The Conflict

IX

From anger against Victor Dorn, Jane passed to anger against herself. This was soon followed by a mood of self-denunciation, by astonishment at the follies of which she had been guilty, by shame for them. She could not scoff or scorn herself out of the infatuation. But at least she could control herself against yielding to it. Recalling and reviewing all he had said, she—that is, her vanity—decided that the most important remark, the only really important remark, was his declaration of disbelief in her sincerity. "The reason he has repulsed me—and a very good reason it is—is that he thinks I am simply amusing myself. If he thought I was in earnest, he would act very differently. Very shrewd of him!"

Did she believe this? Certainly not. But she convinced herself that she believed it, and so saved her pride. From this point she proceeded by easy stages to doubting whether, if Victor had taken her at her word, she would have married him. And soon she had convinced herself that she had gone so far only through her passion for conquest, that at the first sign of his yielding her good sense would have asserted itself and she could have retreated.

"He knew me better than I knew myself," said she—not so thoroughly convinced as her pride would have liked, but far better content with herself than in those unhappy hours of humiliation after her last talk with him.

From the beginning of her infatuation there had been only a few days, hardly more than a few hours, when the voice of prudence and good sense had been silenced. Yes, he was right; they were not suited to each other, and a marriage between them would have been absurd. He did belong to a different, to a lower class, and he could never have understood her. Refinement, taste, the things of the life of luxury and leisure were incomprehensible to him. It might be unjust that the many had to toil in squalor and sordidness while the few were privileged to cultivate and to enjoy the graces and the beauties; but, unjust or in some mysterious way just, there was the fact. Her life was marked out for her; she was of the elect. She would do well to accept her good fortune and live as the gods had ordained for her.

If Victor had been different in that one respect! ... The infatuation, too, was a fact. The wise course was flight—and she fled.

That winter, in Chicago and in New York, Jane amused herself—in the ways devised by latter day impatience with the folly of wasting a precious part of the one brief life in useless grief or pretense of grief. In Remsen City she would have had to be very quiet indeed, under penalty of horrifying public sentiment. But Chicago and New York knew nothing of her grief, cared nothing about grief of any kind. People in deep mourning were found in the theaters, in the gay restaurants, wherever any enjoyment was to be had; and very sensible it was of them, and proof of the sincerity of their sorrow—for sincere sorrow seeks consolation lest it go mad and commit suicide—does it not?

Jane, young, beautiful, rich, clever, had a very good time indeed—so good that in the spring, instead of going back to Remsen City to rest, she went abroad. More enjoyment—or, at least, more of the things that fill in the time and spare one the necessity of thinking.

In August she suddenly left her friends at St. Moritz and journeyed back to Remsen City as fast as train and boat and train could take her. And on the front veranda of the old house she sat herself down and looked out over the familiar landscape and listened to the katydids lulling the woods and the fields, and was bored and wondered why she had come.

In a reckless mood she went down to see Victor Dorn. "I am cured," she said to herself. "I must be cured. I simply can't be small and silly enough to care for a country town labor agitator after all I've been through—after the attentions I've had and the men of the world I've met. I'm cured, and I must prove it to myself ."

In the side yard Alice Sherrill and her children and several neighbor girls were putting up pears and peaches, blackberries and plums. The air was heavy with delicious odors of ripe and perfect fruit, and the laughter, the bright healthy faces, the strong graceful bodies in all manner of poses at the work required made a scene that brought tears to Jane's eyes. Why tears she could not have explained, but there they were. At far end of the arbor, looking exactly as he had in the same place the year before, sat Victor Dorn, writing. He glanced up, saw her! Into his face came a look of welcome that warmed her chilled heart.

"Hel-LO!" he cried, starting up. "I AM glad to see you."

"I'm mighty glad to be back," said she, lapsing with keen pleasure into her native dialect.

He took both her hands and shook them cordially, then looked at her from head to foot admiringly. "The latest from the Rue de la Paix, I suppose?" said he.

They seated themselves with the table between them. She, under cover of commonplaces about her travels, examined him with the utmost calmness. She saw every point wherein he fell short of the men of her class—the sort of men she ought to like and admire. But, oh, how dull and stale and narrow and petty they were, beside this man. She knew now why she had fled. She didn't want to love Victor Dorn, or to marry him—or his sort of man. But he, his intense aliveness, his keen, supple mind, had spoiled her for those others. One of them she could not marry. "I should go mad with boredom. One can no more live intimately with fashion than one can eat gold and drink diamonds. And, oh, but I am hungry and thirsty!"

"So you've had a good time?" he was saying.

"Superb," replied she. "Such scenery—such variety of people. I love Europe. But—I'm glad to be home again."

"I don't see how you can stand it," said Victor.

"Why?" inquired she in surprise.

"Unless I had an intense personal interest in the most active kind of life in a place like this, I should either fly or take to drink," replied he. "In this world you've either got to invent occupation for yourself or else keep where amusements and distractions are thrust at you from rising till bed-time. And no amusements are thrust at you in Remsen City."

"But I've been trying the life of being amused," said Jane, "and I've got enough."

"For the moment," said Victor, laughing. "You'll go back. You've got to. What else is there for you?"

Her eyes abruptly became serious. "That's what I've come home to find out," said she. Hesitatingly, "That's why I've come here to-day."

He became curiously quiet—stared at the writing before him on the table. After a while he said:

"Jane, I was entirely too glad to see you to-day. I had——"

"Don't say that," she pleaded. "Victor, it isn't a weakness——"

His hand resting upon the table clenched into a fist and his brows drew down. "There can be no question but that it is a weakness and a folly," he pushed on. "I will not spoil your life and mine. You are not for me, and I am not for you. The reason we hang on to this is because each of us has a streak of tenacity. We don't want each other, but we are so made that we can't let go of an idea once it has gotten into our heads."

"There is another reason," she said gently. "We are, both of us, alone—and lonesome, Victor."

"But I'm not alone. I'm not lonesome——" And there he abruptly halted, to gaze at her with the expression of awakening and astonishment. "I believe I'm wrong. I believe you're right," he exclaimed. "I had never thought of that before."

"You've been imagining your work, your cause was enough," she went on in a quiet rational way that was a revelation—and a self-revelation—of the real Jane Hastings. "But it isn't. There's a whole other side of your nature—the—the—the private side—that's the expression—the private side. And you've been denying to it its rights."

He reflected, nodded slowly. "I believe that's the truth," he said. "It explains a curious feeling I've had—a sort of shriveling sensation." He gazed thoughtfully at her, his face gradually relaxing into a merry smile.

"What is it?" asked she, smiling in turn.

"We've both got to fall in love and marry," said he. "Not with each other, of course—for we're not in any way mated. But love and marriage and the rest of it—that's the solution. I don't need it quite as much as you do, for I've got my work. But I need it. Now that I see things in the right light I wonder that I've been so stupidly blind. Why do we human beings always overlook the obvious?"

"It isn't easy to marry," said Jane, rather drearily. "It isn't easy to find some one with whom one would be willing to pass one's life. I've had several chances—one or two of them not entirely mercenary, I think. But not one that I could bring myself to accept."

"Vanity—vanity," said Victor. "Almost any human being is interesting and attractive if one will stop thinking about oneself and concentrate on him or her."

She smiled. "It's evident you've never tried to fall in love."

"The nearest I ever came to it was with you," replied he. "But that was, of course, out of the question."

"I don't admit that," said she, with an amusing kind of timid obstinacy.

"Let's be honest and natural with each other," urged he. "Now, Jane, admit that in your heart of hearts you feel you ought not to marry me."

Her glance avoided his.

"Come—own up!" cried he.

"I have thought of that side of it," she conceded.

"And if I hadn't piqued you by thinking of it, too, you'd never have lingered on any other side of it," said he. "Well! Now that we've cleared the ground—there's Davy. He's to be nominated by the Republicans for Governor next week."

"Davy? I had almost forgotten him. I'll think of Davy—and let you know ... And you? Who is there for you?"

"Oh—no one you know. My sister has recommended several girls from time to time. I'll see."

Jane gave the freest and heartiest laugh that had passed her lips in more than a year. It was thus free and unrestrained because he had not said what she was fearing he would say—had not suggested the woman nearest him, the obvious woman. So eager was she to discover what he thought of Selma, that she could hardly restrain herself from suggesting her. Before they could say anything more, two men came to talk with him. Jane could not but leave.

She dined that night at Mrs. Sherlock's—Mrs. Sherlock was Davy's oldest sister. Davy took her in, they talked—about his career—through dinner, and he walked home with her in the moonlight. He was full of his approaching nomination. He had been making what is known as a good record, as mayor. That is, he had struck out boldly at sundry petty abuses practised by a low and comparatively uninfluential class of exploiters of the people. He had been so busy with these showy trifles that there had been no time for the large abuses. True, he had publicly warned the gas company about its poor gas, and the water company about its unwholesome water for the low-lying tenement districts, and the traction company about the fewness and filthiness of its cars. The gas company had talked of putting in improved machinery; the water company had invited estimates on a filtration plant; the traction company had said a vague something about new cars as soon as car manufacturers could make definite promises as to delivery. But nothing had been done—as yet. Obviously a corporation, a large investment of capital, must be treated with consideration. It would not do for a conservative, fair minded mayor to rush into demagogery. So, Davy was content to point proudly to his record of having "made the big corporations awaken to a sense of their duty." An excellent record, as good as a reform politician, with a larger career in prospect, could be expected to make. People spoke well of Mayor Hull and the three daily papers eulogized him. Davy no longer had qualms of conscience. He read the eulogies, he listened to the flatteries of the conservative leading citizens he met at the Lincoln and at the University, and he felt that he was all that he in young enthusiasm had set out to be.

When he went to other cities and towns and to county fairs to make addresses he was introduced as the man who had redeemed Remsen City, as a shining example of the honest SANE man in politics, as a man the bosses were afraid of, yet dared not try to down. "You can't fool the people." And were not the people, notably those who didn't live in Remsen City and had only read in their newspapers about the reform Republican mayor—weren't they clamorous for Mayor Hull for governor! Thus, Davy was high in his own esteem, was in that mood of profound responsibility to righteousness and to the people wherein a man can get the enthusiastic endorsement of his conscience for any act he deems it expedient to commit in safeguarding and advancing his career. His person had become valuable to his country. His opponents were therefore anathema maranatha.

As he and Jane walked side by side in the tender moonlight, Jane said:

"What's become of Selma Gordon?"

A painful pause; then Davy, in a tone that secretly amused Jane: "Selma? I see her occasionally—at a distance. She still writes for Victor Dorn's sheet, I believe. I never see it."

Jane felt she could easily guess why. "Yes—it is irritating to read criticisms of oneself," said she sweetly. Davy's self-complacence had been most trying to her nerves.

Another long silence, then he said: "About—Miss Gordon. I suppose you were thinking of the things I confided to you last year?"

"Yes, I was," confessed Jane.

"That's all over," said Mayor and prospective Governor Hull. "I found I was mistaken in her."

"Didn't you tell me that she refused you?" pressed Jane, most unkindly.

"We met again after that," said Davy—by way of proving that even the most devoted apostle of civic righteousness is yet not without his share of the common humanity, "and from that time I felt differently toward her.... I've never been able to understand my folly.... I wonder if you could forgive me for it?"

Davy was a good deal of a bore, she felt. At least, he seemed so in this first renewing of old acquaintance. But he was a man of purpose, a man who was doing much and would do more. And she liked him, and had for him that feeling of sympathy and comprehension which exists among people of the same region, brought up in much the same way. Instead of cutting him off, she temporized. Said she with a serenely careless laugh that might have let a man more expert in the ways of women into the secret of how little she cared about him: "You mean forgive you for dropping me so abruptly and running after her?"

"That's not exactly the way to put it," objected he.

"Put it any way you like," said Jane. "I forgive you. I didn't care at the time, and I don't care now."

Jane was looking entrancing in that delicate light. Davy was noting—was feeling—this. Also, he was reflecting—in a high-minded way—upon the many material, mental and spiritual advantages of a marriage with her. Just the woman to be a governor's wife—a senator's wife—a president's wife. Said he:

"Jane, my feeling for you has never changed."

"Really?" said Jane. "Why, I thought you told me at one time that you were in love with me?"

"And I always have been, dear—and am," said Davy, in his deepest, tenderest tones. "And now that I am winning a position worthy of you——"

"I'll see," cut in Jane. "Let's not talk about it tonight." She felt that if he kept on she might yield to the temptation to say something mocking, something she would regret if it drove him away finally.

He was content. The ice had been broken. The Selma Gordon business had been disposed of. The way was clear for straight-away love-making the next time they met. Meanwhile he would think about her, would get steam up, would have his heart blazing and his words and phrases all in readiness.

Every human being has his or her fundamental vanity that must be kept alive, if life is to be or to seem to be worth living. In man this vanity is usually some form of belief in his mental ability, in woman some form of belief in her physical charm. Fortunately—or, rather, necessarily—not much is required to keep this vanity alive—or to restore it after a shock, however severe. Victor Dorn had been compelled to give Jane Hastings' vanity no slight shock. But it recovered at once. Jane saw that his failure to yield was due not to lack of potency in her charms, but to extraordinary strength of purpose in his character. Thus, not only was she able to save herself from any sense of humiliation, but also she was without any feeling of resentment against him. She liked him and admired him more than ever. She saw his point of view; she admitted that he was right—IF it were granted that a life such as he had mapped for himself was better for him than the career he could have made with her help.

Her heart, however, was hastily, even rudely thrust to the background when she discovered that her brother had been gambling in wheat with practically her entire fortune. With an adroitness that irritated her against herself, as she looked back, he had continued to induce her to disregard their father's cautionings and to ask him to take full charge of her affairs. He had not lost her fortune, but he had almost lost it. But for an accidental stroke, a week of weather destructive to crops all over the country, she would have been reduced to an income of not more than ten or fifteen thousand a year—twenty times the income of the average American family of five, but for Miss Hastings straitened subsistence and a miserable state of shornness of all the radiance of life. And, pushing her inquiries a little farther, she learned that her brother would still have been rich, because he had taken care to settle a large sum on his wife—in such a way that if she divorced him it would pass back to him.

In the course of her arrangings to meet this situation and to prevent its recurrence she saw much of Doctor Charlton. He gave her excellent advice and found for her a man to take charge of her affairs so far as it was wise for her to trust any one. The man was a bank cashier, Robert Headley by name—one of those rare beings who care nothing for riches for themselves and cannot invest their own money wisely, but have a genius for fidelity and wise counsel.

"It's a pity he's married," said Charlton. "If he weren't I'd urge you to take him as a husband."

Jane laughed. A plainer, duller man than Headley it would have been hard to find, even among the respectabilities of Remsen City.

"Why do you laugh?" said Charlton. "What is there absurd in a sensible marriage?"

"Would you marry a woman because she was a good housekeeper?"

"That would be one of the requirements," said Charlton. "I've sense enough to know that, no matter how much I liked a woman before marriage, it couldn't last long if she were incompetent. She'd irritate me every moment in the day. I'd lie awake of nights despising her. And how she would hate me!"

"I can't imagine you a husband," laughed Jane.

"That doesn't speak well for your imagination," rejoined Charlton. "I have perfect health—which means that I have a perfect disposition, for only people with deranged interiors are sour and snappy and moody. And I am sympathetic and understanding. I appreciate that women are rottenly brought up and have everything to learn—everything that's worth while if one is to live comfortably and growingly. So, I shouldn't expect much at the outset beyond a desire to improve and a capacity to improve. Yes, I've about all the virtues for a model husband—a companionable, helpful mate for a woman who wants to be more of a person every day she lives."

"No, thanks," said Jane, mockingly. "The advertisement reads well, but I don't care to invest."

"Oh, I looked you over long ago," said Charlton with a coolness that both amused and exasperated her. "You wouldn't do at all. You are very attractive to look at and to talk with. Your money would be useful to some plans I've got for some big sanatoriums along the line of Schulze's up at Saint Christopher. But—-" He shook his head, smiling at her through a cloud of cigarette smoke.

"Go on," urged Jane. "What's wrong with me?"

"You've been miseducated too far and too deeply. You KNOW too much that isn't so. You've got the upper class American woman habit of thinking about yourself all the time. You are an indifferent housekeeper, and you think you are good at it. You don't know the practical side of life—cooking, sewing, house furnishing, marketing. You're ambitious for a show career—the sort Davy Hull—excuse me, Governor David Hull—is making so noisily. There's just the man for you. You ought to marry. Marry Hull."

Jane was furiously angry. She did not dare show it; Charlton would merely laugh and walk away, and perhaps refuse to be friends with her. It exasperated her to the core, the narrow limitations of the power of money. She could, through the power of her money, do exactly as she pleased to and with everybody except the only kind of people she cared about dominating; these she was apparently the less potent with because of her money. It seemed to put them on their mettle and on their guard.

She swallowed her anger. "Yes, I've got to get married," said she. "And I don't know what to do about it."

"Hull," said Charlton.

"Is that the best advice you can give?" said she disdainfully.

"He needs you, and you need him. You like him—don't you?"

"Very much."

"Then—the thing's done. Davy isn't the man to fail to seize an opportunity so obviously to his advantage. Not that he hasn't a heart. He has a big one—does all sorts of gracious, patronizing, kind things—does no end of harm. But he'd no more let his emotions rule his life than—than—Victor Dorn—or I, for that matter."

Jane colored; a pathetic sadness tinged the far-away expression of her eyes.

"No doubt he's half in love with you already. Most men are who know you. A kindly smile and he'll be kneeling."

"I don't want David Hull," cried Jane. "Ever since I can remember they've been at me to marry him. He bores me. He doesn't make me respect him. He never could control me—or teach me—or make me look up to him in any way. I don't want him, and I won't have him."

"I'm afraid you've got to do it," said Charlton. "You act as if you realized it and were struggling and screaming against manifest destiny like a child against a determined mother."

Jane's eyes had a look of terror. "You are joking," said she. "But it frightens me, just the same."

"I am not joking," replied he. "I can hear the wedding bells—and so can you."

"Don't!" pleaded Jane. "I've so much confidence in your insight that I can't bear to hear you saying such things even to tease me.... Why haven't you told me about these sanatoriums you want?"

"Because I've been hoping I could devise some way of getting them without the use of money. Did it ever occur to you that almost nothing that's been of real and permanent value to the world was built with money? The things that money has done have always been badly done."

"Let me help you," said Jane earnestly. "Give me something to do. Teach me how to do something. I am SO bored!—and so eager to have an occupation. I simply can't lead the life of my class.

"You want to be a lady patroness—a lady philanthropist," said Charlton, not greatly impressed by her despair. "That's only another form of the life of your class—and a most offensive form."

"Your own terms—your own terms, absolutely," cried Jane in desperation.

"No—marry Hull and go into upper and middle class politics. You'll be a lady senator or a lady ambassador or cabinet officer, at least."

"I will not marry David Hull—or anybody, just yet," cried Jane. "Why should I? I've still got ten years where there's a chance of my being able to attract some man who—attracts me. And after that I can buy as good a husband as any that offers now. Doctor Charlton, I'm in desperate, deadly earnest. And I ask you to help me."

"My own terms?"

"I give you my word."

"You'll have to give your money outright. No strings attached. No chance to be a philanthropist. Also, you'll have to work—have to educate yourself as I instruct you."

"Yes—yes. Whatever you say."

Charlton looked at her dubiously. "I'm a fool to have anything to do with this," he said. "You aren't in any way a suitable person—any more than I'm the sort of man you want to assist you in your schemes. You don't realize what tests you're to be put through."

"I don't care," said Jane.

"It's a chance to try my theory," mused he. "You know, I insist we are all absolutely the creatures of circumstance—that character adapts itself to circumstance—that to change a man or a town or a nation—or a world—you have only to change their fundamental circumstances."

"You'll try me?"

"I'll think about it," said Charlton. "I'll talk with Victor Dorn about it."

"Whatever you do, don't talk to him," cried Jane, in terror. "He has no faith in me—" She checked herself, hastily added—"in anybody outside his own class."

"I never do anything serious without consulting Victor," said Charlton firmly. "He's got the best mind of any one I know, and it is foolish to act without taking counsel of the best."

"He'll advise against it," said Jane bitterly.

"But I may not take his advice literally," said Charlton. "I'm not in mental slavery to him. I often adapt his advice to my needs instead of adopting it outright."

And with that she had to be content.

She passed a day and night of restlessness, and called him on the telephone early the following morning. As she heard his voice she said:

"Did you see Victor Dorn last night?"

"Where are you?" asked Charlton.

"In my room," was her impatient answer.

"In bed?"

"I haven't gotten up yet," said she. "What IS the matter?"

"Had your breakfast?"

"No. I've rung for it. It'll be here in a few minutes."

"I thought so," said Charlton.

"This is very mysterious—or very absurd," said Jane.

"Please ring off and call your kitchen and tell them to put your breakfast on the dining-room table for you in three-quarters of an hour. Then get up, take your bath and your exercises—dress yourself for the day—and go down and eat your breakfast. How can you hope to amount to anything unless you live by a rational system? And how can you have a rational system unless you begin the day right?"

"DID you see Victor Dorn?" said Jane—furious at his impertinence but restraining herself.

"And after you have breakfasted," continued Charlton, "call me up again, and I'll answer your questions."

With that he hung up his receiver. Jane threw herself angrily back against her pillow. She would lie there for an hour, then call him again. But—if he should ask her whether she had obeyed his orders? True, she might lie to him; but wouldn't that be too petty? She debated with herself for a few minutes, then obeyed him to the letter. As she was coming through the front hall after breakfast, he appeared in the doorway.

"You didn't trust me!" she cried reproachfully.

"Oh, yes," replied he. "But I preferred to talk with you face to face."

"DID you see Mr. Dorn?"

Charlton nodded. "He refused to advise me. He said he had a personal prejudice in your favor that would make his advice worthless."

Jane glowed—but not quite so thrillingly as she would have glowed in the same circumstances a year before.

"Besides, he's in no state of mind to advise anybody about anything just now," said Charlton.

Jane glanced sharply at him. "What do you mean?" she said.

"It's not my secret," replied Charlton.

"You mean he has fallen in love?"

"That's shrewd," said Charlton. "But women always assume a love affair."

"With whom?" persisted Jane.

"Oh, a very nice girl. No matter. I'm not here to talk about anybody's affairs but yours—and mine."

"Answer just one question," said Jane, impulsively. "Did he tell you anything about—me?"

Charlton stared—then whistled. "Are YOU in love with him, too?" he cried.

Jane flushed—hesitated—then met his glance frankly. "I WAS," said she.

"WAS?"

"I mean that I'm over it," said she. "What have you decided to do about me?"

Charlton did not answer immediately. He eyed her narrowly—an examination which she withstood well. Then he glanced away and seemed to be reflecting. Finally he came back to her question. Said he:

"To give you a trial. To find out whether you'll do."

She drew a long sigh of relief.

"Didn't you guess?" he went on, smilingly, nodding his round, prize-fighter head at her. "Those suggestions about bed and breakfast—they were by way of a beginning."

"You must give me a lot to do," urged she. "I mustn't have a minute of idle time."

He laughed. "Trust me," he said.

While Jane was rescuing her property from her brother and was safeguarding it against future attempts by him, or by any of that numerous company whose eyes are ever roving in search of the most inviting of prey, the lone women with baggage—while Jane was thus occupied, David Hull was, if possible, even busier and more absorbed. He was being elected governor. His State was being got ready to say to the mayor of Remsen City, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Thou hast been faithful over a few things; I will make thee ruler over many."

The nomination was not obtained for him without difficulty. The Republican party—like the Democratic—had just been brought back under "safe and sane and conservative" leadership after a prolonged debauch under the influence of that once famous and revered reformer, Aaron Whitman, who had not sobered up or released the party for its sobering until his wife's extravagant entertaining at Washington had forced him to accept large "retainers" from the plutocracy. The machine leaders had in the beginning forwarded the ambitions of Whitman under the impression that his talk of a "square deal" was "just the usual dope" and that Aaron was a "level-headed fellow at bottom." It had developed—after they had let Aaron become a popular idol, not to be trifled with—it had developed that he was almost sincere—as sincere as can be expected of an ambitious, pushing fellow. Now came David Hull, looking suspiciously like Whitman at his worst-and a more hopeless case, because he had money a plenty, while Whitman was luckily poor and blessed with an extravagant wife. True, Hull had the backing of Dick Kelly—and Kelly was not the man "to hand the boys a lemon." Still Hull looked like a "holy boy," talked like one, had the popular reputation of having acted like one as mayor—and the "reform game" was certainly one to attract a man who could afford it and was in politics for position only. Perhaps Dick wanted to be rid of Hull for the rest of his term, and was "kicking him upstairs." It would be a shabby trick upon his fellow leaders, but justifiable if there should be some big "job" at Remsen City that could be "pulled off" only if Hull were out of the way.

The leaders were cold until Dick got his masters in the Remsen City branch of the plutocracy to pass the word to the plutocracy's general agents at Indianapolis—a certain well-known firm of political bankers. Until that certification came the leaders, having no candidate who stood a chance of winning, were ready to make a losing campaign and throw the election to the Democrats—not a serious misfortune at a time when the machines of the two parties had become simply friendly rival agents for the same rich master.

There was a sharp fight in the convention. The anti-machine element, repudiating Whitman under the leadership of a shrewd and honest young man named Joe Bannister, had attacked Hull in the most shocking way. Bannister had been reading Victor Dorn's New Day and had got a notion of David Hull as man and mayor different from the one made current by the newspapers. He made a speech on the floor of the convention which almost caused a riot and nearly cost Davy the nomination. That catastrophe was averted by adjournment. Davy gave Dick Kelly's second lieutenant, Osterman, ten thousand in cash, of which Osterman said there was pressing need "for perfectly legitimate purposes, I assure you, Mr. Mayor." Next day the Bannister faction lost forty and odd sturdy yeomen from districts where the crops had been painfully short, and Davy was nominated.

In due time the election was held, and Mayor Hull became Governor Hull by a satisfactory majority for so evenly divided a State. He had spent—in contributions to the machine campaign fund—upwards of one hundred thousand dollars. But that seemed a trifling sacrifice to make for reform principles and for keeping the voice of the people the voice of God. He would have been elected if he had not spent a cent, for the Democratic machine, bent on reorganizing back to a sound basis with all real reformers or reformers tainted with sincerity eliminated, had nominated a straight machine man—and even the politicians know that the people who decide elections will not elect a machine man if they have a chance to vote for any one else. It saddened David Hull, in the midst of victory, that his own town and county went against him, preferring the Democrat, whom it did not know, as he lived at the other end of the State. Locally the offices at stake were all captured by the "Dorn crowd." At last the Workingmen's League had a judge; at last it could have a day in court. There would not be a repetition of the great frauds of the Hull-Harbinger campaign.

By the time David had sufficient leisure to reopen the heart department of his ambition, Jane was deep in the effort to show Doctor Charlton how much intelligence and character she had. She was serving an apprenticeship as trained nurse in the Children's Hospital, where he was chief of the staff, and was taking several extra courses with his young assistants. It was nearly two weeks after David's first attempt to see her when her engagements and his at last permitted this meeting. Said he:

"What's this new freak?"

"I can't tell you yet," replied she. "I'm not sure, myself."

"I don't see how you can endure that fellow Charlton. They say he's as big a crank in medicine as he is in politics."

"It's all of a piece," said Jane, tranquilly. "He says he gets his political views from his medicine and his medical ideas from his politics."

"Don't you think he's a frightful bounder?"

"Frightful," said Jane.

"Fresh, impudent—conceited. And he looks like a prize fighter."

"At some angles—yes," conceded Jane. "At others, he's almost handsome."

"The other day, when I called at the hospital and they wouldn't take my name in to you—" David broke off to vent his indignation—"Did you ever hear of such impertinence!"

"And you the governor-elect," laughed Jane. "Shall I tell you what Doctor Charlton said? He said that a governor was simply a public servant, and anything but a public representative—usually a public disgrace. He said that a servant's business was attending to his own job and not hanging round preventing his fellow servants from attending to their jobs."

"I knew he had low and vulgar views of public affairs," said David. "What I started to say was that I saw him talking to you that day, across the court, and you seemed to be enjoying his conversation."

"ENJOYING it? I love it," cried Jane. "He makes me laugh, he makes me cold with rage, he gives me a different sensation every time I see him."

"You LIKE—him?"

"Immensely. And I've never been so interested or so happy in my life." She looked steadily at him. "Nothing could induce me to give it up. I've put everything else out of my mind."

Since the dismal end of his adventure with Selma Gordon, David had become extremely wary in his dealings with the female sex. He never again would invite a refusal; he never again would put himself in a position where a woman might feel free to tell him her private opinion of him. He reflected upon Jane's words. They could have but the one meaning. Not so calmly as he would have liked, but without any embarrassing constraint, he said:

"I'm glad you've found what suits you, at last. It isn't exactly the line I'd have thought a girl such as you would choose. You're sure you are not making a mistake?"

"Quite," said Jane.

"I should think you'd prefer marriage—and a home—and a social circle—and all that," ventured David.

"I'll probably not marry."

"No. You'd hardly take a doctor."

"The only one I'd want I can't get," said Jane.

She wished to shock David, and she saw with pleasure that she had succeeded. Indeed so shocked was he that in a few minutes he took leave. And as he passed from her sight he passed from her mind.

Victor Dorn described Davy Hull's inaugural address as "an uninteresting sample of the standard reform brand of artificial milk for political infants." The press, however, was enthusiastic, and substantial people everywhere spoke of it as having the "right ring," as being the utterance of a "safe, clean man whom the politicians can't frighten or fool." In this famous speech David urged everybody who was doing right to keep on doing so, warned everybody who was doing wrong that they would better look out for themselves, praised those who were trying to better conditions in the right way, condemned those who were trying to do so in the wrong way. It was all most eloquent, most earnest. Some few people were disappointed that he had not explained exactly what and whom he meant by right and by wrong; but these carping murmurs were drowned in the general acclaim. A man whose fists clenched and whose eyes flashed as did David Hull's must "mean business"—and if no results came of these words, it wouldn't be his fault, but the machinations of wicked plutocrats and their political agents.

"Isn't it disgusting!" exclaimed Selma, reading an impassioned paragraph aloud to Victor Dorn. "It almost makes me despair when I see how people—our sort of people, too—are taken in by such guff. And they stand with their empty picked pockets and cheer this man, who's nothing but a stool pigeon for pickpockets."

"It's something gained," observed Victor tranquilly, "when politicians have to denounce the plutocracy in order to get audiences and offices. The people are beginning to know what's wrong. They read into our friend Hull's generalities what they think he ought to mean—what they believe he does mean. The next step is—he'll have to do something or they'll find him out."

"He do anything?" Selma laughed derisively. "He hasn't the courage—or the honesty."

"Well—'patience and shuffle the cards,' as Sancho Panza says. We're winning Remsen City. And our friends are winning a little ground here, and a little there and a little yonder—and soon—only too soon—this crumbling false politics will collapse and disappear. Too soon, I fear. Before the new politics of a work-compelling world for the working class only is ready to be installed."

Selma had been only half attending. She now said abruptly, with a fluttering movement that suggested wind blowing strongly across open prairies under a bright sky:

"I've decided to go away."

"Yes, you must take a vacation," said Victor. "I've been telling you that for several years. And you must go away to the sea or the mountains where you'll not be harassed by the fate of the human race that you so take to heart."

"I didn't mean a vacation," said Selma. "I meant to Chicago—to work there."

"You've had a good offer?" said Victor. "I knew it would come. You've got to take it. You need the wider experience—the chance to have a paper of your own—or a work of your own of some kind. It's been selfishness, my keeping you all this time."

Selma had turned away. With her face hidden from him she said, "Yes, I must go."

"When?" said Victor.

"As soon as you can arrange for some one else."

"All right. I'll look round. I've no hope of finding any one to take your place, but I can get some one who will do."

"You can train any one," said Selma. "Just as you trained me."

"I'll see what's to be done," was all he said.

A week passed—two weeks. She waited; he did not bring up the subject. But she knew he was thinking of it; for there had been a change in his manner toward her—a constraint, a self-consciousness theretofore utterly foreign to him in his relations with any one. Selma was wretched, and began to show it first in her appearance, then in her work. At last she burst out:

"Give that article back to me," she cried. "It's rotten. I can't write any more. Why don't you tell me so frankly? Why don't you send me away?"

"You're doing better work than I am," said he. "You're eager to be off—aren't you? Will you stay a few days longer? I must get away to the country—alone—to get a fresh grip on myself. I'll come back as soon as I can, and you'll be free. There'll be no chance for vacations after you're gone."

"Very well," said she. She felt that he would think this curtness ungracious, but more she could not say.

He was gone four days. When he reappeared at the office he was bronzed, but under the bronze showed fatigue—in a man of his youth and strength sure sign of much worry and loss of sleep. He greeted her almost awkwardly, his eyes avoiding hers, and sat down to opening his accumulated mail. Although she was furtively observing him she started when he abruptly said:

"You know you are free to go—at any time."

"I'll wait until you catch up with your work," she suggested.

"No—never mind. I'll get along. I've kept you out of all reason.... The sooner you go the better. I've got to get used to it, and—I hate suspense."

"Then I'll go in the morning," said Selma. "I've no arrangements to make—except a little packing that'll take less than an hour. Will you say good-by for me to any one who asks? I hate fusses, and I'll be back here from time to time."

He looked at her curiously, started to speak, changed his mind and resumed reading the letter in his hand. She turned to her work, sat pretending to write. In fact she was simply scribbling. Her eyes were burning and she was fighting against the sobs that came surging. He rose and began to walk up and down the room. She hastily crumpled and flung away the sheet on which she had be scrawling; he might happen to glance at her desk and see. She bent closer to the paper and began to write—anything that came into her head. Presently the sound of his step ceased. An uncontrollable impulse to fly seized her. She would get up—would not put on her hat—would act as if she were simply going to the street door for a moment. And she would not return—would escape the danger of a silly breakdown. She summoned all her courage, suddenly rose and moved swiftly toward the door. At the threshold she had to pause; she could not control her heart from a last look at him.

He was seated at his table, was staring at its litter of letters, papers and manuscripts with an expression so sad that it completely transformed him. She forgot herself. She said softly:

"Victor!"

He did not hear.

"Victor," she repeated a little more loudly.

He roused himself, glanced at her with an attempt at his usual friendly smile of the eyes.

"Is there something wrong that you haven't told me about?" she asked.

"It'll pass," said he. "I'll get used to it." With an attempt at the manner of the humorous philosopher, "Man is the most adaptable of all the animals. That's why he has distanced all his relations. I didn't realize how much our association meant to me until you set me to thinking about it by telling me you were going. I had been taking you for granted—a habit we easily fall into with those who simply work with and for us and don't insist upon themselves."

She was leaning against the frame of the open door into the hall, her hands behind her back. She was gazing out of the window across the room.

"You," he went on, "are as I'd like to be—as I imagined I was. Your sense of duty to the cause orders you elsewhere, and you go—like a good soldier, with never a backward glance."

She shook her head, but did not speak.

"With never a backward glance," he repeated. "While I—" He shut his lips together firmly and settled himself with fierce resolution to his work. "I beg your pardon," he said. "This is—cowardly. As I said before, I shall get myself in hand again, and go on."

She did not move. The breeze of the unseasonably warm and brilliant day fluttered her thick, loosely gathered hair about her brow. Her strange, barbaric little face suggested that the wind was blowing across it a throng of emotions like the clouds of a driven storm.

A long silence. He suddenly flung out his arms in a despairing gesture and let them fall to the table. At the crash she startled, gazed wildly about.

"Selma!" he cried. "I must say it. I love you."

A profound silence fell. After a while she went softly across the room and sat down at her desk.

"I think I've loved you from the first months of your coming here to work—to the old office, I mean. But we were always together—every day—all day long—working together—I thinking and doing nothing without your sharing in it. So, I never realized. Don't misunderstand. I'm not trying to keep you here. It's simply that I've got the habit of telling you everything—of holding back nothing from you."

"I was going," she said, "because I loved you."

He looked at her in amazement.

"That day you told me you had decided to get married—and asked my advice about the girls among our friends—that was the day I began to feel I'd have to go. It's been getting worse ever since."

Once more silence, both looking uneasily about, their glances avoiding each other. The door of the printing room opened, and Holman, the printer, came in, his case in his grimy hand. Said he:

"Where's the rest of that street car article?"

"I beg your pardon," said Selma, starting up and taking some manuscript from her desk and handing it to him.

"Louis," said Victor, as Holmes was retreating, "Selma and I are going to be married."

Louis paused, but did not look round. "That ain't what'd be called news," said he. "I've known it for more than three years."

He moved on toward his room. "I'll be ready for that leading article in half an hour. So, you'd better get busy."

He went out, closing the door behind him. Selma and Victor looked at each other and burst out laughing. Then—still laughing—they took hold of hands like two children. And the next thing they knew they were tight in each other's arms, and Selma was sobbing wildly.