Indeed, Pink did not know that Lily was in the city and Willie Cameron had not undeceived him. It had pleased Anthony Cardew to announce in the press that Lily was making a round of visits and the secret was not his to divulge. But the question which was always in his mind rose again. What did she see in this man? How could she have thrown away her home and her family for a fellow who was so obviously what Pink would have called a wrong one? He roused, however, at a question. He may, he said, with three candidates we're splitting the vote three ways and it's hard to predict. Mr. Cardew can't be elected but he weakens Hendricks. One thing's sure. Where's my pipe? Silence while Mr. Cameron searched for his pipe and took his own time to divulge the sure thing. If Hendricks is elected, he'll clear out the entire bunch of anarchists. Their present man's afraid. But if Aker's can hypnotize Labour into voting for him and he gets it, it will be up to the city to protect itself, for he won't. He'll let them hold their infamous meetings and spread their damnable doctrine and, you know what they've tried to do in other places. He explained what he had in mind then, finding them expectant and eager. There ought to be some sort of citizen organisation to supplement the state and city forces. Nothing spectacular. Indeed, the least said about it the better. He harked back then to his idea of the plain people with homes to protect. That needn't keep you fellows out, he said with his whimsical smile. But the rank and file will have to constitute the big end. We don't want a lot of busybodies pussy-footing around with guns and looking for trouble. We had enough of that during the war. We would want some men who would answer a riot call if they were needed. That's all. He had some of the translations Hendricks had brought him in his pocket and they circulated around the group. Do you think they mean to attack the city? That looks like it, doesn't it? And they are getting that sort of stuff all the time. There are a hundred thousand of them in this end of the state. Would you make it a secret organisation? Yes, I like doing things in the open myself, but you've got to fight a rat in his hole if he won't come out. Would you hold office? Pink asked. Willie Cameron smiled. I'm a good bit like the boy who dug post holes in the daytime and took in washing at night to support the family. But I'll work if that's what you mean. We'd better have a constitution and all that, don't you think? Pink asked. We can draw up a tentative one and then fix it up at the first meeting. This is going to be a big thing. It'll go like a fire. But Willie Cameron overruled that. We don't need that sort of stuff, he said. And if we begin that we might as well put it in the newspapers. We want men who can keep their mouths shut and who will sign some sort of a card agreeing to stand by the government and to preserve law and order. Then an office and a filing case and their addresses so we can get at them in a hurry if we need them. Get me a piece of paper, somebody. Then and there in twenty words Willie Cameron wrote the now historic oath of the new vigilance committee on the back of an old envelope. It was a promise, an agreement rather than an oath. There was a little hush as the paper passed from hand to hand. Not a man there but felt a certain solemnity in the occasion. To preserve the union and the flag, to fight all sedition, to love their country and support it, the very simplicity of the words was impressive. And the mere pudding of it into visible form crystallized their hitherto vague anxieties, pointed to a real enemy and a real danger. Yet as Willie Cameron pointed out, they might never be needed. Our job, he said, is only as a last resort. Only for real trouble. Until the state troops can get here, for instance, and if the constabulary is greatly outnumbered. It's their work up to a certain point. We'll fight if they need us. That's all. It was very surprising to him to find the enterprise financed immediately. Pink offered an office in the bank building. Someone agreed to pay a clerk who should belong to the committee. It was practical, businesslike and done. And although he had protested, he found himself made the head of the organization. A title and without pay, he stipulated. If you wish a title on me, I'll resign. He went home that night, very exalted and very humble. CHAPTER XXI For a time Lily remained hidden in the house on Carduway, walking out after nightfall with Louis occasionally but shrinkingly keeping to quiet back streets. She had a horror of meeting someone she knew of explanations and of gossip. But after a time the desire to see her mother became overwhelming. She took to making little flying visits home at an hour when her grandfather was certain to be away, going in a taxi cab and reaching the house somewhat breathless and excited. She was driven by an impulse toward the old familiar things. She was homesick for them all, for her mother, for Mademoiselle, for her own rooms, for her little toilet table, for her bed and her reading lamp, for the old house itself. She was still an alien where she was. Eleanor Doyle was a perpetual enigma to her. Now and then she thought she had penetrated behind the gentle mask that was Eleanor's face, only to find beyond it something inscrutable. There was a dead line in Eleanor's life across which Lily never stepped. Whatever Eleanor's battles were, she fought them alone and Lily had begun to realize that there were battles. The atmosphere of the little house had changed. After she had gone to bed, she heard Doyle's voice from the room across the hall raised angrily. He was nervous and impatient. At times he dropped the unctuousness of his manner toward her and she found herself looking into a pair of cold blue eyes which terrified her. The brilliant little dinners had entirely ceased with her coming. The sort of early summer lethargy had apparently settled on the house. Doyle wrote four hours shut in the room with the desk, the group of intellectuals, as he had dubbed them, had dispersed on summer vacations. But she discovered that there were other conferences being held in the house generally late at night. She learned to know the nights when those meetings were to occur. On those evenings Eleanor always made an early move toward bed and Lily would repair to her hot, low-sealed room to sit in the darkness by the window and think long, painful thoughts. That was how she learned of the conferences. She had no curiosity about them at first. They had something to do with the strike she considered and with that her interest died. Strikes were a symptom and ultimately through great thinkers like Mr. Doyle they would discover the cure for the disease that caused them. She was quite content to wait for that time. Then one night she went downstairs for a glass of ice water and found the lower floor dark and subdued voices coming from the study. The kitchen door was standing open and she closed and locked it, placing the key as was Eleanor's custom in a table drawer. The door was partly glass and Eleanor had a fear of the glass being broken and thus the key turned in the lock by some intruder. On toward morning there came a violent hammering at her bedroom door and Doyle's voice outside, a savage voice that she scarcely recognized. When she had thrown on her dressing-gown and opened the door he had instantly caught her by the shoulder and she bore the imprints of his fingers for days. Did you lock the kitchen door? He demanded his tones thick with fury. Yes, why not? She tried to shake off his hand but failed. None of your business, why not? He said and gave her an angry shake. Here, after when you find that door open you leave it that way. That's all. Take your hands off me. She was rather like her grandfather at that moment and his lost caution came back. He freed her at once and laughed a little. Sorry, he said, I get a bit emphatic at times, but there are times when a locked door becomes a mighty serious matter. The next day he removed the key from the door and substituted a bolt. Eleanor made no protest. Another night Eleanor was taken ill and Lily had been forced to knock at the study door and call Doyle. She had an instant's impression of the room crowded with strange figures. The heavy odors of sweating bodies, of tobacco and of stale beer came through the half-open door and revolted her. And Doyle had refused to go upstairs. She began to feel that she could not remain there very long. The atmosphere was variable. It was either cynical or sinister and she hated them both. She had a curious feeling, too, that Doyle both wanted her there and did not want her and that he was changing his attitude toward her Aunt Eleanor. Sometimes she saw him watching Eleanor from under half-closed eyelids. But she could not fill her days with anxieties and suspicions and she turned to Louis Acres as a flower to the open day. He at least was what he appeared to be. There was nothing mysterious about him. He came in daily, big, dominant and demonstrative, filling the house with his presence and demanding her in a loud, urgent voice. Hardly had the door slammed before he would call, Lillie, where are you? Sometimes he lifted her off her feet and held her to him. You little whippet, he would say, I could crush you to death in my arms. Had his wooing all been violent, she might have tired sooner because those phases of his passion for her tired her. But there were times when he put her into a chair and sat on the floor at her feet, his handsome face uplifted to hers in a sort of humble adoration, his arms across her knees. It was not altogether studied. He was a born wooer, but he had his hours of humility of vague aspirations. His insistent body was always greater than his soul, but now and then, when he was physically weary, he had a spiritual moment. I love you, little girl, he would say. It was in one of those moments that she extracted a promise from him. He had been, from his position on the floor, telling her about the campaign. I don't like you running against my father, Lillie. He couldn't have got it anyhow, and he doesn't want it. I do, honey. I need it in my business. When the election's over, you're going to marry me. She ignored that. I don't like the men who come here, Lillie. I wish they were not friends of yours. Friends of mine, that bunch. You are always with them. I draw a salary for being with them, honey. But what do you draw a salary for? He was immediately on the alert, but her eyes were candid and unsuspicious. They are strikers, aren't they? Yes. Is it legal business? Partly that. Lillie, is there going to be a general strike? There may be some bad times coming, honey. She bent his head and kissed her hands, lying motionless in her lap. I wish you would marry me soon. I want you. I want to keep you safe. She drew her hands away. Safe from what, Lillie? He sat back and looked up into her face. You must remember, dear, that for all your theories, which are very sweet, this is a man's world, and men have rather brutal methods of settling their differences. And you advocate brutality? Well, the war was brutal, wasn't it? And you were in a white hate supporting it, weren't you? How about another war? He chose his words carefully, just as reasonable and just. You've heard, Doyle. You know what I mean. Not now. He was amazed at her horror, a horror that made her recoil from him and pushed his hands away when he tried to touch her. He got up angrily and stood looking down at her, his hands in his pockets. What the devil do you think all this talk meant? He demanded. You've heard enough of it. Does Aunt Eleanor know? Of course. And she approves. I don't know and I don't care. Suddenly, with one of the quick changes she knew so well, he caught her hands and drawing her to her feet put his arms round her. All I know is that I love you and if you say the word I'll cut the whole business. You would. He amended his offer somewhat. Marry me, honey, he begged. Marry me now. Do you think I'll let anything in God's world come between us? Marry me and I'll do more than leave them. He was whispering to her, stroking her hair, I'll cut the whole outfit. And on the day I go into your house as your husband, I'll tell your people some things they want to know. That's a promise. What will they do to you? Their people. The others. He drew himself to his full height and laughed. They'll try to do plenty, old girl, he said. But I'm not afraid of them and they know it. Marry me, Lily, he urged. Marry me now. And we'll beat them out, you and I. He gave her a sense of power over him and over evil. She felt suddenly an enormous responsibility that of a human soul waiting to be uplifted and led aright. You can save me, honey. He whispered and kneeling suddenly. He kissed the toe of her small shoe. He was strong, but he was weak, too. He needed her. I'll do it, Louis, she said. You will be good to me, won't you? I'm crazy about you. The mood of exaltation upheld her through the night and into the next day. Eleanor eyed her curiously and with some anxiety. It was a long time since she had been a girl going about star-eyed with power over a man, but she remembered that lost time well. At noon Louis came in for a hasty luncheon, and before he left he drew Lily into the little study and slipped a solitaire diamond on her engagement finger. To Lily the moment was almost a holy one, but he seemed more interested in the quality of the stone and its appearance on her hand than in its symbolism. Got you cinched now, honey, do you like it? It makes me feel that I don't belong to myself any longer. Well, you've passed into good hands, he said, and laughed his great vibrant laugh, costing me money already, you might. A little of her exaltation died then. But perhaps men were like that, shyly covering the things they felt deepest. He was rather surprised when he suggested keeping the engagement a secret. Except the doils, of course, he said. I'm not taking any chances on losing you, child. Not mother. Not unless you want to be kidnapped and taken home. It's only a matter of a day or two anyhow. I want more time than that, a month anyhow. And he found her curiously obstinate and determined. She did not quite know herself why she demanded delay, except that she shrank from delivering herself into hands that were so tender and might be so cruel. It was instinctive, purely. A month, she said, and stuck to it. He was rather sulky when he went away, and he had told her the exact amount he had paid for her ring. Having forced him to agree to the delay, she found her mood of exaltation returning. As always, it was when he was not with her that she saw him most clearly, and she saw his real need for her. She had a sense of peace, too, now that at last something was decided. Her future, for better or worse, would no longer be that helpless waiting which had been hers for so long. And out of her happiness came a desire to do things, to pat children on the head, to give alms to beggars, and to see Willie Cameron. She came downstairs that afternoon, dressed for the street. I am going out for a little while at Nully, she said, and when I come back I want to tell you something. Perhaps, I can guess. Perhaps you can. She was singing to herself as she went out the door. Eleanor went back heavy-hearted to her knitting. It was very difficult always to sit by and wait, never to raise a hand, just to wait and watch, and pray. Lily was rather surprised when she reached the Eagle Pharmacy to find Pink Densilow coming out. It gave her a little pang, too. He looked so clean and sane and normal, so much a part of her old life. And it hurt her, too, to see him flush with pleasure at the meeting. Why, Lily, he said, and stood there gazing at her, hat in hand, the sun on his gleaming carefully brushed hair. He was quite an articulate with happiness. I—when did you get back? I have not been away, Pink. I left home. It's a long story. I am staying with my aunt, Mrs. Doyle. Mrs. Doyle, you are staying there. Why not, my father's sister? His young face took on a certain sternness. If you knew what I suspect about Doyle, Lily, you wouldn't let the same roof cover you. He added rather wistfully. I wish I might see you sometimes. Lily's head had gone up a trifle. Why did her old world always try to put her in the wrong? She had had to seek sanctuary, and the Doyle house had been the only sanctuary she knew. Since you feel as you do, I'm afraid that's impossible. Mr. Doyle's roof is the only roof I have. You have a home, he said sturdily. But now—I left, and my grandfather won't have me back. You mustn't blame him, Pink. We quarreled, and I left. I was as much responsible as he was. For a moment after she turned and disappeared inside the pharmacy door he stood there, then he put on his hat and strode down the street, unhappy and perplexed. If only she hadn't needed him, if she had not looked so self-possessed and so ever so faintly defiant as though she dared him to pity her, he would have known what to do. All he needed was to be needed. His open face was full of trouble. It was unthinkable that Lily should be in that center of anarchy, more unthinkable that Doyle might have filled her up with all sorts of wild ideas. Women were queer. They liked theories. A man could have a theory of life and play with it and boast about it, but never dream of living up to it. She'd give one to a woman and she'd shoot on it like a dog on a bone. If those Bolshevists had got hold of Lily, the encounter had hurt Lily, too. The fine edge of her exaltation was gone, and it did not return during her brief talk with Willie Cameron. He looked much older and very thin. There were lines around his eyes she had never seen before, and she hated seeing him in his present surroundings. But she liked him for his very unconsciousness of those surroundings. One always had to take Willie Cameron as he was. Do you like it, Willie? She asked. It had dawned on her with a sort of panic that there was really very little to talk about. All they had had in common lay far in the past. Well, it's my daily bread and with bread costing what it does, I cling to it like a limpet to a rock. But I thought you were studying, too, so you could do something else. I had to give up the night school, but I'll get back to it some time. She was lost again. She glanced around the little shop where once Edith Boyd had manicured her nails behind the counter and where now a middle-aged woman stood with listless eyes looking out over the street. You still have jinks, I suppose? Yes, I... Lily glanced up as he stopped. She had drawn off her gloves and his eyes had fallen on her engagement ring. To Lily there had always been a feeling of unreality about his declaration of love for her. He had been so restrained, so careful to ask nothing in exchange, so without expectation of return, that she had put it out of her mind as an impulse. She had not dreamed that he could still care after these months of silence, but he had gone quite white. I am going to be married, Willie, she said in a low tone. It is doubtful if he could have spoken just then. And as if to add a finishing touch of burlesque to the meeting, a small boy with a swollen jaw came in just then and demanded something to make it stop hurting. He welcomed the interruption, she saw. He was very professional instantly and so absorbed for a moment in relieving the child's pain that he could ignore his own. Let's see it! He said in a business-like, slightly strained voice. Better have it out, old chap, but I'll give you something just to ease it up a bit. Which he proceeded to do. When he came back to Lily he was quite calm and self-possessed. As he had never thought of dramatizing himself nor thought of himself at all, it did not occur to him that drama requires setting, that tragedy required black velvet rather than toothbrushes, and that a small boy with an aching tooth was a comedy relief badly introduced. All he knew was that he had somehow achieved a moment in which to steady himself and to find that a man can suffer horribly and still smile. He did that very gravely when he came back to Lily. Can you tell me about it? There is not very much to tell. It is Louis Acres. The middle-aged clerk had disappeared. Of course you have thought over what that means, Lily. He wants me to marry him. He wants it very much, Lily. And I know you don't like him, but he has changed. I can always think they have changed, man, I know, but he is very different. I am sure of that, he said steadily. There was something childish about her, he thought. Childish and infinitely touching. He remembered a night at the camp when some of the troops had departed for overseas and he had found her alone and crying in her hut. I just can't let them go, she had solved. I just can't. Some of them will never come back. And there's something of that spirit in her now, the feeling that she could not let Acres go, lest worse befall him. He did not know. All he knew was that she was more like the Lily Cardu he had known then than she had been since her return. And that he worshipped her. But there was anger in him, too. Anger at Anthony Cardu. Anger at the Doyles. And a smoldering, bitter anger at Louis Acres that he should take the dregs of his life and offer them to her as new wine. That he should dare to link his scheming, plotting days to this girl so wise and yet so ignorant, so clear-eyed and yet so blind. Do they know at home? I'm going to tell mother to-day. Lily, he said slowly, there is one thing you ought to do. Go home, make your peace there, and get all this on the right footing. Then have him there. You have never seen him in that environment, yet that is the world he will have to live in if you marry him. See how he fits there. What has that got to do with it? Think a minute. Am I quite the same to you here as I was in the camp? He saw her honest answer in her eyes. End of chapters 20 and 21