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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Vision Spendid, by William MacLeod Raine
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Vision Spendid
+
+Author: William MacLeod Raine
+
+Posting Date: November 23, 2008 [EBook #1846]
+Release Date: August, 1999
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VISION SPENDID ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Mary Starr
+
+
+
+
+
+THE VISION SPLENDID
+
+By William MacLeod Raine
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+Of all the remote streams of influence that pour both before and after
+birth into the channel of our being, what an insignificant few--and
+these only the more obvious--are traceable at all. We swim in a sea of
+environment and heredity, are tossed hither and thither by we know not
+what cross currents of Fate, are tugged at by a thousand eddies of which
+we never dream. The sum of it all makes Life, of which we know so little
+and guess so much, into which we dive so surely in those buoyant days
+before time and tide have shaken confidence in our power to snatch
+success and happiness from its mysterious depths.--From the Note Book of
+a Dreamer.
+
+
+A REBEL IN THE MAKING
+
+Part 1
+
+The air was mellow with the warmth of the young spring sun. Locusts
+whirred in rhapsody. Bluebirds throbbed their love songs joyously. The
+drone of insects, the shimmer of hear, were in the atmosphere. One could
+almost see green things grow. To confine youth within four walls on such
+a day was an outrage against human nature.
+
+A lean, wiry boy, hatchet-faced, stared with dreamy eyes out of the
+window of his prison. By raising himself in his seat while the teacher
+was not looking he could catch a silvery gleam of the river through the
+great firs. His thoughts were far afield. They were not concerned with
+the capitals of the States he was supposed to be learning, but had fared
+forth to the reborn earth, to the stir and movement of creeping things.
+The call of nature awakening from its long winter sleep drummed in his
+heart. He could sympathize with the bluebottle buzzing against the sunny
+windowpane in its efforts to reach the free world outside.
+
+Recess! With the sound of the gong his heart leaped, but he kept his
+place in the line with perfect decorum. It would never do to be called
+back now for a momentary indiscretion. From the school yard he slipped
+the back way and dived into a bank of great ferns. In the heart of this
+he lay until the bell had called his classmates back to work. Cautiously
+he crept from his hiding place and ran down to the river.
+
+Flinging himself on Big Rock, with his chin over the edge, he looked
+into the deep holes under the bank where the trout lay close to the
+strings of shiny moss, their noses to the current, motionless save for
+the fanning tails.
+
+Idly he enjoyed himself for a happy hour, letting thoughts happen as
+they would. Not till the school bell rang for dismissal did he drag
+himself back with a sigh to the workaday world that called. He had a
+lawn to mow and a back yard to clean up for Mr. Rawson.
+
+With his cap stuck on the back of his head and his hands in the pockets
+of his patched trousers, the boy went whistling townward on his barefoot
+way. At Adams Street he met the schoolchildren bound for home. A dozen
+boys from his own room closed in on him with shouts of joyous malice.
+
+"Played hookey! Played hookey! Jeff Farnum played hookey!" they shrilled
+at him.
+
+Ned Merrill assumed leadership of the young Apaches. "You're goin' to
+catch it. Old Webber was down askin' for you. Wasn't he, Tom? Wasn't he,
+Dick?"
+
+Tom and Dick lied cheerfully to increase Jeff's dread. They added
+graphic details to help the story.
+
+The victim looked around with stoicism. He remembered the philosophy of
+the optimist that a licking does not last long.
+
+"Don't care if he was down," the boy bluffed.
+
+"Huh! Mr. Don't Care! Mr. Don't Care!" shrieked Merrill gleefully.
+
+They made a circle around Jeff and mocked him. Once or twice a bolder
+tormentor snatched at his cap or pushed a neighbor against him. Then,
+with the inconstancy of youth, they suddenly deserted him for more
+diverting game.
+
+A forlorn little Italian girl was trying to slip past on the other side
+of the street. Someone caught sight of her and with a whoop the Apaches
+were upon her pell-mell. She began to run, but they hemmed her in. One
+tugged at her braided hair. Another flipped mud at her dress from the
+end of a stick. Merrill snatched her slate and made off with it.
+
+Jeff cut swiftly across the street. Merrill was coming directly toward
+him, his head turned to the girl. Triumphant whoops broke from his
+throat. He bumped into Jeff, stumbled, and went down in the mud.
+
+Young Merrill was up in an instant, clamorous for battle. His hands and
+clothes were plastered with filth.
+
+"I'm goin' to lick the stuffin' out of you," he bellowed.
+
+Jeff said nothing. He was very white. His fingers worked nervously.
+
+"Yah! Yah! He's scared," the mob jeered.
+
+Jeff was. In that circle of hostile faces he found no sympathy. He had
+to stand up to the bully of the class, a boy who could have given him
+fifteen pounds. Looking around for help, he saw that none was at hand.
+The thin legs of the rescued Italian girl were flashing down the street.
+On the steps of the big house of P. C. Frome a six-year-old little one
+was standing with her nurse. Nobody else was in sight except his cousin,
+James, and the Apaches.
+
+"You're goin' to get the maulin' of your life," Ned Merrill promised as
+he slipped out of his coat. "Webber'll lick you if he finds out you been
+fightin'," James Farnum prophesied cheerfully to his cousin. He intended
+to do his duty in the way of protest and then watch the fight.
+
+Ned worked his wiry little foe to the fence and pummeled him. Jeff
+ducked and backed out of danger. Keeping to the defensive, he was being
+badly punished. Once he slipped in the mud and went down, but he was up
+again before his slower antagonist could close with him. Blood streamed
+from his nose. His lip was gashed. Under the buffeting he was getting
+his head began to sing.
+
+"Punch him good, Ned," one of the champion's friends advised.
+
+"You bet he is," another chortled.
+
+Their jeers had an unexpected effect. Jeff's fears were blotted out by
+his desperate need. Some spark of the fighting edge, inherited from
+his father, was fanned to a flame in the heart of the bruised little
+warrior. Like a tiger cat he leaped for Ned's throat, twisted his slim
+legs round the sturdy ones of his enemy, and went down with him in a
+heap.
+
+Jeff landed on the bottom, but like an eel he squirmed to the top before
+the other had time to get set. The champion's patrician head was thumped
+down into the mud and a knobby little fist played a painful tattoo on
+his mouth and cheek.
+
+"Take him off! Take him off!" Merrill shrieked after he had tried in
+vain to roll away the incubus clamped like a vise to his body.
+
+His henchmen ran forward to obey. An unexpected intervention stopped
+them. A one-armed little man who had drifted down the street in time to
+see part of the fracas pushed forward.
+
+"I reckon not just yet. Goliath's had a turn. Now David gets his."
+
+"Lemme up," sobbed Goliath furiously.
+
+"Say you're whopped." Jeff's fist emphasized the suggestion.
+
+"Doggone you!"
+
+This kind of one-sided warfare did not suit Jeff. He made as if to get
+up, but his backer stopped him.
+
+"Hold on, son. You're not through yet. When you do a job do it
+thorough." To the former champion he spoke. "Had plenty yet?"
+
+"I--I'll have him skinned," came from the tearful champion with a burst
+of profanity.
+
+"That ain't the point. Have you had enough so you'll be good? Or do you
+need some more?"
+
+"I'm goin' to tell Webber."
+
+"Needs just a leetle more, son," the one-armed man told Jeff, dragging
+at his goatee.
+
+But young Farnum had made up his mind. With a little twist of his body
+he got to his feet.
+
+Merrill rose, tearful and sullen. "I--I'll fix you for this," he gulped,
+and went sobbing toward the schoolhouse.
+
+"Better duck," James whispered to his cousin.
+
+Jeff shook his head.
+
+The little man looked at the boy sharply. The eyes under his shaggy
+brows were like gimlets.
+
+"Come up to the school with me. I'll see your teacher, son."
+
+Jeff walked beside him. He knew by the sound of the voice that his
+rescuer was a Southerner and his heart warmed to him. He wanted greatly
+to ask a question. Presently it plumped out.
+
+"Was it in the war, sir?"
+
+"I reckon I don't catch your meaning."
+
+"That you lost your arm?" The boy added quickly, "My father was a
+soldier under General Early."
+
+The steel-gray eyes shot at him again. "I was under Early myself."
+
+"My father was a captain--Captain Farnum," the young warrior announced
+proudly.
+
+"Not Phil Farnum!"
+
+"Yes, sir. Did you know him?" Jeff trembled with eagerness. His dead
+soldier-father was the idol of his heart.
+
+"Did I?" He swung Jeff round and looked at him. "You're like him, in a
+way, and, by Gad! you fight like him. What's your name?"
+
+"Jefferson Davis Farnum."
+
+"Shake hands, Jefferson Davis Farnum, you dashed little rebel. My name
+is Lucius Chunn. I was a lieutenant in your father's company before I
+was promoted to one of my own."
+
+Jeff forgot his troubles instantly. "I wish I'd been alive to go with
+father to the war," he cried.
+
+Captain Chunn was delighted. "You doggoned little rebel!"
+
+"I didn't know we used that word in the South' sir."
+
+Chunn tugged at his goatee and laughed. "We're not in the South, David."
+
+The former Confederate asked questions to piece out his patchwork
+information. He knew that Philip Farnum had come out of the war with
+a constitution weakened by the hardships of the service. Rumors had
+drifted to him that the taste for liquor acquired in camp as an antidote
+for sickness had grown upon his comrade and finally overcome him. From
+Jeff he learned that after his father's death the widow had sold her
+mortgaged place and moved to the Pacific Coast. She had invested the
+few hundreds left her in some river-bottom lots at Verden and had later
+discovered that an unscrupulous real estate dealer had unloaded upon her
+worthless property. The patched and threadbare clothes of the boy told
+him that from a worldly point of view the affairs of the Farnums were at
+ebb tide.
+
+"Did... did you know father very well?" Jeff asked tremulously.
+
+Chunn looked down at the thin dark face of the boy walking beside him
+and was moved to lay a hand on his shoulder. He understood the ache in
+that little heart to hear about the father who was a hero to him. Jeff
+was of no importance in the alien world about him. The Captain guessed
+from the little scene he had witnessed that the lad trod a friendless,
+stormy path. He divined, too, that the hungry soul was fed from within
+by dreams and memories.
+
+So Lucius Chunn talked. He told about the slender, soldierly officer in
+gray who had given himself so freely to serve his men, of the time he
+had caught pneumonia by lending his blanket to a sick boy, of the day he
+had led the charge at Battle Creek and received the wound which pained
+him so greatly to the hour of his death. And Jeff drank his words in
+like a charmed thing. He visualized it all, the bitter nights in camp,
+the long wet marches, the trumpet call to battle. It was this last that
+his imagination seized upon most eagerly. He saw the silent massing
+of troops, the stealthy advance through the woods; and he heard the
+blood-curdling rebel yell as the line swept forward from cover like a
+tidal wave, with his father at its head.
+
+Captain Chunn was puzzled at the coldness with which Mr. Webber listened
+to his explanation of what had taken place. The school principal fell
+back doggedly upon one fact. It would not have happened if Jeff had not
+been playing truant. Therefore he was to blame for what had occurred.
+
+Nothing would be done, of course, without a thorough investigation.
+
+The Captain was not satisfied, but he did not quite see what more he
+could do.
+
+"The boy is a son of an old comrade of mine. We were in the war
+together. So of course I have to stand by Jeff," he pleaded with a
+smile.
+
+"You were in the rebel army?" The words slipped out before the
+schoolmaster could stop them.
+
+"In the Confederate army," Chunn corrected quietly.
+
+Webber flushed at the rebuke. "That is what I meant to say."
+
+"I leave to-morrow for Alaska. It would be pleasant to know before I go
+that Jeff is out of his trouble."
+
+"I'm afraid Jeff always will be in trouble. He is a most insubordinate
+boy," the principal answered coldly.
+
+"Are you sure you quite understand him?"
+
+"He is not difficult to understand." Webber, resenting the interference
+of the Southerner as an intrusion, disposed of the matter in a sentence.
+"I'll look into this matter carefully, Mr. Chunn."
+
+Webber called immediately at the office of Edward B. Merrill, president
+of the tramway company and of the First National Bank. It happened that
+the vice-president of the bank was a school director; also that the
+funds of the district were kept in the First National. The schoolteacher
+did not admit that he had come to ingratiate himself with the powers
+that ruled his future, but he was naturally pleased to come in direct
+touch with such a man as Merrill.
+
+The financier was urbane and spent nearly half an hour of his valuable
+time with the principal. When the latter rose to go they shook hands.
+The two understood each other thoroughly.
+
+"You may depend upon me to do my duty, Mr. Merrill, painful though such
+a course may be to me."
+
+"I am very glad to have met you, Mr. Webber. It is a source of
+satisfaction to me that our educational system is in the care of men of
+your stamp. I leave this matter with confidence entirely in your hands.
+Do what you think best."
+
+His confidence was justified. After school opened next morning Jeff was
+called up and publicly thrashed for playing truant. As a prelude to the
+corporal punishment the principal delivered a lecture. He alluded to
+the details of the fight gravely, with selective discrimination, giving
+young Farnum to understand that he had reached the end of his rope. If
+any more such brutal affairs were reported to him he would be punished
+severely.
+
+The boy took the flogging in silence. He had learned to set his teeth
+and take punishment without whimpering. From the hardest whipping Webber
+had ever given he went to his seat with a white, set face that stared
+straight in front of him. Young as he was, he knew it had not been fair
+and his outraged soul cried out at the injustice of it. The principal
+had seized upon the truancy as an excuse to let him escape from an
+investigation of the cause of the fight. Ned Merrill got off because his
+father was a rich man and powerful in the city. He, Jeff, was whipped
+because he was an outcast and had dared lift his hand against one of his
+betters.
+
+And there was no redress. It was simply the way of the world.
+
+Jeff and his mother were down that afternoon to see their new friend
+off in the _City of Skook._ Captain Chunn found a chance to draw the boy
+aside for a question.
+
+"Is it all right with Mr. Webber? What did he do?"
+
+"Oh, he gave me a jawing," the boy answered.
+
+The little man nodded. "I reckoned that was what he would do. Be a
+good boy, Jeff. I never knew a man more honorable than your father. Run
+straight, son."
+
+"Yes, sir," the lad promised, a lump in his throat.
+
+It was more than ten years before he saw Captain Chunn again.
+
+
+Part 2
+
+As an urchin Jeff had taken things as they came without understanding
+causes. Thoughts had come to him in flashes, without any orderly
+sequence, often illogically. As a gangling boy he still took for granted
+the hard knocks of a world he did not attempt to synthesize.
+
+Even his mother looked upon him as "queer." She worried plaintively
+because he was so careless about his clothes and because his fondness
+for the outdoors sometimes led him to play truant. Constantly she set
+before him as a model his cousin, James, who was a good-looking boy,
+polite, always well dressed, with a shrewd idea of how to get along
+easily.
+
+"Why can't you be like Cousin James? He isn't always in trouble," she
+would urge in her tired way.
+
+It was quite true that the younger cousin was more of a general favorite
+than harum-scarum Jeff, but the mother might as well have asked her boy
+to be like Socrates. It was not that he could not learn or that he did
+not want to study. He simply did not fit into the school groove. Its
+routine of work and discipline, its tendency to stifle individuality, to
+run all children through the same hopper like grist through a mill, put
+a clamp upon his spirits and his imagination. Even thus early he was a
+rebel.
+
+Jeff scrambled up through the grades in haphazard fashion until he
+reached the seventh. Here his teacher made a discovery. She was a faded
+little woman of fifty, but she had that loving insight to which all
+children respond. Under her guidance for one year the boy blossomed. His
+odd literary fancy for Don Quixote, for Scott's poems and romances
+she encouraged, quietly eliminating the dime novels he had read
+indiscriminately with these. She broke through the shell of his shyness
+to find out that his diffidence was not sulkiness nor his independence
+impudence.
+
+The boy was a dreamer. He lived largely in a world of his own, where
+Quentin Durward and Philip Farnum and Robert E. Lee were enshrined as
+heroes. From it he would emerge all hot for action, for adventure. Into
+his games then he would throw a poetic imagination that transfigured
+them. Outwardly he lived merely in that boys' world made to his hand.
+He adopted its shibboleths, fought when he must, went through the annual
+routine of marbles, tops, kites, hop scotch, and baseball. From his
+fellows he guarded jealously the knowledge of even the existence of his
+secret world of fancy.
+
+His progress through the grades and the high school was intermittent.
+Often he had to stop for months at a time to earn money for their
+living. In turn he was newsboy, bootblack, and messenger boy. He drove a
+delivery wagon for a grocer, ushered at a theater, was even a copyholder
+in the proofroom of a newspaper. Hard work kept him thin, but he was
+like a lath for toughness.
+
+Seven weeks after he was graduated from the high school his mother
+died. The day of the funeral a real estate dealer called to offer three,
+hundred dollars for the lots in the river bottom bought some years
+earlier by Mrs. Farnum.
+
+Jeff put the man off. It was too late now to do his mother any good. She
+had had to struggle to the last for the bread she ate. He wondered why
+the good things in life were so unevenly distributed.
+
+Twice during the next week Jeff was approached with offers for his lots.
+The boy was no fool.
+
+He found out that the land was wanted by a new railroad pushing into
+Verden. Within three days he had sold direct to the agent of the company
+for nine hundred dollars. With what he could earn on the side and in his
+summers he thought that sum would take him through college.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+     I wonder if Morgan, the Pirate,
+       When plunder had glutted his heart,
+     Gave part of the junk from the ships he had sunk
+       To help some Museum of Art;
+     If he gave up the role of "collector of toll"
+       And became a Collector of Art?
+
+     I wonder if Genghis, the Butcher,
+       When he'd trampled down nations like grass,
+     Retired with his share when he'd lost all his hair
+       And started a Sunday-school class;
+     If he turned his past under and used half his plunder
+       In running a Sunday-school class?
+
+     I wonder if Roger, the Rover,
+       When millions in looting he'd made,
+     Built libraries grand on the jolly mainland
+       To honor success and "free trade";
+     If he founded a college of nautical knowledge
+       Where Pirates could study their trade?
+
+     I wonder, I wonder, I wonder,
+       If Pirates were ever the same,
+     Ever trying to lend a respectable trend
+       To the jaunty old buccaneer game
+     Or is it because of our Piracy Laws
+       That philanthropists enter the game?
+     --Wallace Irwin, in Life.
+
+
+THE REBEL IS INSTRUCTED IN THE WORSHIP OF THE GOD-OF-THINGS-AS-THEY-ARE
+
+
+Part 1
+
+Jeff was digging out a passage in the "Apology" when there came a knock
+at the door of his room. The visitor was his cousin, James, and he
+radiated such an air of prosperity that the plain little bedroom shrank
+to shabbiness.
+
+James nodded in offhand fashion as he took off his overcoat. "Hello,
+Jeff! Thought I'd look you up. Got settled in your diggings, eh?" Before
+his host could answer he rattled on: "Just ran in for a moment. Had the
+devil of a time to find you. What's the object in getting clear off the
+earth?"
+
+"Cheaper," Jeff explained.
+
+"Should think it would be," James agreed after he had let his eyes
+wander critically around the room. "But you can't afford to save that
+way. Get a good suite. And for heaven's sake see a tailor, my boy. In
+college a man is judged by the company he keeps."
+
+"What have my room and my clothes to do with that?" Jeff wanted to know,
+with a smile.
+
+"Everything. You've got to put up a good front. The best fellows won't
+go around with a longhaired guy who doesn't know how to dress. No
+offense, Jeff."
+
+His cousin laughed. "I'll see a barber to-morrow."
+
+"And you must have a room where the fellows can come to see you."
+
+"What's the matter with this one?"
+
+A hint of friendly patronage crept into the manner of the junior. "My
+dear chap, college isn't worth doing at all unless you do it right.
+You're here to get in with the best fellows and to make connections that
+will help you later. That sort of thing, you know."
+
+Into Jeff's face came the light that always transfigured its plainness
+when he was in the grip of an idea. "Hold on, J. K. Let's get at this
+right. Is that what I'm here for? I didn't know it. There's a hazy
+notion in my noodle that I'm here to develop myself."
+
+"That's what I'm telling you. Go in for the things that count. Make a
+good frat. Win out at football or debating. I don't give a hang what you
+go after, but follow the ball and keep on the jump. I'm strong with the
+crowd that runs things and I'll see they take you in and make you a cog
+of the machine. But you'll have to measure up to specifications."
+
+"But, hang it, I don't want to be a cog in any machine. I'm here to
+give myself a chance to grow--sit out in the sun and hatch an
+individuality--give myself lots of free play."
+
+"Then you've come to the wrong shop," James informed him dryly. "If you
+want to succeed at college you've got to do the things the other fellows
+do and you've got to do them the same way."
+
+"You mean I've got to travel in a rut?"
+
+"Oh, well! That's a way of putting it. I mean that you have to accept
+customs and traditions. You have to work like the devil doing things
+that count. If you make the team you've got to think football, talk it,
+eat it, dream it."
+
+"But is it worth while?"
+
+James waved his protest aside. "Of course it's worth while. Success
+always is. Get this in your head. Four-fifths of the fellows at college
+don't count. They're also-rans. To get in with the right bunch you've
+got to make a good showing. Look at me. I'm no John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
+Athletics bore me. I can't sing. I don't grind. But I'm in everything.
+Best frat. Won the oratorical contest. Manager of the football team next
+season. President of the Dramatic Club. Why?"
+
+He did not wait for Jeff to guess the reason. "Because our set runs
+things and I go after the honors."
+
+"But a college ought to be a democracy," Jeff protested.
+
+"Tommyrot! It's an aristocracy, that's what it is, just like the little
+old world outside, an aristocracy of the survival of the fittest. You
+get there if you're strong. You go to the wall if you're weak. That's
+the law of life."
+
+The freshman came to this squint of pragmatism with surprise. He had
+thought of Verden University as a splendid democracy of intellectual
+brotherhood that was to leaven the world with which it came in touch.
+
+"Do you mean that a fellow has to have money enough to make a good
+showing before he can win any of the prizes?"
+
+James K. nodded with the sage wisdom of a man of the world. "The long
+green is a big help, but you've got to have the stuff in you. Success
+comes to the fellow who goes after it in the right way."
+
+"And suppose a fellow doesn't care to go after it?"
+
+"He stays a nobody."
+
+James was in evening dress, immaculate from clean-shaven cheek to patent
+leather shoes. He had a well-filled figure and a handsome face with
+a square, clean-cut jaw. His cousin admired the young fellow's virile
+competency. It was his opinion that James K. Farnum was the last person
+he knew likely to remain a nobody. He knew how to conform, to take the
+color of his thinking from the dominant note of his environment, but he
+had, too, a capacity for leadership.
+
+"I'm not going to believe you if I can help it," Jeff answered with a
+smile.
+
+The upper classman shrugged. "You'd better take my advice, just the
+same. At college you don't get a chance to make two starts. You're sized
+up from the crack of the pistol."
+
+"I haven't the money to make a splurge even if I wanted to."
+
+"Borrow."
+
+"Who from?" asked Jeff ungrammatically.
+
+"You can rustle it somewhere. I'm borrowing right now."
+
+"It's different with you. I'm used to doing without things. Don't worry
+about me. I'll get along."
+
+James came with a touch of embarrassment to the real object of his
+visit. "I say, Jeff. I've had a tough time to win out. You won't--you'll
+not say anything--let anything slip, you know--something that might set
+the fellows guessing."
+
+His cousin was puzzled. "About what?"
+
+"About the reason why Mother and I left Shelby and came out to the
+coast."
+
+"What do you take me for?"
+
+"I knew you wouldn't. Thought I'd mention it for fear you might make a
+slip."
+
+"I don't chatter about the private affairs of my people."
+
+"Course not. I knew you didn't." The junior's hand rested caressingly
+on the shoulder of the other. "Don't get sore, Jeff. I didn't doubt you.
+But that thing haunts me. Some day it will come out and ruin me when I'm
+near the top of the ladder."
+
+The freshman shook his head. "Don't worry about it, James. Just tell
+the plain truth if it comes out. A thing like that can't hurt you
+permanently. Nothing can really injure you that does not come from your
+own weakness."
+
+"That's all poppycock," James interrupted fretfully. "Just that sort of
+thing has put many a man on the skids. I tell you a young fellow needs
+to start unhampered. If the fellows got onto it that my father had been
+in the pen because he was a defaulting bank cashier they would drop me
+like a hot potato."
+
+"None but the snobs would. Your friends would stick the closer."
+
+"Oh' friends!" The young man's voice had a note of angry derision.
+
+Jeff's affectionate grin comforted him. "Don't let it get on your
+nerves, J. K. Things never are as bad as we expect at their worst."
+
+The junior set his teeth savagely. "I tell you, sometimes I hate him
+for it. That's a fine heritage for a father to give his son, isn't it?
+Nothing but trouble and disgrace."
+
+His cousin spoke softly. "He's paid a hundred times for it, old man."
+
+"He ought to pay. Why shouldn't he? I've got to pay. Mother had to as
+long as she lived." His voice was hard and bitter.
+
+"Better not judge him. You're his only son, you know."
+
+"I'm the one he's injured most. Why shouldn't I judge him? I've been a
+pauper all these years, living off money given us by my mother's people.
+I had to leave our home because of what he did. I'd like to know why I
+shouldn't judge him."
+
+Jeff was silent.
+
+Presently James rose. "But there's no use talking about it. I've got to
+be going. We have an eat to-night at Tucker's."
+
+
+Part 2
+
+Jeff came to his new life on the full tide of an enthusiasm that did not
+begin to ebb till near the close of his first semester. He lived in a
+new world, one removed a million miles from the sordid one through which
+he had fought his way so many years. All the idealism of his nature went
+out in awe and veneration for his college. It stood for something he
+could not phrase, something spiritually fine and intellectually strong.
+When he thought of the noble motto of the university, "To Serve," it was
+always with a lifted emotion that was half a prayer. His professors went
+clothed in majesty. The chancellor was of godlike dimensions. Even the
+seniors carried with them an impalpable aura of learning.
+
+The illusion was helped by reason of the very contrast between the
+jostling competition of the street and the academic air of harmony in
+which he now found himself. For the first time was lifted the sense of
+struggle that had always been with him.
+
+The outstanding notes of his boyhood had been poverty and meagerness.
+It was as if he and his neighbors had been flung into a lake where
+they must keep swimming to escape drowning. There had been no rest from
+labor. Sometimes the tragedy of disaster had swept over a family. But
+on the campus of the university he found the sheltered life. The echo of
+that battling world came to him only faintly.
+
+He began to make tentative friendships, but in spite of the advice of
+his cousin they were with the men who did not count. Samuel Miller was
+an example. He was a big, stodgy fellow with a slow mind which arrived
+at its convictions deliberately. But when he had made sure of them he
+hung to his beliefs like a bulldog to a bone.
+
+It was this quality that one day brought them together in the classroom.
+An instructor tried to drive Miller into admitting he was wrong in an
+opinion. The boy refused to budge, and the teacher became nettled.
+
+"Mr. Miller will know more when he doesn't know so much," the instructor
+snapped out.
+
+Jeff's instinct for fair play was roused at once, all the more because
+of the ripple of laughter that came from the class. He spoke up quietly.
+
+"I can't see yet but that Mr. Miller is right, sir."
+
+"The discussion is closed," was the tart retort.
+
+After class the dissenters walked across to chapel together.
+
+"Poke the animal up with a stick and hear him growl," Jeff laughed
+airily.
+
+"Page always thinks a fellow ought to take his say-so as gospel," Miller
+commented.
+
+Most of the students saw in Jeff Farnum only a tallish young man, thin
+as a rail, not particularly well dressed, negligent as to collar and
+tie. But Miller observed in the tanned face a tender, humorous mouth and
+eager, friendly eyes that looked out upon the world with a suggestion
+of inner mirth. In course of time he found out that his friend was an
+unconquerable idealist.
+
+Jeff made discoveries. One of them was a quality of brutal indifference
+in some of his classmates to those less fortunate. These classy young
+gentlemen could ignore him as easily as a hurrying business man can a
+newsboy trying to sell him a paper. If he was forced upon their notice
+they were perfectly courteous; otherwise he was not on the map for them.
+
+Another point that did not escape his attention was the way in which the
+institution catered to Merrill and Frome, because they were large donors
+to the university. He had once heard Peter C. Frome say in a speech to
+the students that he contributed to the support of Verden University
+because it was a "safe and conservative citadel which never had yielded
+to demagogic assaults." At the time he had wondered just what the
+president of the Verden Union Water Company had meant. He was slowly
+puzzling his way to an answer.
+
+Chancellor Bland referred often to the "largehearted Christian gentlemen
+who gave of their substance to promote the moral and educational life of
+the state." But Jeff knew that many believed Frome and Merrill to be no
+better than robbers on a large scale. He knew the methods by which they
+had gained their franchises and that they ruled the politics of the city
+by graft and corruption. Yet the chancellor was always ready to speak
+or write against municipal ownership. It was common talk on the streets
+that Professor Perkins, of the chair of political science, had had his
+expenses paid to England by Merrill to study the street railway
+system of Great Britain, and that Perkins had duly written several
+bread-and-butter articles to show that public ownership was unsuccessful
+there.
+
+The college was a denominational one and the atmosphere wholly orthodox.
+Doubt and skepticism were spoken of only with horror. At first it was of
+himself that Jeff was critical. The spirit of the place was opposed to
+all his convictions, but he felt that perhaps his reaction upon life had
+been affected too much by his experiences.
+
+He asked questions, and was suppressed with severity or kindly paternal
+advice. It came to him one night while he was walking bareheaded under
+the stars that there was in the place no intellectual stimulus, though
+there was an elaborate presence of it. The classrooms were arid.
+Everywhere fences were up beyond which the mind was not expected to
+travel. A thing was right, because it had come to be accepted. That was
+the gospel of his fellows, of his teachers. Later he learned that it is
+also the creed of the world.
+
+What Jeff could not understand was a mind which refused to accept the
+inevitable conclusions to which its own processes pushed it. Verden
+University lacked the courage which comes from intellectual honesty.
+Wherefore its economics were devitalized and its theology an
+anachronism.
+
+But Jeff had been given a mind unable to lie to itself. He was in very
+essence a non-conformist. To him age alone did not lend sanctity to the
+ghosts of dead yesterdays that rule to-day.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+     "Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist. He who would
+     gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of
+     goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at
+     last sacred but the integrity of your own mind,"--Emerson.
+
+
+CONVERSING ON RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY, THE REBEL LEARNS THAT IT IS
+SOMETIMES WISE TO SOFT PEDAL IDEAS UNLESS THEY ARE ACCEPTED ONES
+
+
+During his freshman year Jeff saw little of his cousin beyond the usual
+campus greetings, except for a period of six weeks when the junior
+happened to need him. But the career of James K. tickled immensely
+the under classman's sense of humor. He was becoming the most dazzling
+success ever developed by the college. Even with the faculty he stood
+high, for if he lacked scholarship he had the more showy gifts that went
+farther. He knew when to defer and when to ride roughshod to his end.
+It was felt that his brilliancy had a solidity back of it, a quality of
+flintiness that would endure.
+
+James was inordinately ambitious and loved the spotlight like an
+actor. The flamboyant oratory at which he excelled had won for him the
+interstate contest. He was editor-in-chief of the "Verdenian," manager
+of the varsity football team, and president of the college senate.
+
+With the beginning of his senior year James entered another phase of his
+development. He offered to the college a new, or at least an enlarged,
+interpretation of himself. Some of his smiling good-fellowship had been
+sloughed to make way for the benignity of a budding statesman. He still
+held a tolerant attitude to the antics of his friends, but it was easy
+to see that he had put away childish things. To his many young women
+admirers he talked confidentially of his aims and aspirations. The
+future of James K. Farnum was a topic he never exhausted.
+
+It was, too, a subject which greatly interested Jeff and Sam Miller.
+His cousin might smile at his poses, and often did, but he never denied
+James qualities likely to carry him far.
+
+"His one best bet is his belief in himself," Sam announced one night.
+
+"It's a great thing to believe in yourself."
+
+"He's so dead sure he's cast for a big part. The egoism just oozes out
+of him. He doesn't know himself that he's a faker."
+
+"He is a long way from that," Jeff protested warmly.
+
+"Take his oratory," Miller went on irritably. "It's all bunk. He throws
+a chest and makes you feel he's a big man, but what he says won't stand
+analysis--just a lot of platitudes."
+
+"Don't forget he's young yet. James K. hasn't found himself."
+
+"Sure there's anything to find?"
+
+"There's a lot in him. He's the biggest man in the university to-day."
+
+"You practically wrote the oration that won the interstate contest.
+Think I don't know that?" Miller snorted.
+
+Jeff's mouth took on a humorous twist. "I gave him some suggestions. How
+did you know?"
+
+"Knew he wasn't hanging around last term for nothing. He's selfish as
+the devil."
+
+"You're all wrong about him, Sam. He isn't selfish at all at bottom."
+
+"Shoot the brains out of that oration and what's left would be the
+part he supplied. The fellow's got a gift of absorbing new ideas
+superficially and dressing them up smartly."
+
+"Then he's got us beat there," Jeff laughed goodnaturedly. He had not
+in his make-up a grain of envy. Even his laughter was generally genial,
+though often irreverent to the God-of-things-as-they-are.
+
+"When he won the interstate he lapped up flattery like a thirsty pup,
+but his bluff was that it was only for the college he cared to win."
+
+"Most of us have mixed motives."
+
+"Not J. K. Reminds me of old Johnson's 'Patriotism is the last refuge of
+a scoundrel.'"
+
+Jeff straightened. "That won't do, Sam. I believe in J. K. You've got
+nothing against him except that you don't like him."
+
+"Forgot you were his cousin, Jeff," Miller grumbled. "But it's a fact
+that he works everybody to shove him along."
+
+"He's only a kid. Give him time. He'll be a big help to any community."
+
+"James K.'s biggest achievement will always be James K."
+
+Jeff chuckled at the apothegm even while he protested. Sam capped it
+with another.
+
+"He's always sitting to himself for his own portrait."
+
+"He'll get over that when he brushes up against the world." Jeff added
+his own criticism thoughtfully. "The weak spot in him is a sort of
+flatness of mind. This makes him afraid of new ideas. He wants to be
+respectable, and respectability is the most damning thing on earth."
+
+After Miller had left Jeff buckled down to Ely's "Political Economy."
+He had not been at it long when James surprised him by dropping in. His
+host offered the easiest chair and shoved tobacco toward him.
+
+"Been pretty busy with the team, I suppose?" Jeff suggested.
+
+"It's taken a lot of my time, but I think I've put the athletic
+association on a paying basis at last."
+
+"I see by your report in the 'Verdenian' that you made good."
+
+"A fellow ought to do well whatever he undertakes to do."
+
+Jeff grinned across at him from where he lay on the bed with his fingers
+laced beneath his head. "That's what the copybooks used to say."
+
+"I want to have a serious talk with you, Jeff."
+
+"Aren't you having it? What can be more important than the successes of
+James K. Farnum?"
+
+The senior looked at him suspiciously. He was not strongly fortified
+with a sense of humor. "Just now I want to talk about the failures of
+Jefferson D. Farnum," he answered gravely.
+
+Jeff's eyes twinkled. "Is it worth while? I am unworthy of this boon, O
+great Cesar."
+
+"Now that's the sort of thing that stands in your way," James told him
+impatiently. "People never know when you're laughing at them. There
+is no reason why you shouldn't succeed. Your abilities are up to the
+average, but you fritter them away."
+
+"Thank you." Jeff wore an air of being immensely pleased.
+
+"The truth is that you're your own worst enemy. Now that you have taken
+to dressing better you are not bad looking. I find a good many of the
+fellows like you--or they would if you'd let them."
+
+"Because I'm so well connected," Jeff laughed.
+
+"I suppose it does help, your being my cousin. But the thing depends on
+you. Unless you make a decided change you'll never get on."
+
+"What change do you suggest? Item one, please?"
+
+James looked straight at him. "You lack bedrock principles, Jeff."
+
+"Do I?"
+
+"Take your habits. Two or three times you've been seen coming out of
+saloons."
+
+"Expect I went in to get a drink."
+
+"It's not generally known, of course, but if it reached Prexy he'd fire
+you so quick your head would swim."
+
+"I dare say."
+
+The senior looked at him significantly. "You're the last man that ought
+to go to such places. There's such a thing as an inherited tendency."
+
+The jaw muscles stood out like ropes under the flesh of Jeff's lean
+face. "We'll not discuss that."
+
+"Very well. Cut it out. A drinking man is handicapped too heavily to
+win."
+
+"Much obliged. Second count in the indictment, please."
+
+"You've got strange, unsettling notions. The profs don't like them."
+
+"Don't they?"
+
+"You know what I mean. We didn't make this world. We've got to take
+it as it is. You can't make it over. There are always going to be rich
+people and poor ones. Just because you've fed indigestibly on Ibsen and
+Shaw you can't change facts."
+
+"So you advise?"
+
+"Soft pedal your ideas if you must have them."
+
+"Hasn't a man got to see things as straight as he can?"
+
+"That's no reason for calling in the neighbors to rejoice with him
+because he has astigmatism."
+
+Jeff came back with a tag of Emerson, whose phrases James was fond of
+quoting in his speeches. "Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist.
+Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."
+
+"You can push that too far. It isn't practical. We've got to make
+compromises, especially with established things."
+
+Jeff sat up on the bed. Points of light were dancing in his big eyes.
+"That's what the Pharisees said to Jesus when he wouldn't stand for lies
+because they were deep rooted and for injustice because it had become
+respectable."
+
+"Oh, if you're going to compare yourself to Christ--"
+
+"Verden University is supposed to stand for Christianity, isn't it?
+It was because Jesus whanged away at social and industrial freedom, at
+fraternity, at love on earth, that he had to endure the Cross. He got
+under the upper class skin when he attacked the traditional lies of
+vested interests. Now why doesn't Bland preach the things that Jesus
+taught?"
+
+"He does."
+
+"Yes, he does," Jeff scoffed. "He preaches good form, respectability,
+a narrow personal righteousness, a salvation canned and petrified three
+hundred years ago."
+
+"Do you want him to preach socialism?"
+
+"I want him to preach the square deal in our social life, intellectual
+honesty, and a vital spiritual life. Think of what this college might
+mean, how it might stand for democracy It ought to pour out into the
+state hundreds of specialists on the problems of the country. Instead,
+it is only a reflection of the caste system that is growing up in
+America."
+
+James shrugged his broad shoulders. "I've been through all that. It's
+a phase we pass. You'll get over it. You've got to if you are going to
+succeed."
+
+A quizzical grin wrinkled Jeff's lean face. "What is success?"
+
+"It's setting a high goal and reaching it. It's taking the world by the
+throat and shaking from it whatever you want." James leaned across the
+table, his eyes shining. "It's the journey's end for the strong, that's
+what it is. I don't care whether a man is gathering gilt or fame, he's
+got to pound away with his eye right on it. And he's got to trample down
+the things that get in his way."
+
+Jeff's eye fell upon a book on the table. "Ever hear of a chap called
+Goldsmith?"
+
+"Of course. He wrote 'The School for Scandal.' What's he got to do with
+it?"
+
+Jeff smiled, without correcting his cousin. "I've been reading about
+him. Seems to have been a poor hack writer 'who threw away his life in
+handfuls.' He wrote the finest poem, the best novel, the most charming
+comedy of his day. He knew how to give, but he didn't know how to take.
+So he died alone in a garret. He was a failure."
+
+"Probably his own fault."
+
+"And on the day of his funeral the stairway was crowded with poor people
+he had helped. All of them were in tears."
+
+"What good did that do him? He was inefficient. He might have saved his
+money and helped them then."
+
+"Perhaps. I don't know. It might have been too late then. He chose to
+give his life as he was living it."
+
+"Another reason for his poverty, wasn't there?"
+
+Jeff flushed. "He drank."
+
+"Thought so." James rose triumphantly and put on his overcoat. "Well,
+think over what I've said."
+
+"I will. And tell the chancellor I'm much obliged to him for sending
+you."
+
+For once the Senior was taken aback. "Eh, what--what?"
+
+"You may tell him it won't be your fault that I'll never be a credit to
+Verden University."
+
+As he walked across the campus to his fraternity house James did not
+feel that his call had been wholly successful. With him he carried a
+picture of his cousin's thin satiric face in which big expressive eyes
+mocked his arguments. But he let none of this sense of futility get into
+the report given next day to the Chancellor.
+
+"Jeff's rather light-minded, I'm afraid, sir. He wanted to branch off
+to side lines. But I insisted on a serious talk. Before I left him he
+promised to think over what I had said."
+
+"Let us hope he may."
+
+"He said it wouldn't be my fault if he wasn't a credit to the
+University."
+
+"We can all agree with him there, Farnum."
+
+"Thank you, sir. I'm not very hopeful about him. He has other things to
+contend with."
+
+"I'm not sure I quite know what you mean."
+
+"I can't explain more fully without violating a confidence."
+
+"Well, we'll hope for the best, and remember him in our prayers."
+
+"Yes, sir," James agreed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+     "I met a hundred men on the road to Delhi, and they were all
+     my brothers."--Old Proverb.
+
+
+THE REBEL FLUNKS IN A COURSE ON HOW TO GET ON IN LIFE
+
+
+Part 1
+
+It would be easy to overemphasize Jeff's intellectual difficulties at
+the expense of the deep delight he found in many phases of his student
+life. The daily routine of the library, the tennis courts, and the jolly
+table talk brought out the boy in him that had been submerged.
+
+There developed in him a vagabond streak that took him into the woods
+and the hills for days at a time. About the middle of his Sophomore year
+he discovered Whitman. While camping alone at night under the stars he
+used to shout out,
+
+"Strong and content, I travel the open road," or
+
+"Allons! The road is before us!
+
+"It is safe--I have tried it--my own feet have tried it well."
+
+Through Stevenson's essay on Whitman Jeff came to know the Scotch
+writer, and from the first paragraph of him was a sealed follower of R.
+L. S. In different ways both of these poets ministered to a certain love
+of freedom, of beauty, of outdoor spaces that was ineradicably a part of
+his nature. The essence of vagabondage is the spirit of romance. One may
+tour every corner of the earth and still be a respectable Pharisee. One
+may never move a dozen miles from the village of his birth and yet be
+of the happy company of romantics. Jeff could find in a sunset, in
+a stretch of windswept plain, in the sight of water through leafless
+trees, something that filled his heart with emotion.
+
+Perhaps the very freedom of these vacation excursions helped to feed his
+growing discontent. The yeast of rebellion was forever stirring in
+him. He wanted to come to life with open mind. He was possessed of an
+insatiable curiosity about it. This took him to the slums of Verden, to
+the redlight district, to Socialist meetings, to a striking coal camp
+near the city where he narrowly escaped being killed as a scab. He knew
+that something was wrong with our social life. Inextricably blended with
+success and happiness he saw everywhere pain, defeat, and confusion. Why
+must such things be? Why poverty at all?
+
+But when he flung his questions at Pearson, who had charge of the work
+in sociology, the explanations of the professor seemed to him pitifully
+weak.
+
+In the ethics class he met the same experience. A chance reference to
+Drummond's "Natural Law in the Spiritual world" introduced him to that
+stimulating book. All one night he sat up and read it--drank it in with
+every fiber of his thirsty being.
+
+The fire in his stove went out. He slipped into his overcoat. Gray
+morning found him still reading. He walked out with dazed eyes into
+a world that had been baptized anew during the night to a miraculous
+rebirth.
+
+But when he took his discovery to the lecture room Dawson was not only
+cold but hostile. Drummond was not sound. There was about him a specious
+charm very likely to attract young minds. Better let such books alone
+for the present. In the meantime the class would take up with him the
+discussion of predeterminism as outlined in Tuesday's work.
+
+There were members of the faculty big enough to have understood the boy
+and tolerant enough to have sympathized with his crude revolt, but Jeff
+was diffident and never came in touch with them.
+
+His connection with the college ended abruptly during the Spring term of
+his Sophomore year.
+
+A celebrated revivalist was imported to quicken the spiritual life
+of the University. Under his exhortations the institution underwent a
+religious ferment. An extraordinary excitement was astir on the campus.
+Class prayer meetings were held every afternoon, and at midday smaller
+groups met for devotional exercises. At these latter those who had made
+no profession of religion were petitioned for by name. James Farnum was
+swept into the movement and distinguished himself by his zeal. It was
+understood that he desired the prayers of friends for that relative who
+had not yet cast away the burden of his sins.
+
+It became a point of honor with his cousin's circle to win Jeff for the
+cause. There was no difficulty in getting him to attend the meetings of
+the revivalist. But he sat motionless through the emotional climax that
+brought to an end each meeting. To him it seemed that this was not in
+any vital sense religion, but he was careful not to suggest his feeling
+by so much as a word.
+
+One or two of his companions invited him to come to Jesus. He
+disconcerted them by showing an unexpected familiarity with the
+Scriptures as a weapon of offense against them.
+
+James invited him to his rooms and labored with him. Jeff resorted to
+the Socratic method. From what sins was he to be saved? And when would
+he know he had found salvation?
+
+His cousin uneasily explained the formula. "You must believe in Christ
+and Him crucified. You must surrender your will to His. Shall we pray
+together?"
+
+"I'd rather not, J. K. First, I want to get some points clear. Do you
+mean that I'm to believe in what Jesus said and to try to live as he
+suggested?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Jeff picked up his cousin's Bible and read a passage. "'We know that we
+have passed from death unto life, BECAUSE WE LOVE THE BRETHREN. He that
+loveth not his brother abideth in death.' That's the test, isn't it?"
+
+"Well, you have to be converted," James said dubiously.
+
+"Isn't that conversion--loving your brother? And if a man is willing
+to live in plenty while his brother is in poverty, if he exploits those
+weaker than himself to help him get along, then he can't be really
+converted, can he?"
+
+"Now see here, Jeff, you've got the wrong idea. Christ didn't come into
+the world to reform it, but to save it from its sins. He wasn't merely a
+man, but the Divine Son of God."
+
+"I don't understand the dual nature of Jesus. But when one reads His
+life it is easy to believe in His divinity." After a moment the young
+man added: "In one way we're all divine sons of God, aren't we?"
+
+James was shocked. "Where do you get such notions? None of our people
+were infidels."
+
+"Am I one?"
+
+"You ought to take advantage of this chance. It's not right to set your
+opinion up against those that know better."
+
+"And that's what I'm doing, isn't it?" Jeff smiled. "Can't help it. I
+reckon I can't be saved by my emotions. It's going to be a life job."
+
+James gave him up, but he sent another Senior to make a last attempt.
+The young man was Thurston Thomas and he had never exchanged six
+sentences with Jeff in his life. The unrepentant sinner sent him to the
+right about sharply.
+
+"What the devil do you mean by running about officiously and bothering
+about other people's souls? Better look out for your own."
+
+Thomas, a scion of one of the best families in Verden, looked as if he
+had been slapped in the face.
+
+"Why Farnum, I--I spoke for your good."
+
+"No, you didn't," contradicted Jeff flatly. "You don't care a hang about
+me. You've never noticed me before. We're not friends. You've always
+disliked me. But you want the credit of bringing me into the fold. It's
+damned impertinent of you."
+
+The Senior retired with a white face. He was furious, but he thought it
+due himself to turn the other cheek by saying nothing. He reported his
+version to a circle of friends, and from them it spread like grass seed
+in the wind. Soon it was generally known that Jeff Farnum had grossly
+insulted with blasphemy a man who had tried to save his soul.
+
+Two days later Miller met Jeff at the door of Frome 15.
+
+"You're in bad! Jeff. What the deuce did you do to Sissy Thomas?"
+
+"Gave him some good advice."
+
+Miller grinned. "I'll bet you did. The little cad has been poisoning the
+wells against you. Look there."
+
+A young woman of their class had passed into the room. Her glance had
+fallen upon Farnum and been quickly averted.
+
+"That's the first time Bessie Vroom ever cut you," Sam continued
+angrily. "Thomas is responsible. I've heard the story a dozen times
+already."
+
+"I only told him to mind his own business."
+
+"He can't. He's a born meddler. Now he's queered you with the whole
+place."
+
+"Can't help it. I wasn't going to let him get away with his impudence.
+Why should I?"
+
+Miller shrugged. "Policy, my boy. Better take the advice of Cousin James
+and crawl into your shell till the storm has pelted past."
+
+Half an hour later Jeff met his cousin near the chapel and was taken to
+task.
+
+"What's this I hear about your insulting Thomas?"
+
+"You have it wrong. He insulted me," Jeff corrected with a smile.
+
+"Tommyrot! Why couldn't you treat him right?"
+
+"Didn't like to throw him through the window on account of littering up
+the lawn with broken glass."
+
+James K.'s handsome square-cut face did not relax to a smile. "You may
+think this a joke, but I don't. I've heard the Chancellor is going to
+call you on the carpet."
+
+"If he does he'll learn what I think."
+
+The upper classman's anger boiled over. "You might think of me a
+little."
+
+"Didn't know you were in this, J. K."
+
+"They know I'm your cousin. It's hurting my reputation."
+
+A faint ironic smile touched Jeff's face. "No, James, I'm helping it.
+Ever notice how blondes and brunettes chum together. Value of contrasts,
+you see. I'm a moral brunette. You're a shining example of all a man
+should be. I simply emphasize your greatness."
+
+"That's not the way it works," his cousin grumbled.
+
+"That's just how it works. Best thing that could happen to you would be
+for me to get expelled. Shall I?"
+
+Jeff offered his suggestion debonairly.
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"It would give you just the touch of halo you need to finish the
+picture. Think of it: your noble head bowed in grief because of the
+unworthy relative you had labored so hard to save; the sympathy of the
+faculty, the respect of the fellows, the shy adoration of the co-eds.
+Great Brutus bowed by the sorrow of a strong man's unrepining emotion.
+By Jove, I ought to give you the chance. You'd look the part to
+admiration."
+
+For a moment James saw himself in the role and coveted it. Jeff read his
+thought, and his laughter brought his cousin back to earth. He had the
+irritated sense of having been caught.
+
+"It's not an occasion for talking nonsense," he said coldly.
+
+Jeff sensed his disgrace in the stiff politeness of the professors and
+in the embarrassed aloofness of his classmates. Some of the men frankly
+gave him a wide berth as if he had been a moral pervert.
+
+His temperament was sensitive to slights and he fell into one of his
+rare depressions. One afternoon he took the car for the city. He wanted
+to get away from himself and from his environment.
+
+A chill mist was in the air. Drawn by the bright lights, Jeff entered
+a saloon and sat down in an alcove with his arms on the table. Why did
+they hammer him so because he told the truth as he saw it? Why must he
+toady to the ideas of Bland as everybody else at the University seemed
+to do? He was not respectable enough for them. That was the trouble.
+They were pushing him back into the gutter whence he had emerged. Wild
+fragmentary thoughts chased themselves across the record of his brain.
+
+Almost before he knew it he had ordered and drunk a highball.
+Immediately his horizon lightened. With the second glass his depression
+vanished. He felt equal to anything.
+
+It was past nine o'clock when he took the University car. As chance had
+it Professor Perkins and he were the only passengers. The teacher of
+Economics bowed to the flushed youth and buried himself in a book. It
+was not till they both rose to leave at the University station that he
+noticed the condition of Farnum. Even then he stood in momentary doubt.
+
+With a maudlin laugh Jeff quieted any possible explanation of sickness.
+
+"Been havin' little spree down town, Profeshor. Good deal like one
+ev'body been havin' out here. Yours shpiritual; mine shpirituous. Joke,
+see! Play on wor'd. Shpiritual--shpirituous."
+
+"You're intoxicated, sir," Perkin's told him sternly.
+
+"Betcherlife I am, old cock! Ever get shp--shp--shpiflicated yourself?"
+
+"Go home and go to bed, sir!"
+
+"Whaffor? 'S early yet. 'S reasonable man I ask whaffor?"
+
+The professor turned away, but Jeff caught at his sleeve.
+
+"Lesh not go to bed. Lesh talk economicsh."
+
+"Release me at once, sir."
+
+"Jush's you shay. Shancellor wants see me. I'll go now."
+
+He did. What occurred at that interview had better be omitted. Jeff was
+very cordial and friendly, ready to make up any differences there might
+be between them. An ice statue would have been warm compared to the
+Chancellor.
+
+Next day Jeff was publicly expelled. At the time it did not trouble him
+in the least. He had brought a bottle home with him from town, and when
+the notice was posted he lay among the bushes in a sodden sleep half a
+mile from the campus.
+
+
+Part 2
+
+From a great distance there seemed to come to Jeff vaguely the sound
+of young rippling laughter and eager girlish voices. Drawn from heavy
+sleep, he was not yet fully awake. This merriment might be the music
+of fairy bells, such stuff as dreams are made of. He lay incurious,
+drowsiness still heavy on his eyelids.
+
+"Oh, Virgie, here's another bunch! Oh, girls, fields of them!"
+
+There was a little rush to the place, and with it a rustle of skirts
+that sounded authentic. Jeff began to believe that his nymphs were not
+born of fancy. He opened his eyes languidly to examine a strange world
+upon which he had not yet focused his mind.
+
+Out of the ferns a dryad was coming toward him, lance straight, slender,
+buoyantly youthful in the light tread and in the poise of the golden
+head.
+
+At sight of him she paused, held in her tracks, eyes grown big with
+solicitude.
+
+"You are ill."
+
+Before he could answer she had dropped the anemones she carried, was on
+her knees beside him, and had his head cushioned against her arm.
+
+"Tell me! What can I do for you? What is the matter?"
+
+Jeff groaned. His head was aching as if it would blow up, but that
+was not the cause of the wave of pain which had swept over him. A
+realization had come to him of what was the matter with him. His eyes
+fell from hers. He made as if to get up, but her hand restrained him
+with a gentle firmness.
+
+"Don't! You mustn't." Then aloud, she cried: "Girls--girls--there's a
+sick man here. Run and get help. Quick."
+
+"No--no! I--I'm not sick."
+
+A flood of shame and embarrassment drenched him. He could not escape
+her tender hands without actual force and his poignant shyness made that
+impossible. She was like a fairy tale, a creature of dreams. He dared
+not meet her frank pitiful eyes, though he was intensely aware of them.
+The odor of violets brings to him even to this day a vision of girlish
+charm and daintiness, together with a memory of the abased reverence
+that filled him.
+
+They came running, her companions, eager with question and suggestion.
+And hard upon their heels a teamster from the road broke through
+the thicket, summoned by their calls for help. He stooped to pick up
+something that his foot had struck. It was a bottle. He looked at it and
+then at Jeff.
+
+"Nothing the matter with him, Miss, but just plain drunk," the man said
+with a grin. "He's been sleeping it off."
+
+Jeff felt the quiver run through her. She rose, trembling, and with one
+frightened sidelong look at him walked quickly away. He had seen a wound
+in her eyes he would not soon forget. It was as if he had struck her
+down while she was holding out hands to help him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+     Lies need only age to make them respectable. Given that,
+     they become traditions and are put upon a pedestal. Then the
+     gentlest word for him who attacks them is traitor.--From
+     the Note Book of a Dreamer.
+
+
+THE REBEL FOLLOWS THE RAMIFICATIONS OF BIG BUSINESS AND FINDS THAT THE
+PILLARS OF SOCIETY ARE NOT IN POLITICS FOR THEIR HEALTH
+
+
+Part 1
+
+"Hmp! Want to be a reporter, do you?"
+
+Warren, city editor on the Advocate, leaned back in his chair and looked
+Jeff over sharply.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It's a hell of a life. Better keep out."
+
+"I'd like to try it."
+
+"Any experience?"
+
+"Only correspondence. I've had two years at college."
+
+The city editor snorted. He had the unreasoning contempt for college men
+so often found in the old-time newspaper hack.
+
+"Then you don't want to be a reporter. You want to be a journalist," he
+jeered.
+
+"They kicked me out," Jeff went on quietly.
+
+"Sounds better. Why?"
+
+Jeff hesitated. "I got drunk."
+
+"Can't use you," Warren cut in hastily.
+
+"I've quit--sworn off."
+
+The city editor was back on the job, his eyes devouring copy. "Heard
+that before. Nothing to it," he grunted.
+
+"Give me a trial. I'll show you."
+
+"Don't want a man that drinks. Office crowded with 'em already."
+
+Jeff held his ground. For five minutes the attention of Warren was
+focused on his work.
+
+Suddenly he snapped out, "Well?"
+
+He met Farnum's ingratiating smile. "You haven't told me yet what to
+start doing."
+
+"I told you I didn't want you."
+
+"But you do. I'm on the wagon."
+
+"For how long?" jeered the city editor.
+
+"For good."
+
+Warren sized him up again. He saw a cleareyed young fellow without
+a superfluous ounce of flesh on him, not rugged but with a look of
+strength in the slender figure and the thin face. This young man somehow
+inspired confidence.
+
+"Sent in that Colby story to us, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Rotten story. Not half played up. Report to Jenkins at the City Hall."
+
+"Now?"
+
+"Now. Think I meant next year?"
+
+The city editor was already lost in the reading of more copy.
+
+Inside of half an hour Jeff was at work on his first assignment. Some
+derelict had committed suicide under the very shadow of the City Hall.
+Upon the body was a note scrawled on the bask of a dirty envelope.
+
+Sick and out of work. Notify Henry Simmons, 237 River Street, San
+Francisco.
+
+Jenkins, his hands in his pockets, looked at the body indifferently and
+turned the story over to the cub with a nod of his head.
+
+"Go to it. Half a stick," he said.
+
+From another reporter Jeff learned how much half a stick is. He wrote
+the account. When he had read it Jenkins glanced sharply at him. Though
+only the barest facts were told there was a sob in the story.
+
+"That ain't just how we handle vag suicides, but we'll let 'er go this
+time," he commented.
+
+It did not take Jeff long to learn how to cover a story to the
+satisfaction of the city editor. He had only to be conventional,
+sensational, and in general accurate as to his facts. He fraternized
+with his fellow reporters at the City Hall, shared stories with them,
+listened to the cheerful lies they told of their exploits, and lent them
+money they generally forgot to return. They were a happy-go-lucky lot,
+full of careless generosities and Bohemian tendencies. Often a week's
+salary went at a single poker sitting. Most of them drank a good deal.
+
+After a few months' experience Jeff discovered that while the gathering
+of news tends to sharpen the wits it makes also for the superficial.
+Alertness, cleverness, persistence, a nose for news, and a surface
+accuracy were the chief qualities demanded of him by the office. He
+had only to look around him to see that the profession was full of
+keen-eyed, nimble-witted old-young men who had never attempted to
+synthesize the life they were supposed to be recording and interpreting.
+While at work they were always in a hurry, for to-day's news is
+dead to-morrow. They wrote on the run, without time for thought or
+reflection. Knowing beyond their years, the fruit of their wisdom was
+cynicism. Their knowledge withered for lack of roots.
+
+The tendency of the city desk and of copy readers is to reduce all
+reporters to a dead level, but in spite of this Jeff managed to get
+himself into his work. He brought to many stories a freshness, a point
+of view, an optimism that began to be noticed. From the police run Jeff
+drifted to other departments. He covered hotels, the court house, the
+state house and general assignments.
+
+At the end of a couple of years he was promoted to a desk position.
+This did not suit him, and he went back to the more active work of the
+street. In time he became known as a star man. From dramatics he went
+to politics, special stories and feature work. The big assignments were
+given him.
+
+It was his duty to meet famous people and interview them. The chance to
+get behind the scenes at the real inside story was given him. Because
+of this many reputations were pricked like bubbles so far as he was
+concerned. The mask of greatness was like the false faces children
+wear to conceal their own. In the one or two really big men he met Jeff
+discovered a humility and simplicity that came from self-forgetfulness.
+They were too busy with their vision of truth to pose for the public
+admiration.
+
+
+Part 2
+
+It was while Jeff was doing the City Hall run that there came to him one
+night at his rooms a man he had known in the old days when he had
+lived in the river bottom district. If he was surprised to see him the
+reporter did not show it.
+
+"Hello, Burke! Come in. Glad to see you."
+
+Farnum took the hat of his guest and relieved his awkwardness by guiding
+him to a chair and helping him get his pipe alight.
+
+"How's everything? Little Mike must be growing into a big boy these
+days. Let's see. It's three years since I've seen him."
+
+A momentary flicker lit the gloomy eyes of the Irishman. "He's a great
+boy, Mike is. He often speaks of you, Mr. Farnum.
+
+"Glad to know it. And Mrs. Burke?"
+
+"Fine."
+
+"That leaves only Patrick Burke. I suppose he hasn't fallen off the
+water wagon yet."
+
+The occupation of Burke had been a threadbare joke between them in the
+old days. He drove a street sprinkler for the city.
+
+"That's what he has. McGuire threw the hooks into me this morning.
+I've drove me last day."
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"I'm too damned honest.... or too big a coward. Take your choice."
+
+"All right. I've taken it," smiled the reporter.
+
+Pat brought his big fist down on the table so forcefully that the books
+shook. "I'll not go to the penitentiary for an-ny man.... He wanted me
+to let him put two other teams on the rolls in my name. I wouldn't stand
+for it. That was six weeks ago. To-day he lets me out."
+
+Jeff began to see dimly the trail of the serpent graft. He lit his pipe
+before he spoke.
+
+"Don't quite get the idea, Pat. Why wouldn't you?"
+
+"Because I'm on the level. I'll have no wan tellin' little Mike his
+father is a dirty thief....It's this way. The rolls were to be padded,
+understand."
+
+"I see. You were to draw pay for three teams when you've got only one."
+
+"McGuire was to draw it, all but a few dollars a month." The Irishman
+leaned forward, his eyes blazing. "And because I wouldn't stand for it
+I'm fired for neglecting my duty. I missed a street yesterday. If he'd
+been frientlly to me I might have missed forty.... But he can't throw
+me down like that. I've got the goods to show he's a dirty grafter.
+Right now he's drawing pay for seven teams that don't exist."
+
+"And he doesn't know you know it?"
+
+"You bet he don't. I've guessed it for a month. To-day I went round and
+made sure."
+
+Jeff asked questions, learned all that Burke had to tell him. In the
+days that followed he ran down the whole story of the graft so secretly
+that not even the city editor knew what he was about. Then he had a talk
+with the "old man" and wrote his story.
+
+It was a red-hot exposure of one of the most flagrant of the City Hall
+gang. There was no question of the proof. He had it in black and white.
+Moreover, there was always the chance that in the row which must follow
+McGuire might peach on Big Tim himself, the boss of all the little
+bosses.
+
+Within twenty-four hours Jeff was summoned to a conference at which were
+present the city editor and Warren, now managing editor.
+
+"We've killed your story, Farnum," announced the latter as soon as the
+door was closed.
+
+"Why? I can prove every word of it."
+
+"That was what we were afraid of."
+
+"It's a peach of a story. With the spring elections coming on we need
+some dynamite to blow up Big Tim. I tell you McGuire would tell all he
+knows to save his own skin."
+
+"My opinion, too," agreed Warren dryly. "My boy, it's too big a story.
+That's the whole trouble. If we were sure it would stop at McGuire we'd
+run it. But it won't. The corporations are backing Big Tim to win this
+spring. It won't do to get him tied up in a graft scandal."
+
+"But the _Advocate_ has been out after his scalp for years."
+
+"Well, we're not after it any more. Of course, we're against him on the
+surface still."
+
+Jeff did some rapid thinking. "Then the program will be for us to
+nominate a weak ticket and elect Big Tim's by default. Is that it?"
+
+"That's about it. The big fellows have to make sure of a Mayor who will
+be all right about the Gas and Electric franchise. So we're going to
+have four more years of Big Tim."
+
+"Will Brownell stand for it?"
+
+Brownell was the principal owner of the _Advocate._
+
+"Will he?" Warren let his eyelash rest for a second upon the cheek
+nearest Jeff. "He's been seen. My orders come direct from the old man."
+
+The story was suppressed. No more was heard about the McGuire graft
+scandal exposure. It had run counter to the projects of big business.
+
+Burke had to be satisfied without his revenge.
+
+He got a job with a brewery and charged the McGuire matter to profit and
+loss.
+
+As for Jeff the incident only served to make clearer what he already
+knew. More and more he began to understand the forces that dominate our
+cities, the alliance between large vested interests and the powers that
+prey. These great corporations were seekers of special privileges.
+To secure this they financed the machines and permitted vice and
+corruption. He saw that ultimately most of the shame for the bad
+government of American cities rests upon the Fromes and the Merrills.
+
+As for the newspapers, he was learning that between the people and
+an independent press stand the big advertisers. These make for
+conservatism, for an unfair point of view, for a slant in both news
+recording and news interpretation. Yet he saw that the press is in spite
+of this a power for good. The evil that it does is local and temporary,
+the good general and permanent.
+
+
+Part 3
+
+The spirit of commercialism that dominated America during the nineties
+and the first years of the new century never got hold of Jeff. The air
+and the light of his land were often the creation of a poet's dream. The
+delight of life stabbed him, so, too, did its tragedy. Not anchored to
+conventions, his mind was forever asking questions, seeking answers.
+
+He would come out from a theater into a night that was a flood of
+illumination. Electric signs poured a glare of light over the streets.
+Motor cars and electrics whirled up to take away beautifully gowned
+women and correctly dressed men. The windows of the department stores
+were filled with imported luxuries. And he would sometimes wonder how
+much of misery and trouble was being driven back by that gay blare of
+wealth, how many men and women and children were giving their lives
+to maintain a civilization that existed by trampling over their broken
+hearts and bodies.
+
+Preventable poverty stared at him from all sides. He saw that our
+social fabric is thrown together in the most haphazard fashion, without
+scientific organization, with the greatest waste, in such a way that
+non-producers win all the prizes while the toilers do without. Yet out
+of this system that sows hate and discontent, that is a practical denial
+of brotherhood, of God, springs here and there love like a flower in a
+dunghill.
+
+He felt that art and learning, as well as beauty and truth, ought to
+walk hand in hand with our daily lives. But this is impossible so long
+as disorder and cruelty and disease are in the world unnecessarily. He
+heard good people, busy with effects instead of causes, talk about
+the way out, as if there could be any way out which did not offer an
+equality of opportunity refused by the whole cruel system of to-day.
+
+But Jeff could be in revolt without losing his temper. The men who
+profited by present conditions were not monsters. They were as kind
+of heart as he was, effects of the system just as much as the little
+bootblack on the corner. No possible good could come of a blind hatred
+of individuals.
+
+His Bohemian instinct sent Jeff ranging far in those days. He made
+friends out of the most unlikely material. Some of the most radical of
+these were in the habit of gathering informally in his rooms about once
+a week. Sometimes the talk was good and pungent. Much of it was merely
+wild.
+
+His college friend, Sam Miller, now assistant city librarian, was one
+of this little circle. Another was Oscar Marchant, a fragile little
+Socialist poet upon whom consumption had laid its grip. He was not much
+of a poet, but there burnt in him a passion for humanity that disease
+and poverty could not extinguish.
+
+One night James Farnum dropped in to borrow some money from his cousin
+and for ten minutes listened to such talk as he had never heard before.
+His mind moved among a group of orthodox and accepted ideas. A new one
+he always viewed as if it were a dynamite bomb timed to go off shortly.
+He was not only suspicious of it; he was afraid of it.
+
+James was, it happened, in evening dress. He took gingerly the chair his
+cousin offered him between the hectic Marchant and a little Polish Jew.
+
+The air was blue with the smoke from cheap tobacco. More than one of
+those present carried the marks of poverty. But the note of the assembly
+was a cheerful at-homeness. James wondered what the devil his cousin
+meant by giving this heterogeneous gathering the freedom of his rooms.
+
+Dickinson, the single-taxer, was talking bitterly. He was a big man with
+a voice like a foghorn. His idea of emphasis appeared to be pounding the
+table with his blacksmith fist.
+
+"I tell you society doesn't want to hear about such things," he was
+declaiming. "It wants to go along comfortably without being disturbed.
+Ignore everything that's not pleasant, that's liable to harrow the
+feelings. The sins of our neighbors make spicy reading. Fill the papers
+with 'em. But their distresses and their poverty! That's different.
+Let's hear as little about them as possible. Let's keep it a
+well-regulated world."
+
+Nearly everybody began to talk at once. James caught phrases here and
+there out of the melee.
+
+"... Democratic institutions must either decay or become
+revitalized....To hell with such courts. They're no better than
+anarchy....In Verden there are only two classes: those who don't get as
+much as they earn and those who get more.... Tell you we've got to get
+back to the land, got to make it free as air. You can't be saved from
+economic slavery till you have socialism. ..."
+
+Suddenly the hubbub subsided and Marchant had the floor. "All of life's
+a compromise, a horrible unholy giving up as unpractical all the best
+things. It's a denial of love, of Christ, of God."
+
+A young preacher who was conducting a mission for sailors on the water
+front cut in. "Exactly. The church is radically wrong because--"
+
+"Because it hasn't been converted to Christianity yet. Mr. Moneybags
+in the front pew has got a strangle hold on the parson. Begging your
+pardon, Mifflin. We know you're not that kind."
+
+Marchant won the floor again. "Here's the nub of it. A man's a slave so
+long as his means of livelihood is dependent on some other man. I don't
+care whether it's lands or railroads or mines. Abolish private property
+and you abolish poverty."
+
+They were all at it again, like dogs at a bone. Across the Babel James
+caught Jeff's gay grin at him.
+
+By sheer weight Dickinson's voice boomed out of the medley.
+
+"... just as Henry George says: 'Private ownership of land is the nether
+mill-stone. Material progress is the upper mill-stone. Between them,
+with an increasing pressure, the working classes are being ground.'
+We're just beginning to see the effect of private property in land.
+Within a few years...."
+
+"What we need is to get back to Democracy. Individualism has run
+wild...."
+
+"Trouble is we can't get anywhere under the Constitution. Every time
+we make a move--check. It was adopted by aristocrats to hold back the
+people and that's what it's done. Law--"
+
+Apparently nobody got a chance to finish his argument. The Polish Jew
+broke in sharply. "Law! There iss no law."
+
+"Plenty of it, Sobieski, Go out on the streets and preach your
+philosophic anarchy if you don't believe it. See what it will do to you.
+Law's a device to bolster up the strong and to hammer down the weak."
+
+James had given a polite cynical indulgence to views so lost to reason
+and propriety. But he couldn't quite stand any more. He made a sign to
+Jeff and they adjourned to the next room.
+
+"Your friends always so--so enthusiastic?" he asked with the slightest
+lift of his upper lip.
+
+"Not always. They're a little excited to-night because Harshaw
+imprisoned those fourteen striking miners for contempt of court."
+
+"Don't manufacture bombs here, do you?"
+
+Jeff laughed. "We're warranted harmless."
+
+James offered him good advice. "That sort of talk doesn't lead to
+anything--except trouble. Men who get on don't question the fundamentals
+of our social system. It doesn't do, you know. Take the constitution.
+Now I've studied it. A wonderful document. Gladstone said."
+
+"Yes, I know what Gladstone said. I don't agree with him. The
+constitution was devised by men with property as a protection against
+those who had none."
+
+"Why shouldn't it have been?"
+
+"It should, if vested interests are the first thing to consider. In
+there"--with a smiling wave of his hand--"they think people are more
+important than things. A most unsettling notion!"
+
+"Mean to say you believe all that rant they talk?"
+
+"Not quite," Jeff laughed.
+
+"Well, I'd cut that bunch of anarchists if I were you," his cousin
+suggested. "Say, Jeff, can you let me have fifty dollars?"
+
+Jeff considered. He had been thinking of a new spring overcoat, but his
+winter one would do well enough. From the office he could get an advance
+of the balance he needed to make up the fifty.
+
+"Sure. I'll bring it to your rooms to-morrow night."
+
+"Much obliged. Hate to trouble you," James said lightly. "Well, I won't
+keep you longer from your anarchist friends. Good-night."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6
+
+     "The cure for the evils of Democracy is more Democracy."
+     --De Tocqueville.
+
+
+THE REBEL HUMBLY ASSISTS AT THE UNVEILING OF A HERO'S STATUE
+
+
+Part 1
+
+On the occasion when his cousin was graduated with the highest honors
+from the law school of Verden University Jeff sat inconspicuously near
+the rear of the chapel. James, as class orator, rose to his hour. From
+the moment that he moved slowly to the front of the platform, handsome
+and impassive, his calm gaze sweeping over the audience while he waited
+for the little bustle of expectancy to subside, Jeff knew that the name
+of Farnum was going to be covered with glory.
+
+The orator began in a low clear voice that reached to the last seat
+in the gallery. Jeff knew that before he finished its echoes would be
+ringing through the hall like a trumpet call to the emotions of those
+present.
+
+It was not destined that Jeff should hear a word of that stirring
+peroration. His eye fell by chance upon a young woman seated in a box
+beside an elderly man whom he recognized as Peter C. Frome. From that
+instant he was lost to all sense perception that did not focus upon her.
+For he was looking at the dryad who had come upon him out of the ferns
+three years before. She would never know it, but Alice Frome had saved
+him from the weakness that might have destroyed him. From that day he
+had been a total abstainer. Now as he looked at her the vivid irregular
+beauty of the girl flowed through him like music. Her charm for him lay
+deeper than the golden gleams of imprisoned sunlight woven in her hair,
+than the gallant poise of the little head above the slender figure.
+Though these set his heart beating wildly, a sure instinct told him of
+the fine and exquisite spirit that found its home in her body.
+
+She was leaning forward in her chair, her eyes fixed on James almost as
+if she were fascinated by his oratory. Her father watched her, a trifle
+amused at her eagerness. In her admiration she was frank as a boy. When
+Farnum's last period was rounded out and he made to leave the stage her
+gloved hands beat together in excited applause.
+
+After the ceremonies were over James came straight to her. Jeff missed
+no detail of their meeting. The young lawyer was swimming on a tide
+of triumph, but it was easy to see that Alice Frome's approval was
+the thing he most desired. His cousin had never seen him so gay, so
+handsome, so altogether irresistible. For the first time a little spasm
+of envy shot through Jeff, That the girl liked James was plain enough.
+How could any girl help liking him?
+
+The orator was so much the center of attention that Jeff postponed his
+congratulations till evening. He called on his cousin after midnight
+at his rooms. James had just returned from a class banquet where he had
+been the toastmaster. He was still riding the big wave.
+
+"It's been a great day for me, Jeff," he broke out after his cousin had
+congratulated him. "I've earned it, too. For seven years I've worked
+toward this day as a climax. Did you see me talking to P. C. Frome and
+his daughter? I'm going to be accepted socially in the best houses of
+the city. I'll make them all open to me."
+
+"I don't doubt it."
+
+"And the best of it is that I've made my own success."
+
+"Yes, you've worked hard," Jeff admitted with a little gleam of humor
+in his eyes. He would not remind his cousin that he had lent him most of
+the money to see him through law school.
+
+"Oh, worked!" James was striding up and down the room to get rid of
+some of his nervous energy. "I've done more than work. I've made
+opportunities... grabbed them coming and going. Young as I am Verden
+expects big things of me. And I'll deliver the goods, too."
+
+"What's the program?" Jeff asked, much amused.
+
+"Don't know yet. I'm going into politics and I mean to get ahead. I'll
+make a big splash and keep in the public eye."
+
+His cousin could not help laughing. "You always were a pretty good press
+agent for J. K. Farnum."
+
+"Why shouldn't I be?"
+
+"I don't know why you shouldn't. A man who gets ahead puts himself in a
+position where he can bring about reforms."
+
+"That's it exactly. I mean to make myself a power."
+
+"Get hold of one good practical reform and back it. Pound away on it
+until the people identify you with it. Take direct legislation as your
+text, say. There's going to be a strong drift that way in the next ten
+years. Machines and bosses are going to be swept to the junk heap."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+Jeff could give no adequate justification for the faith that was in him.
+It would be no answer to tell James that he knew the plain people of
+the state better than the politicians did. However, he mentioned a few
+facts.
+
+"It's all very well for you to be a radical, but I have to conserve my
+influence," James objected. "I've got to be practical. If I were just
+going to be a reporter it would be different."
+
+"Don't be too practical, James. You've got to have some vision if you're
+going to lead the people. Nobody is so blind to the future as practical
+politicians and business men." He stopped, smiling quizzically. "But
+you're the orator of the family. I don't want to infringe on your
+copyright. Only you have the personality to be a real leader. Get
+started right. Remember that America faces forward, and that we're going
+to move with seven league boots to better conditions."
+
+James mused out loud. "If a man could be a Lincoln to save the people
+from industrial slavery it would be worth while."
+
+Jeff did not laugh at his conceit. "Go to it. I'll promise you the
+backing of the _World_."
+
+"What have you to do with the _World_?"
+
+"Beginning with next Monday I'm to be managing editor."
+
+"You!"
+
+"Even so. Captain Chunn has bought the paper."
+
+"Chunn, the man who made millions in a lucky strike in Alaska?"
+
+"Same man."
+
+James was still incredulous. "How did Chunn happen to pick you for the
+editor?"
+
+"He's an old friend of mine. 'Member the day I had the fight with Ned
+Merrill. Captain Chunn was the man who stood up for me."
+
+"And you've known him ever since?"
+
+"I've always corresponded with him."
+
+"Well, I'll be hanged. Talk about luck." James looked his cousin over
+with increased respect. He always took off his hat to success, but he
+had been so long accustomed to thinking of Jeff as a failure that he
+could not adjust his mind to the situation. "Why, you can't run a paper.
+Can you?"
+
+Jeff smiled. "I told Captain Chunn he was taking a big chance."
+
+"If he's as rich as they say he is he can afford to lose some money."
+
+James took the news of his cousin's good fortune a little peevishly. He
+did not grudge Jeff's advancement, but he resented that it had befallen
+him to-day of all days. The promotion of the reporter took the edge off
+his own achievements.
+
+
+
+Part 2
+
+As James understood his own genius, it was as a statesman that he was
+fitted preeminently to shine. He had the urbanity, the large impassive
+manner, and the magnetic eloquence of the old-style congressman. All he
+needed was the chance.
+
+With the passing months he grew more restless at the delay. There were
+moments in the night when he trembled lest some stroke of evil fate
+might fall upon him before he had carved his name in the niche of fame.
+To sit in an empty law office and wait for clients took more patience
+than he could summon. He wanted an opportunity to make speeches in the
+campaign that was soon to open. That he finally went to Big Tim himself
+about it instead of to his ward committeeman was characteristic of James
+K.
+
+After he sent his card in the young lawyer was kept waiting for
+thirty-five minutes in an outer office along with a Jew peddler, a
+pugilist ward heeler, an Irish saloonkeeper, and a brick contractor.
+Naturally he was exceedingly annoyed. O'Brien ought to know that James
+K. Farnum did not rank with this riff-raff.
+
+When at last James got into the holy of holies he found Big Tim lolling
+back in his swivel chair with a fat cigar in his mouth. The boss did not
+take the trouble to rise as he waved his visitor to a chair.
+
+Farnum explained that he was interested in the political situation and
+that he was prepared to take an active part in the campaign about to
+open. The big man listened, watching him out of half shut attentive
+eyes. He had never yet seen a kid glove politician that was worth the
+powder to blow him up. Moreover, he had special reasons for disliking
+this one. His cousin was editor of the _World_, and that paper was
+becoming a thorn in his side.
+
+O'Brien took the cigar from his mouth. "Did youse go to the primary last
+night?" he asked.
+
+James did not even know there had been one. He had in point of fact been
+at a Country Club dance.
+
+"Can youse tell me what the vote of your precinct was at the last city
+election?"
+
+The budding statesman could not.
+
+"What precinct do youse live in?"
+
+Farnum was not quite sure. He explained that he had moved recently.
+
+Big Tim grunted scornfully. He was pleased to have a chance to take down
+the cheek of any Farnum.
+
+"What do youse think you can do?"
+
+"I can make speeches. I'm the best orator that ever came out of Verden
+University."
+
+"Tommyrot! How do youse stand in your precinct? Can youse get the vote
+out to go down the line for us? That's what counts. Oratory be damned!"
+
+James was pale with rage. The manner of the boss was nothing less than
+insulting.
+
+"Then you decline to give me a chance, Mr. O'Brien?"
+
+"I do not. In politics a man makes his own chance. He gets along by
+being so useful we can't get along without him. See? He learns the game.
+You don't know the A B C of it. It's my opinion youse never will."
+
+O'Brien's hard cold eye triumphed over him as a principal does over a
+delinquent schoolboy.
+
+His vanity stung, the lawyer sprang to his feet. "Very well, Mr.
+O'Brien. I'll show you a thing or two about what I can and can't do."
+
+For just an instant a notion flitted across Big Tim's mind that he might
+be making a mistake. He was indulging an ugly temper, and he knew it.
+This was a luxury he rarely permitted himself. Now he decided to "go the
+whole hog," as he phrased it to himself later. His lips set to an ugly
+snarl.
+
+"It's like the nerve of ye to come to me. Want to begin at the top
+instid of at the bottom. Go to Billie Gray if youse want to have some
+wan learn youse the game. If you're any good he'll find it out."
+
+James got himself out of the office with all the dignity of which he
+was capable. Go to Billie Gray, the notorious ballot box stuffer! Take
+orders from the little rascal who had shaved the penitentiary only
+because of his pull! James saw himself doing it. He was sore in every
+outraged nerve of him. Never before in his life had anybody sat and
+sneered at him openly before his eyes. He would show the big boss that
+he had been a fool to treat him so. And he would show P. C. Frome and
+Ned Merrill that he was a very valuable man.
+
+How? Why, by fighting the corporations! Wasn't that the way that all the
+big men got their start nowadays as lawyers? As soon as they discovered
+his value Frome and his friends would be after his services fast enough.
+James was no radical, but he believed Jeff knew what he was talking
+about when he predicted an impending political change, one that would
+carry power back from the machine bosses to the people. The young lawyer
+decided to ride that wave as far as it would take him. He would be a
+tribune of the people, and they in turn would make of him their hero.
+With the promised backing of the _World_ he would go a long way. He knew
+that Jeff would fling him at once into the limelight. And he would make
+good. He would be the big speaker for the reform movement. Nobody in
+the state could sway a crowd as he could. James had not the least doubt
+about that. It was glory and applause he wanted, not the drudgery of
+dirty ward politics.
+
+
+Part 3
+
+Under Jeff's management the _World_ had at once taken the leadership in
+the fight for political reform in the state. He made it the policy of
+the paper to tell the truth as to corruption both in and out of his
+own party. Nor would he allow the business office, as influenced by the
+advertisers, to dictate the policy of the paper. The result was that
+at the end of the first year he went to the owner with a report of a
+deficit of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars for the twelve
+months just ended.
+
+Captain Chunn only laughed. "Keep it up, son. I've had lots of fun out
+of it. You've given this town one grand good shaking up. The whole state
+is getting its fighting clothes on. We've got Merrill and Frome scared
+stiff about their supreme court judges. Looks to me as if we were going
+to lick them."
+
+The political campaign was already in progress. Hitherto the public
+utility corporations of Verden had controlled and practically owned the
+machinery of both parties. The _World_ had revolted, rallied the better
+sentiment in the party to which it belonged, and forced the convention
+to declare for a reform platform and to nominate a clean ticket composed
+of men of character.
+
+Jeff agreed. "I think we're going to win. The people are with us. The
+_World_ is booming." It's the advertising troubles me. Frome and Merrill
+have got at the big stores and they won't come in with any space worth
+mentioning."
+
+"Damn the big advertisers," exploded Chunn. "I've got two million cold
+and I'm going to see this thing out, son. That's what I told Frome last
+week when he had the nerve to have me nominated to the Verden Club.
+Wanted to muzzle me. Be a good fellow and quit agitating. That was the
+idea. I sent back word I'd stuck by Lee to Appomattox and I reckoned I
+was too old a dog to learn the new trick of deserting my flag."
+
+"If you're satisfied I ought to be," Jeff laughed. "As for the
+advertising, the stores will come back soon. The managers all want to
+take space, but they are afraid of spoiling their credit at the banks
+while conditions are so unsettled."
+
+"Oh, well. We'll stick to our guns. You fire'em and I'll supply the
+ammunition." The little man put his hand on Jeff's shoulder with a
+chuckle. "We're both rebels--both irreconcilables, son. I reckon we're
+going to be well hated before we get through with this fight."
+
+"Yes. They're going about making people believe we're cranks and
+agitators who are hurting business for our own selfish ends."
+
+"I reckon we can stand it, David." Chunn had no children of his own and
+he always called Jeff son or David. "By the way, how's that good looking
+cousin of yours coming out? I see you're giving his speeches lots of
+space."
+
+A light leaped to the eyes of the younger man. "He's doing fine. James
+is a born orator. Wherever he goes he gets a big ovation."
+
+Chunn grunted. "Humph! That'll please him. He's as selfish as the devil,
+always looking out for James Farnum."
+
+"He wins the people, Captain."
+
+"You talk every evening yourself, but I don't see reports of any of your
+speeches."
+
+"I don't talk like James. There's not a man in the state to equal him,
+young as he is."
+
+"Humph!"
+
+Captain Chunn grumbled a good deal about the way Jeff was always pushing
+his cousin forward and keeping in the background himself. In his opinion
+"David" was worth a hundred of the other.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7
+
+     "Spirits of old that bore me,
+      And set me, meek of mind,
+     Between great deeds before me,
+      And deeds as great behind,
+
+     Knowing Humanity my star
+      As forth of old I ride,
+     O help me wear with every scar
+      Honor at eventide."
+
+
+THE REBEL DISCOVERS THAT ADHESION IS A PROPERTY OF MUD; ALSO THAT A
+SOLDIER MUST SOMETIMES TURN HIS BACK AND BURN THE BRIDGES BEHIND HIM
+
+
+Part 1
+
+The fight for the control of the state developed unprecedented
+bitterness. The big financial interests back of the political machines
+poured out money like water to elect a ticket that would be friendly
+to capital. An eight-hour-day bill to apply to miners and underground
+workers had been passed by the last legislature and a supreme court
+must be elected to declare this law unconstitutional. Moreover, a United
+States senator was to be chosen, so that the personnel of the assembly
+was a matter of great importance.
+
+Through the subsidized columns of the _Advocate_ and the _Herald_ all
+the venom of outraged public plunder was emptied on the heads of
+Jeff Farnum and Captain Chunn. They were rebels, blackmailers, and
+anarchists. Jeff's life was held up to public scorn as dissolute and
+licentious. He had been expelled from college and consorted only with
+companions of the lowest sort. A free thinker and an atheist, he wanted
+to tear down the pillars which upheld society. Unless Verden and the
+state repudiated him and his gang of trouble breeders the poison of
+their opinions would infect the healthy fabric of the community.
+
+There was about Jeff a humility, a sort of careless generosity, that
+could take with a laugh a hit at himself. But in the days that followed
+he was often made to wince when good men drew away from him as from a
+moral pervert. Twice he was hissed from the stage when he attempted
+to talk, or would have been, if he had not quietly waited until the
+indignant protesters were exhausted. It amused him to see that his old
+college acquaintance "Sissie" Thomas and Billy Gray, the ballot box
+stuffer of the Second Ward, were among the most vehement of those who
+thus scorned him. So do the extremes of virtue and vice find common
+ground when the blasphemer raises his voice against intrenched capital.
+
+The personal calumny of the enemy showed how hard hit the big bosses
+were, how beneath their feet they felt the ground of public opinion
+shift. It had been only a year since Big Tim O'Brien, boss of the city
+by permission of the public utility corporations, had read Jeff's first
+editorial against ballot box stuffing. In it the editor of the _World_
+had pledged that paper never to give up the fight for the people until
+such crookedness was stamped out. Big Tim had laughed until his paunch
+shook at the confidence of this young upstart and in impudent defiance
+had sent him a check for fifty dollars for the Honest Election League.
+
+Neither Big Tim nor the respectable buccaneers back of him were laughing
+now. They were fighting with every ounce in them to sweep back the wave
+of civic indignation the _World_ had gathered into a compact aggressive
+organization.
+
+Young Ned Merrill, who represented the interests of the allied
+corporations, had Big Tim on the carpet. The young man had not been out
+of Harvard more than three years, but he did not let any nonsense about
+fair play stand in his way. In spite of the clean-cut look of him--he
+was broadshouldered and tall, with an effect of decision in the square
+cleft chin that would some day degenerate into fatness--Ned Merrill
+played the game of business without any compunctions.
+
+"You're making a bad fight of it, O'Brien. Old style methods won't win
+for us. These crank reformers have got the people stirred up. Keep your
+ward workers busy, but don't expect them to win." He leaned forward
+and brought his fist down heavily on the desk. "We've got to smash
+Farnum--discredit him with the bunch of sheep who are following him."
+
+"What more do youse want? We're callin' him ivery black name under
+Hiven."
+
+Merrill shook his head decisively. "Not enough. Prove something. Catch
+him with the goods."
+
+"If youse'll show me how?"
+
+"I don't care how, You've got detectives, haven't you? Find out all
+about him, where he comes from, who his people were. Rake his life with
+a fine tooth comb from the day he was born. He's a bad egg. We all know
+that. Dig up facts to prove it."
+
+Within the hour detectives were set to work. One of them left next day
+for Shelby. Another covered the neighborhoods where Jeff had lived in
+Verden. Henceforth wherever he went he was shadowed.
+
+It was about this time that Samuel Miller lost his place in the city
+library on account of his political opinions. For more than a year he
+and Jeff had roomed together at a private boarding house kept by a Mrs.
+Anderson. Within twenty-four hours of his dismissal Miller was on the
+road, sent out by the campaign committee of his party to make speeches
+throughout the state.
+
+Jeff himself was speaking nearly every night now that the day of
+election was drawing near. This, together with the work of editing the
+paper and the strain of the battle, told heavily on a vitality never
+too much above par. He would come back to his rooms fagged out, often
+dejected because some friend had deserted to the enemy.
+
+One cold rainy evening he met Nellie Anderson in the hall. She had been
+saying good-bye to some friends who had been in to call on her.
+
+"You're wet, Mr. Farnum," the young woman said.
+
+"A little."
+
+She stood hesitating in the doorway leading to the apartment of herself
+and her mother, then yielded shyly to a kindly impulse.
+
+"We've been making chocolate. Won't you come in and have some? You look
+cold."
+
+Jeff glimpsed beyond her the warm grate fire in the room. He, too,
+yielded to an impulse. "Since you're so good as to ask me, Miss Nellie."
+
+She took charge of his hat and overcoat, making him sit down in a big
+armchair before the fire. He watched her curiously as she moved lightly
+about waiting on him. Nellie was a soft round little person with
+constant intimations of a childhood not long outgrown. Jeff judged she
+must be nineteen or twenty, but she had moments of being charmingly
+unsure of herself. The warm color came and went in her clear cheeks at
+the least provocation.
+
+"Mother's gone to bed. She always goes early. You don't mind," she asked
+naively.
+
+Jeff smiled. She was, he thought, about as worldly wise as a fluffy
+kitten. "No, I don't mind at all," he assured her.
+
+Nor did he in the least. His weariness was of the spirit rather than the
+body, and he found her grace, her shy sweetness, grateful to the jaded
+senses. It counted in her favor that she was not clever or ultra-modern.
+The dimpling smiles, the quick sympathy of this innocent, sensuous young
+creature, drew him out of his depression. When he left the pleasant
+warmth of the room half an hour later it was with a little glow at the
+heart. He had found comfort and refreshment.
+
+How it came to pass Jeff never quite understood, but it soon was almost
+a custom for him to drop into the living room to get a cup of chocolate
+when he came home. He found himself looking forward to that half hour
+alone with Nellie Anderson. Whoever else criticized him, she did not.
+The manner in which she made herself necessary to his material comfort
+was masterly. She would be waiting, eager to help him off with his
+overcoat, hot chocolate and sandwiches ready for him in the cozy
+living-room. To him, who for years had lived a hand-to-mouth boarding
+house existence, her shy wholesome laughter made that room sing of home,
+one which her personality fitted to a dot. She was always in good humor,
+always trim and neat, always alluring to the eye. And she had the pretty
+little domestic ways that go to the head of a bachelor when he eats
+alone with an attractive girl.
+
+Their intimacy was not exactly a secret. Mrs. Anderson, who was rather
+deaf and admitted to being a heavy sleeper, knew that Jeff dropped in
+occasionally. He suspected she did not know how regularly, but she was
+one of that large class of American mothers who let their daughters
+arrange their own love affairs and would not have interfered had she
+known.
+
+Once or twice it flashed upon Jeff that this ought not to go on. Since
+he had no intention of marrying Nell he must not let their relationship
+reach the emotional climax toward which he guessed it was racing. But
+his experience in such matters was limited. He did not know how to break
+off their friendship without hurting her, and he was eager to minimize
+the possibility of danger. His modesty made this last easy. Out of her
+kindness she was good to him, but it was not to be expected that so
+pretty a girl would fall in love with a man like him.
+
+The most potent argument for letting things drift was his own craving
+for her. She was becoming necessary to him. Whenever he thought of her
+it was with a tender glow. Her soft long-lashed eyes would come between
+him and the editorial he was writing. A dozen times a day he could see
+a picture of the tilted little coaxing mouth. The gurgle of her laughter
+called to him for hours before he left the office.
+
+He got into the habit of talking to her about the things that were
+troubling him--the tactics of the enemy, the desertion of friends,
+the dubious issue of the campaign. Curled up in a big chair, her whole
+attention absorbed in what he was saying Nellie made a good listener. If
+she did not show a full understanding of the situation, he could always
+sense her ready sympathy. Her naive, indignant loyalty was touching.
+
+"I read what the _Advocate_ said about you today," she told him one
+night, a tide of color in her cheeks. "It was horrid. As if anybody
+would believe it."
+
+"I'm afraid a good many people do," he said gravely.
+
+"Nobody who knows you," she protested stoutly.
+
+"Yes, some who know me."
+
+He let his eyes dwell on her. It was easy to see how undisciplined of
+life she was, save where its material aspects had come into impact with
+her on the economic side.
+
+"None of your real friends."
+
+"How many real friends has a man--friends who will stand by him no
+matter how unpopular he is?"
+
+"I don't know. I should think you'd have lots of them."
+
+He shook his head, a hint of a smile in his eyes. "Not many. They keep
+their chocolate and sandwiches for folks whose trolley do'esn't fly the
+wire."
+
+"What wire?" she asked, her forehead knitted to a question.
+
+"Oh, the wire that's over the tracks of respectability and vested
+interests and special privilege."
+
+She had been looking at him, but now her gaze went to the fire with that
+slow tilt of the chin he liked. Another color wave swept the oval of the
+soft cheeks.
+
+"You've got more friends than you think," she said in a low voice.
+
+"I've got one little friend I wouldn't like to lose."
+
+She did not speak and his hand moved forward to cover hers. Instantly
+a wild and insurgent emotion tingled through him. He felt himself
+trembling and could not steady his nerves.
+
+Without a word Nellie looked up and their eyes met. Something electric
+flashed from one to another. Her shy fear of him was adorable.
+
+"Oh, don't, don't!" she murmured. "What will you think of me now?"
+
+He had leaned forward and kissed her on the lips.
+
+Jeff sprang to his feet, the muscles in his lean cheeks standing
+out. Some bell of warning was ringing in him. He was a man, young and
+desirous, subject to all the frailties of his sex, holding experiences
+in his past that had left him far from a puritan. And she was a woman,
+of unschooled impulses, with unsuspected banked passions, an innocent
+creature in whom primeval physical life rioted.
+
+He moved toward the door, his left fist beating into the palm of his
+right hand. He must protect her, against himself--and against her
+innocent affection for him.
+
+She fluttered past him, barring the way. Her cheeks were flaming with
+shame.
+
+"You despise me. Why did I let you?" A sob swelled up into her soft
+round throat.
+
+"You blessed lamb," he groaned.
+
+"You're going to leave me. You--you don't want me for a friend any
+longer."
+
+Her lips trembled--the red little lips that always reminded him of a
+baby's with its Cupid's bow. She was on the verge of breaking down. Jeff
+could not stand that. He held out his hands, intending to take hers and
+explain that he was not angry or disappointed at her. But somehow he
+found her in his arms instead, supple and warm, vital youth flowing in
+the soft cheeks' rich coloring and in the eyes quick and passionate with
+the tender abandon of her sex.
+
+He set his teeth against the rush of desire that flooded him as her soft
+body clung to his. The emotional climax he had vaguely feared had leaped
+upon them like an uncaged tiger. He fought to stamp down the fires that
+blazed up in him. Time to think--he must have time to think.
+
+"You don't despise me then," she cried softly, a little catch in her
+breath.
+
+"No," he protested, and again "No."
+
+"But you think I've done wrong."
+
+"No. I've been to blame. You're a dear girl--and I've abused your
+kindness. I must go away--now."
+
+"Then you--you do hate me," she accused with a quivering lip.
+
+"No... no. I'm very fond of you."
+
+"But you're going to leave me. It's because I've done wrong."
+
+"Don't blame yourself, dear. It has been all my fault. I ought to have
+known."
+
+Her hands fell from him. The life seemed to die out of her whole figure.
+"You do despise me."
+
+Desire of her throbbed through him, but he spoke very quietly. "Listen,
+dear. There is nobody I respect more... and none I like so much. I
+can't tell you how... fond of you I am. But I must go now. You don't
+understand."
+
+She bit her lip to repress the sobs that would come and turned away to
+hide her shame. Jeff caught her in his arms, kissed her passionately on
+the lips, the eyes, the soft round throat.
+
+"You do... like me," she purred happily.
+
+Abruptly he pushed her from him. Where were they drifting? He must get
+his anchors down before it was too late.
+
+Somehow he broke away, leaving her there hurt and bewildered at his
+apparent fickleness, at the stiffness with which he had beaten back the
+sweet delight inviting them.
+
+Jeff went to his rooms, his mind in a blind chaotic surge. He sat before
+the table for hours, fighting grimly to persuade himself he need not
+put away this joy that had come to him. Surely friendship was a good
+thing... and love. A man ought not to turn his back on them.
+
+It was long past midnight when he rose, took his father's sword from the
+wall where it hung, and unsheathed it. A vision of an open fireplace in
+a log house rose before him, his father in the foreground looking like a
+picture of Stonewall Jackson. The kind brave eyes that were the soul of
+honor gazed at him.
+
+"You damned scoundrel! You damned scoundrel!" Jeff accused himself in a
+low voice.
+
+He knew his little friend was good and innocent, but he knew too she had
+inherited a temperament that made her very innocence a anger to her.
+Every instinct of chivalry called upon him to protect her from the
+weakness she did not even guess. She had given him her kindness and her
+friendship, the dear child! It was up to him to be worthy of them. If he
+failed her he would be a creature forever lost to decency.
+
+There was a sob in his throat as Jeff pushed the blade back into the
+worn scabbard and rehung the sword upon the wall. But the eyes in his
+lifted face were very bright. He too would keep his sword unstained and
+the flag of honor flying.
+
+All through the next day and the next his resolution held. He took pains
+not to see her alone, though there was not an hour of the day when he
+could get away from the thought of her. The uneasy consciousness was
+with him that the issue was after all only postponed, that decisions of
+this kind must be made again and again so long as opportunity and desire
+go together. And there were moments of reaction when his will was like a
+rope of sand, when the longing for her swept over him like a great wave.
+
+As Jeff slipped quietly into the hall the door of her room opened. Their
+eyes met, and presently hers fell. She was troubled and ashamed at what
+she had done, but plainly eager in her innocence to be forgiven.
+
+Jeff spoke gently. "Nellie."
+
+Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. "Aren't we ever going to be friends
+again?"
+
+Through the open door he could see the fire glowing in the grate and
+the chocolate set on the little table. He knew she had prepared for his
+coming and how greatly she would be hurt if he rejected her advances.
+
+"Of course we're friends."
+
+"Then you'll come in, just for a few minutes."
+
+He hesitated.
+
+"Please," she whispered. "Or I'll know you don't like me any more."
+
+Jeff followed her into the room and closed the door behind him.
+
+
+Part 2
+
+Two days before the election Big Tim's detective wired from Shelby,
+Tennessee, the outline of a story that got two front page columns in
+both the _Advocate_ and the _Herald._ Jefferson Davis Farnum was the
+son of a thief, of a rebel soldier who had spent seven years in the
+penitentiary for looting the bank of which he was cashier. In addition
+to featuring the news story both papers handled the subject at length in
+their editorial columns. They wanted to know whether the people of
+this beautiful state were willing to hand over the Commonwealth to be
+plundered by the reckless gang of which this son of a criminal was the
+head.
+
+The paper reached Jeff at his rooms in the morning. He had lately taken
+the apartments formerly occupied by his cousin, James moving to Mrs.
+Anderson's until after the election. The exchange had been made at the
+suggestion of the editor, who gave as a reason that he wanted to be
+close to his work until the winter was past. It happened that James was
+just now very glad to get a cheaper place. He was very short of funds
+and until after the election had no time for social functions. All he
+needed with a room was to sleep in it.
+
+Jeff was still reading the story from Shelby when his cousin came in
+hurriedly. James was excited and very white.
+
+"My God, Jeff! It's come at last. I knew it would ruin me some day," the
+lawyer cried, after he had carefully closed the door of the bedroom.
+
+"It won't ruin you, James. Your name isn't mentioned yet. Perhaps it may
+not be. It can't hurt you, even if it is."
+
+"I tell you it will ruin me both socially and politically. Once it gets
+out nobody will trust me. I'll be the son of a thief," James insisted
+wildly.
+
+"You're the son of a man who made a slip and has paid for it," answered
+Jeff steadily. "Don't let your ideas get warped. This town is full of
+men who have done wrong and haven't paid for it."
+
+"That's one of your fool socialist theories." James spoke sharply and
+irritably. "No man's guilty till the law says so. They haven't been in
+the penitentiary. He has. That's what damns me if it gets out."
+
+Jeff laid a hand affectionately on his cousin's shoulder. "Don't you
+believe it for a moment. There's no moral distinction between the man
+who has paid and the man who hasn't paid for his sins toward society.
+There is good and there is bad in all of us, closely intertwined, knit
+together into the very warp and woof of our lives. We're all good and
+we're all bad."
+
+It was with James a purely personal equation. He could not forget its
+relation to himself.
+
+"My name is to be voted on at the University Club next month. I'll be
+blackballed to a dead certainty," he said miserably.
+
+"Probably, if the story gets out. It's tough, I know." Jeff's eyes
+gleamed angrily. "And why should they? You're just as good a man to-day
+as you were yesterday. But there's nothing so fettering, so despicable
+as good form. It blights. Let a man bow down to the dead hand of custom
+and he can never again be true to what he thinks and knows. His judgment
+gets warped. Soon Madame Grundy does his thinking for him, along
+well-grooved lines."
+
+"Oh, well! That's just talk. What am I to do?" James broke out
+nervously.
+
+"I know what I would do in your case."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Come out with a short statement telling the exact facts. I'd make no
+apologies or long explanation. Just the plain story as simply as you
+can."
+
+"Well, I'll not," the lawyer broke out. "Easy enough for you to say what
+I ought to do. Look at who my friends are--the Fromes and the Merrills
+and the Gilmans. Best set in town. I strained a point when I broke loose
+from them to take up this progressive fight. They'd cut me dead if a
+story like this came out."
+
+"I daresay. Communities are loaded to the guards with respectable
+cowards. But if you stand on your own feet like a man they'll think more
+of you for it. Most of them will be glad to know you again inside of
+five years. For you're going to be successful, and people like the
+Merrills and the Gilmans bow down to success."
+
+The lawyer shook his head doggedly. "I'm not going to tell a thing I
+don't have to tell. That's settled." He hesitated a moment before he
+went on. "I've got a reason why I want to stand well with the Fromes,
+Jeff. I'm not in a position to risk anything."
+
+Jeff waited. He thought he knew that reason.
+
+"I'm going to marry Alice Frome if I can."
+
+"You've asked her." Jeff's voice sounded to himself as if it belonged to
+another man.
+
+"No. Not yet. Ned Merrill's in the running. Strong, too. He's being
+backed by his father and old P. C. Frome. The idea is to consolidate
+interests by this marriage. But I've got a fighting chance. She likes
+me. Since I went into this political fight against her father she's
+taken pains to show me how friendly she feels. But if this story gets
+out--I'm smashed. That's all."
+
+"Go to her. Tell her the truth. She'll stand by you," his cousin urged.
+
+"You don't understand these people, Jeff. I do. Even if she wanted to
+stand by me she couldn't. They wouldn't let her. Right now I'm carrying
+all the handicap I can."
+
+Jeff walked to the window and stood looking out with his hands in his
+pockets. The hum of the busy street rose to his ears, but he did
+not hear it. Nor did he see the motor cars whizzing past, the drays
+lumbering along, the thronged sidewalks of Powers Avenue. A door that
+had for years been ajar in his heart had swung to with a crash. The
+incredible folly of his dream was laid bare to him. Despised, distrusted
+and disgraced, there was no chance that he might be even a friend to
+her. She moved in another world, one he could not reach if he would and
+would not if he could. All that he believed in she had been brought up
+to disregard. Much that was dear to her he must hammer down so long as
+there was life in him.
+
+But James--he had fought his way up to her. Why shouldn't he have his
+chance? Better--far better James than Ned Merrill. He had heard the
+echoes of a disgraceful story about that young man in his college days,
+the story of how he had trampled down a working girl for his pleasure.
+James was clean and honorable... and she loved him. Jeff's mind fastened
+on that last as a thing assured. Had he not seen her with starry eyes
+fixed on her hero, held fast as a limed bird? She too was entitled to
+her chance, and there was a way he could give it to her.
+
+He turned back to James, who was sitting despondently at the managing
+editor's desk, jabbing at the blotting sheet with a pencil.
+
+Jeff touched the _Advocate_ he still held in his hand. "Did you read
+this story carefully?"
+
+"No. I just ran my eye down it. Why?"
+
+"Whoever dug it up has made a mistake. He has jumped to the conclusion
+that I'm Uncle Robert's son. Why not let it go at that?"
+
+His cousin looked up with a flash of eager hope. "You mean--"
+
+"I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Let it go the way they
+have it."
+
+The lawyer's heart leaped, but he could not let this go without a
+protest. "No, I--I couldn't do that. It's awfully good of you, Jeff."
+
+The managing editor smiled in his whimsical way. "My reputation has long
+been in tatters. A little more can't hurt it."
+
+James conceded a reflective assent with a manner of impartiality. "Of
+course your friends wouldn't think any the less of you. They're not
+so--so--"
+
+"respectable as yours," Jeff finished for him.
+
+"I was going to say so hidebound."
+
+"All the same, isn't it?"
+
+"But it would be a sacrifice for you. I recognize that. And I'm not
+sure that I could accept it. I will have to think that over," the lawyer
+concluded magnanimously.
+
+"You'll find it is best. But I think I would tell Miss Frome, even if I
+didn't tell anybody else. She has a right to know."
+
+"You may depend upon me to do whatever is best about that."
+
+James was hardly out of the office before Captain Chunn blew in like a
+small tornado. He was boiling with rage.
+
+"What's this infernal lie about you being the son of a convict, David?"
+he demanded, waving a copy of the Herald.
+
+"Sit down, Captain. I'll tell you the story because you're entitled to
+it. But I shall have to speak in confidence."
+
+"Confidence! Dad burn it, what are you talking about? Are you trying to
+tell me that Phil Farnum was a thief and a convict?"
+
+Jeff's steel-blue eyes looked straight into his. "Nothing so impossible
+as that, Captain. I'm going to tell you the story of his brother."
+
+Jeff told it, but he and the owner of the _World_ disagreed radically
+about the best way to answer the attack.
+
+"Why must you always stand between that kid glove cousin of yours and
+trouble? Let him stand the gaff himself. It will do him good," Chunn
+stormed.
+
+But Jeff had his way. The _World_ made no denial of the facts charged.
+In a statement on the front page that covered less than three sticks
+he told the simple story of the defalcation of Robert Farnum. One thing
+only he added to the account given in the opposition papers. This was
+that during the past two years the shortage of the bank cashier had been
+paid in full to the Planters' First National at Shelby.
+
+There were many forecasts as to what the effect of the Farnum story
+would be on the election returns. It is enough to say that the ticket
+supported by the _World_ was chosen by a small majority. James was
+elected to the legislature by a plurality of fifteen hundred votes over
+his antagonist, a majority unheard of in the Eleventh District.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8
+
+     Is not this the trouble with our whole man-made world, that
+     the game is played with loaded dice? Against the poor, the
+     weak and the unfortunate have the cards been stacked. A
+     tremendous percentage is in favor of the crook, the
+     scoundrel, the smug robber of industry by whom the hands are
+     dealt.
+
+     Wealth, created by the many, is more and more flowing into
+     the vaults of the few. Legislatures, Congress, the courts,
+     all the machinery of government, answer to the crack of the
+     whip wielded by Big Business. The creed of the allied
+     plunderers is that he should take who has the power and he
+     should keep who can.
+
+     Until we mutiny against the timidity of our times Democracy
+     and Prosperity will be dreams. The poor and the parasite we
+     shall have always with us.
+
+     In that new world which is to be MEN and not THINGS will be
+     supreme, property a means and not an end. The heart of the
+     world will be born anew under an economic reconstruction
+     that will give freedom for individual development. For our
+     social and industrial life will be founded not on a denial
+     of God but on an affirmation of Brotherhood.--From the Note
+     Book of a Dreamer.
+
+
+THE HERO MEETS AND ADMIRES A MONA LISA SMILE. HE IS TENDERED AN APOLOGY
+FOR A PAST DISCOURTESY
+
+
+Part 1
+
+Came James Farnum down Powers Avenue carrying with buoyant dignity the
+manner of greatness that sat so well on him. His smile was warm for a
+world that just now was treating him handsomely. There could be no doubt
+that for a first term he was making an extraordinary success of his work
+in the legislature. He had worked hard on committees and his speeches
+had made a tremendous hit. Jeff had played him up strong in the world
+too, so that he was becoming well known over the state. That he had
+risen to leadership of the progressives in the House during his first
+term showed his quality. His ambition vaulted. Now that his feet were
+on the first rungs of the ladder it would be his own fault if he did not
+reach the top.
+
+His progress down the busy street was in the nature of an ovation.
+Everywhere he met answering smiles that told of the people's pride in
+their young champion. Already James had discovered that Americans
+are eager for hero worship. He meant to be the hero of his state, the
+favorite son it would delight to honor. This was what he loved: the
+cheers for the victor, not the clash of the battle.
+
+"Good morning, Farnum. What are the prospects?" It was Clinton Rogers,
+of the big shipbuilding firm Harvey & Rogers, that stopped him now.
+
+"Still anybody's fight, Mr. Rogers." The young lawyer's voice fell a
+note to take on a frankly confidential tone, an accent of friendliness
+that missed the fatal buttonholing familiarity of the professional
+politician. "If we can hold our fellows together we'll win. But the
+Transcontinental is bidding high for votes--and there's always a quitter
+somewhere."
+
+"Does Frome stand any chance?"
+
+"It will be Hardy or Frome. The least break in our ranks will be the
+signal for a stampede to P. C. The Republicans will support him when
+they get the signal. It's all a question of our fellows standing pat."
+
+"From what I can learn it won't be your fault if Hardy isn't elected. I
+congratulate you on the best record ever made by a member in his first
+term."
+
+"Oh, we all do our best," James answered lightly. "But I'm grateful for
+your good opinion. I hope I deserve it."
+
+James could afford to be modest about his achievements so long as Jeff
+was shouting his praises through the columns of the _World_ to a hundred
+thousand readers of that paper. What the shipbuilder had said pleased
+him mightily. For Clinton Rogers was one of the few substantial moneyed
+men of Verden who had joined the reform movement. Not a single member of
+the Verden Club, with the exception of Rogers, was lined up with those
+making the fight for direct legislation. Even those who had no financial
+interest in the Transcontinental or the public utility corporations
+supported that side from principle.
+
+James himself had thought a long time before casting in his lot with the
+insurgents led by his cousin. He had made tentative approaches both
+to Frome and to Edward B. Merrill. Both of these gentlemen had been
+friendly enough, but James had made up his mind they undervalued his
+worth. The way to convince them of this was to take the field against
+them.
+
+He smiled now as he swung along the avenue. Both Frome and Merrill--yes,
+and Big Tim too, for that matter!--knew by this time whether they had
+made a mistake in sizing him up as a raw college boy with his eye teeth
+not cut.
+
+A passing electric containing two young women brought his gloved hand to
+his hat. The long slant eyes of the lady on the farther side swept
+him indolently. In answer to her murmured suggestion the girl who was
+driving brought the machine round in a half circle which ended at the
+edge of the curb in front of Farnum.
+
+The lawyer's hat came off again with easy grace. The slim young driver
+leaned back against the cushions and merely smiled a greeting, tacitly
+yielding command of the situation to her cousin, an opulent young widow
+adorned demurely with that artistic touch of mourning that suggests a
+grief not inconsolable.
+
+"Good morning, Miss Frome--Mrs. Van Tyle," James distributed impartially
+before turning to the latter lady. "Isn't this a day to be alive in? Who
+says it always rains in Verden?"
+
+"I do--or nearly always. At least it finds no difficulty in giving a
+good imitation," returned the young woman addressed.
+
+"A libel--I vow a libel," Farnum retorted gaily. "I was just going to
+hope you might be tempted to forget New York and Vienna and Paris to
+pay us a long visit. We're all hoping it. I'm merely the spokesman." He
+waved a hand to indicate the busy street black with humanity.
+
+A hint of pleasant adventure quickened the eyes of the young widow who
+surveyed lazily his well-groomed good looks. She judged him a twentieth
+century American emerging from straightened circumstances and eager to
+trample even the memory of it under foot.
+
+"Did the Chamber of Commerce appoint you a committee to hope that I
+would impose on my relatives longer? Or was it resoluted at a mass
+meeting?" she asked with her Mona Lisa smile.
+
+He laughed. "Well, no! I'm a self-appointed committee voicing a personal
+desire that has universal application. But if it would have more weight
+with you I'll have the Chamber take it up and get myself an accredited
+representative."
+
+"So kind of you. But do you think the committee could do itself justice
+on the street curb?"
+
+She had among other sensuous charms a voice attuned to convey slightest
+shades of meaning. James caught her half-shuttered smoldering glance and
+divined her a woman subtle and complex, capable of playing the world-old
+game of the sexes with unusual dexterity. The hint of challenging
+mystery in the tawny depths of the mocking eyes fired his imagination.
+She was to him a new find in women, one altogether different from
+those he had known. He had a curiosity to meet at close range this
+cosmopolitan heiress of such cultivation as Joe Powers' millions could
+purchase.
+
+What Verden said of her he knew: that she was too free, too scornful,
+too independent of conventions. All the tabby cats whispered it to
+each other with lifted eyebrows that suggested volumes, the while they
+courted her eager and unashamed. But he had a feeling that perhaps
+Verden was not competent to judge. The standards of this town and of
+New York were probably vastly different. James welcomed the chance to
+enlarge his social experience. Promptly he accepted the lead offered.
+
+"I'm sure it can't. To present the evidence cogently will take at least
+two hours. May I make the argument this evening, if it please the court,
+during a call?"
+
+"But I understood you were too busy saving the state--from my father and
+my uncle by the way--to have time for a mere woman," she parried.
+
+The good humor of her irony flattered him because it implied that she
+offered him a chance to cultivate her--he was not at all sure how much
+or how little that might mean--regardless of his political affiliations.
+Not many women were logical enough to accept so impersonally his
+opposition to the candidacy of an uncle and the plans of a father. "I AM
+busy," he admitted, "but I need a few hours' relaxation. It will help me
+to work more effectively to-morrow--against your father and your uncle,"
+he came back with a smile that included them both.
+
+Alice Frome took up the challenge gaily. "We're going to beat you.
+Father will be elected."
+
+"Then I'll be the first to congratulate him," he promised. Turning to
+Mrs. Van Tyle, "Shall we say this evening?" he added.
+
+"You're not afraid to venture yourself into the hands of the enemy,"
+drawled that young woman, her indolent eyes daring him.
+
+Again he studiously included them both in his answer. "I'm afraid all
+right, but I'm not going to let you know it. Did I hear you set a time?"
+
+"If you are really willing to take the risk we shall be glad to see you
+this afternoon."
+
+James observed that Alice Frome did not second her cousin's invitation.
+He temporized.
+
+"Oh, this afternoon! I have an engagement, but I am tempted to forget it
+in remembering a subsequent one."
+
+His smiling gaze passed to Alice and gave her another chance. Still she
+did not speak.
+
+"The way to treat a temptation is to yield to it," the older cousin
+sparkled.
+
+"In order to be done with it, I suppose. Very well. I yield to mine.
+This afternoon I will have the pleasure of calling at The Brakes."
+
+Alice nodded a curt good-bye, but her cousin offered him a beautifully
+gloved hand to shake. A delightful tingle of triumph warmed him. The
+daughter of Big Joe Powers, the grim gray pirate who worked the levers
+of the great Transcontinental Railroad system, had taken pains to be
+nice to him. The only fly in the ointment of his self-satisfaction had
+been Alice Frome's reticence.
+
+Why had she not shown any desire to have him call? He could guess at one
+reason. The campaign for the legislature and the subsequent battle for
+the senatorship had been bitter. Charges of corruption had been flung
+broadcast. A dozen detectives had been hired to get evidence on one side
+or the other. If he were seen going to The Brakes just now fifty rumors
+might be flying inside of the hour.
+
+His guess was a good one. Alice drove the car forward several blocks
+without speaking, Valencia Van Tyle watching with good-humored contempt
+the little frown that rested on her cousin's candid face.
+
+"I perceive that my uncompromising cousin is moved to protest," she
+suggested placidly.
+
+"You ought not to have asked him, Val. It isn't fair to him or to
+father," answered Alice promptly. "People will talk. They will say
+father is trying to influence him unfairly. I wish you hadn't asked him
+till this fight is over."
+
+"My dear Nora, does it matter in the least what people say?" yawned
+Valencia behind her hand.
+
+"Not to you because you consider yourself above criticism. But it
+matters to me that two honest men should be brought into unjust obloquy
+without cause."
+
+"My dear Hothead, they are big enough to look out for themselves."
+
+"Nobody is big enough to kill slander."
+
+"Nonsense, child. You make a mountain out of a mole hill. People WILL
+gossip. It really isn't of the least importance what they gabble about."
+
+"Especially when you want to amuse yourself by making a fool of Mr.
+Farnum," retorted the downright Alice with a touch of asperity.
+
+Valencia already half regretted having asked him. The chances were
+that he would prove a bore. But she did not choose to say so. "If I'm
+treading on your preserves, dear," she ventured sweetly.
+
+"That's ridiculous," flushed Alice. "I only suggested that you wait till
+after the election before chaining him to your chariot wheels."
+
+"You're certainly an _enfant terrible_, my dear," murmured the widow,
+with the little rippling laugh of cynicism her cousin found so annoying.
+"But that young man does need a lesson. He's eaten up with conceit of
+himself. Somebody ought to take him in hand."
+
+"So you're going to sacrifice yourself to duty," scoffed Alice as she
+brought the electric to a stop under the porte-cochere of the Frome
+residence.
+
+Mrs. Van Tyle folded her hands demurely. "It's sweet of you to see it
+that way, Alice."
+
+
+Part 2
+
+James turned in at the Century Building. In the elevator he met his
+cousin. Both of them were bound for the office of the candidate being
+supported by the progressives for the Senate.
+
+"Anything new?" Jeff asked.
+
+"A rumor that Killen has fallen by the wayside. Big Tim was with him for
+an hour last night at the Pacific."
+
+"I've not been sure of Killen for quite a while. He's a weak sister."
+
+"He'd better not go wrong if he expects to keep on living in this
+state," James imparted, a hard light in his eyes.
+
+At the third floor they left the elevator and turned to the right under
+an arch bearing the sign Hardy, Elliott & Carson. Without knocking they
+passed into Hardy's private office.
+
+Of the three men they found there it was plain that one was being pushed
+doggedly to bay. He was small and insignificant, with weak blinking
+eyes. Standing with his back to the wall, he moistened his lips with the
+tip of his tongue.
+
+"Who says it?" he whined shrilly. "Who says I sold out?"
+
+An apoplectic, bull-necked ruffian stood directly in front of him and
+sawed the air violently with a fat forefinger.
+
+"I ain't sayin' it, Killen--I'm askin' if you have. What I say is that
+you'd better make your will before you vote for Frome. Make 'em pay fat,
+for by thunder! you'll be political junk, Mr. Sam Killen."
+
+Killen, sweating agony, turned appealingly to Jeff. "I haven't said I
+was going to vote for Frome. Mr. Rawson's got no right to bulldoze me
+and I'm not going to stand it."
+
+"The hell you ain't," roared Rawson, shaking his fist at the unhappy
+legislator. "I guess you'll stand the gaff till you explain."
+
+"Just a moment, Bob," interrupted Jeff. "Let's get at the facts. Don't
+convict the prisoner till the evidence is in."
+
+Rawson hobbled his wrath for the moment. "That's all right, Jeff. You
+ask Hardy. I'm giving you straight goods."
+
+The keen-eyed, smooth-shaven man in a gray business suit who had been
+listening silently to the gathering storm contributed information
+briefly and impartially.
+
+"Mr. Killen spent an hour last night with Big Tim at the Pacific Hotel."
+
+"Sneaked in by the side entrance and took the elevator to the seventh
+floor. The deal was arranged in Room 743," added Rawson.
+
+"You spied on me," burst from Killen's lips.
+
+"Sure thing. And we caught you with the goods," sneered the red-faced
+politician.
+
+"I'll not stand it. I'll not support a man that won't trust me."
+
+"You won't, eh?" Rawson was across the floor in two jumps, worrying his
+victim as a terrier does a rat. "Forget it. You were elected to support
+R. K. Hardy, sewed up with a pledge tight and fast. We're not in the
+primer class, Killen. Don't get a notion you're going to do as you damn
+please. You'll--vote--for--R.--K.--Hardy. Get that?"
+
+"I refuse to be moved by threats, and I decline to discuss the matter
+further," retorted Killen with a pitiable attempt at dignity.
+
+Rawson laughed with insulting menace. "That's a good one. I've sold out,
+but it's none of your business what I got. That what you mean?"
+
+"You surely must recognize our right to an explanation, Killen," Jeff
+said gently.
+
+"No, sir, I don't," flushed the little man with sullen bravado. "I ain't
+got a thing against you, but Rawson goes too far."
+
+"I think he does," Jeff agreed. "Killen is all right. Gentlemen, suppose
+you let him and me talk it over alone. We can reach an agreement that is
+satisfactory."
+
+Hardy's face cleared. This was not the first waverer Jeff had brought
+back into line, not the first by several. There was something compelling
+in his friendly smile and affectionate manner.
+
+"I'm sure Mr. Killen intends only what is right. I'm content to leave
+the matter entirely with you and him," Hardy said.
+
+Jeff turned to Rawson. "And you, old warhorse?"
+
+"Have it your own way, but don't forget there's a nigger in the
+woodpile."
+
+Jeff and Killen walked to the office of the latter, which was on the
+next floor of the Century Building, the legislator stiffening his will
+to resist the assaults he felt would be made upon it. But as soon as the
+door was shut Jeff surprised him by laying a hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Tell me all about it, Sam."
+
+Killen gasped. He got an impossible vision of young Farnum as his
+brother in trouble. "About what? I didn't say--"
+
+"I've known for a week something was wrong. I couldn't very well ask
+you, but since I've blundered in you'd better let me help you if I can."
+
+Killen was touched. His lip trembled. "It don't do any good to talk
+about things. I guess a fellow has to carry his own griefs. Nobody else
+is hunting for a chance to invest in them."
+
+"What's a friend for?" Jeff wanted to know gently.
+
+The little man gulped. "I guess I've got no friends. Anyhow they don't
+count when a fellow's in hard luck. It's every man for himself."
+
+The younger man's smile was warm as summer sunshine. "Wrong guess, Sam.
+We're in this little old world to help each other when we can."
+
+The wretched man drew the back of a trembling hand across his moist
+eyes. He inhaled a long sobbing breath and broke into apology for his
+weakness. "Haven't slept for a week except from trional. The back of my
+head pricks day and night. Can't think of anything but my troubles."
+
+"Unload them on me," Jeff said lightly.
+
+"It's that mortgage on my mill," Killen blurted out. "It falls due this
+month and I can't meet it. Things haven't been going well with me."
+
+"Can't you get it renewed?"
+
+"Through a dummy Big Tim has bought it up. He won't renew, unless--"
+Killen broke off, to continue in a moment: "And that ain't all. My
+little girl needs an operation awful badly. The doctor says she had
+ought to go to Chicago. I just can't raise the price."
+
+"How much is the mortgage?"
+
+"Three thousand," replied the man; and he added with a gust of weak
+despair, "My God, man! That mill's all I've got to keep bread in the
+mouths of my motherless children."
+
+"I reckon Big Tim has offered to cancel the mortgage notes and give you
+about a thousand to go on," Jeff suggested casually.
+
+Killen nodded. "It would put me on my feet again and give the kiddie her
+chance." The answer had slipped out naturally, but now the fear chilled
+him that he had been lured into making a confession. "I didn't say I was
+going to take it," he added hastily.
+
+"You're quite safe with me, Killen," Jeff told him. He was wondering
+whether he could not get Captain Chunn to take over the mortgage.
+
+"I'm not so much struck on Hardy myself," grumbled the legislator. "He's
+a rich man, just as Frome is. Six of one and half a dozen of the other,
+looks like to me."
+
+"No, Killen. Frome represents the Transcontinental and the utility
+corporations. Hardy stands for the people. And you're pledged to support
+Hardy. You mustn't forget that."
+
+"I ain't likely to forget that mortgage either," Killen came back
+drearily.
+
+"I think I can arrange about having the mortgage renewed. Will that do?"
+
+"Yes. We're going to have a good year in the lumber business. Probably
+in twelve months I could clear it off."
+
+"Good! And about the little girl--she'll have her chance. I promise you
+that."
+
+The mill man wrung his hand, tears in his eyes. "You're a white man,
+Jeff, and a dashed good friend. I tell you I'd hate like poison to go
+back on Hardy. A fellow can't afford to do a thing like that. But what
+else could I do? A fellow's got to stand by the children he brings into
+the world, ain't he?"
+
+Farnum evaded with a smile this discussion of moral issues. "Well, you
+can stand by them and us, too, if I can fix up this mortgage proposition
+for you."
+
+"When will you let me know?" asked Killen anxiously.
+
+"Will to-morrow morning do? In James' office, say."
+
+"I'll have to know before noon," Killen reminded him, flushing with
+embarrassment.
+
+"If I can arrange to get the money--and I think I can--I'll let you know
+at eleven. Don't worry, Sam. It will be all right."
+
+The legislator shook hands again. "I ain't going to forget what you're
+doing for me. No, sir!"
+
+Jeff laughed his thanks easily. "That's all right. I reckon you would
+have done as much for me. Sam Killen isn't the man to throw his friends
+down."
+
+"That's right," returned the other with a sudden valiant infusion
+of courage. "I stand pat. I'm not going to lie down before the
+Transcontinental. Not on your life, I ain't."
+
+They were walking toward the outer door as Killen's speech overflowed.
+"The Transcontinental doesn't own this state yet. No, sir! Nor Frome and
+Merrill either. We'll show 'em--"
+
+The valor of the big voice collapsed like a rent balloon. For the office
+door had opened to let in Big Tim O'Brien. His shrewd eyes passed with
+whimsical disgust over Killen and rested on Farnum.
+
+The situation made for amusement, since Jeff knew that Big Tim had heard
+over the transom enough to show that Killen's vote had been recaptured
+for Hardy.
+
+"You've stumbled on a red hot Hardy ratification meeting. Did you come
+to get into the bandwagon while there is time, Tim?" Jeff asked with
+twinkling eyes.
+
+"No sinking ship for mine. I guess I wouldn't ratify yet a while if I
+were youse, Farnum."
+
+He stood aside to let the editor of the _World_ pass. Jeff laughed. "Go
+to it, Tim."
+
+"I haven't got anything to say to you, Mr. O'Brien," the mill man
+announced with heightened color.
+
+"Maybe I've got something to say to youse, Mr. Killen."
+
+Jeff passed out smiling. "Well, I'll not interrupt you. See you
+to-morrow, Sam."
+
+Big Tim sat down heavily in a chair and pulled from his vest pocket a
+fat black cigar.
+
+"Smoke, Killen?"
+
+"No, thanks." The legislator spoke with stiff dignity.
+
+Big Tim looked at the other man and his paunch shook with the merriment
+that appeared to convulse him.
+
+"What's the matter?" snapped the mill man.
+
+"I'm laughin' at the things I see, Killen. Man, but you're an easy
+mar-rk."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Can't you see they're stringin' youse for a sucker?"
+
+"No, I can't see it. I've made up my mind. I'm going to stand by Hardy."
+
+"Fine! Now I'll tell youse one thing. We're goin' to elect Frome
+to-morrow." O'Brien rose as one who has no time for unprofitable talk.
+"Your friends have sold youse out. I'm going to call on one of thim
+right now."
+
+"I don't believe it."
+
+"Of course you don't." Tim's projecting balcony shook with the humor
+of it. "But you'll be convinced when they take your mill from youse, me
+boy. It's a frame-up--and you're the goat."
+
+With which shot he took his departure, too shrewd to attempt any
+argument. He had left behind him a doubt. That was all he could do just
+now.
+
+Before Tim was out of the building Killen was gumshoeing after him. He
+meant to find out whether O'Brien had been lying when he said he was
+going to call on one of his friends. Fifty yards behind him Killen
+followed, along Powers Avenue, down Pacific Street, to the Equitable
+Building. From the pilot of one of the elevators he learned that the
+big boss had got off at the seventh floor and gone straight into James
+Farnum's office.
+
+His mind was instantly alive with suspicions tumbling over each other
+in chaotic incoherency. There was a deal of some kind on foot. Jeff's
+cousin was in it. Then Jeff must be playing him for a sucker. His teeth
+set with a snap.
+
+Meanwhile Big Tim was having a heart to heart talk with James K. Farnum.
+
+The young lawyer had risen in surprise at the entrance of O'Brien. The
+big fellow, laughing easily, had helped himself to a chair.
+
+"Make yourself at home, Tim," he said jauntily.
+
+"Anything I can do for you, Mr. O'Brien?" James asked with stiff
+dignity.
+
+"Sure. Or I wouldn't be here. Sit down. I'll not bite ye."
+
+The lawyer continued to stand.
+
+"I've come to tell you that I'm a dammed fool, Mr. Farnum," the boss
+grinned.
+
+James bowed slightly. He did not know what was coming, but he had no
+intention of committing himself to anything as yet.
+
+"In ever lettin' youse get away from me. I mistook yez for a kid glove."
+
+Big Tim gazed with palpable admiration at the cleancut figure, at the
+square cleft chin in the strong handsome face. It was his opinion this
+young man would go far, and that every step of the way would be in the
+interests of James K. Farnum. Shrewdly he guessed that the way to
+pierce that impassive front was through an appeal to vanity and to
+selfinterest.
+
+James waited, alert and expressionless, but O'Brien, having made his
+apology, puffed in silence.
+
+"I think you suggested some business that brought you," James reminded
+him.
+
+"You've got in you the makings of a big man. Nothing on the coast to
+touch youse, Mr. Farnum. And I didn't see it. I was sore on your name.
+That was what was bitin' me. It's sure on Big Tim this time."
+
+None of the triumph that flooded Farnum reached the surface.
+
+"I think I don't quite understand," he said quietly.
+
+"I'm eatin' humble pie because youse slipped wan over on me. You're the
+best campaign speaker in the state, bar none, boy as you are."
+
+James could not keep his gratified smile down. "This heart-felt
+testimonial comes free, I take it," he pretended to mock.
+
+"Come off with youse," O'Brien flung back good humoredly. "I'm not here
+to hand you booquets, but to talk business. Here's the nub of it, me
+boy. You need me, and I need you."
+
+"I don't quite see how I need you, Mr. O'Brien."
+
+"That's because you're young yet and don't know the game. Let me tell
+you this." The boss leaned forward, his hard eyes focused on Farnum.
+"You'll never get anywhere so long as youse trail with that reform
+bunch. It's all hot air and tomfool theory. Populism and socialism! Take
+my wor-rd for it, there's nothin' to 'em."
+
+"I'm neither a populist nor a socialist, Mr. O'Brien."
+
+"Coorse you're not. I can see that with wan eye shut. That's why I hate
+to see youse ruin yourself with them that are. I've no need to tell
+you that this country's run by business men and not cranks. Me, I'm a
+business man, and I run the city. P. C. Frome's a business man; so's
+Merrill. That's why they're on top. Old Joe Powers is a business man
+from first to last. You'll never get anywhere, me boy, until youse look
+at things from a business point of view."
+
+If James was impressed he gave no sign of it. "Which means you want me
+to support P. C. for the Senate. Is that it?"
+
+"I don't care whether you do or don't. We've got this fight won. But
+this is only the beginning. I can see that. Agitators and trouble
+breeders are busy iverywhere. Line up right and you've got a big future
+before you. Joe Powers himself has noticed your speeches. P. C. told me
+that last night."
+
+For a moment the lawyer felt an exultant paeon of victory beat in his
+blood. His imagination saw the primrose path of the future stretch
+before him in a golden glow. The surge of triumph passed and he was
+himself again, cool and wary. His eyes met Big Tim's full and straight.
+"I was elected to support Hardy. I expect to stay with him."
+
+The political boss waved aside this declaration. "Sure. Of course you've
+got to VOTE for him. I've got too much horse sense to try to buy YOU.
+But after this election? Your whole future's not tied up with fool
+reformers, is it? Say, what's the matter with you havin' a talk with P.
+C.?"
+
+"Oh, I'll talk with him. P. C. and I are good friends."
+
+"When can you see him? Why not to-night?"
+
+"No hurry, is there?" James paused an instant before he added: "I'm
+going to The Brakes this afternoon on a social call. If Frome happens
+to be at home we might talk then. So far as making a direct appointment
+with him, I wouldn't care to do that until the senatorial election is
+decided. You understand that I pledge myself to nothing."
+
+"That's right," agreed Big Tim. "It don't do any harm to hear both sides
+of a proposition. I guess that cousin o' yours kind of hypnotized you.
+He's got more fool schemes for redeemin' this state. Far as I can see it
+don't need any redeemin'. It's loaded to the rails with prosperity and
+clippin' off its sixty miles an hour. I say, let well enough alone.
+Where youse keep your matches, Mr. Farnum? Thanks! Well, talk it over
+with P. C. I reckon you can get together. So long, me boy."
+
+Not until he was safe in the street did the big boss of Verden allow his
+satisfaction expression.
+
+"We've got him! We've got the boob hooked!" he told himself exultantly.
+
+A little man standing behind a showcase was watching him tensely.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9
+
+     "Man is for woman made,
+       And woman made for man
+     As the spur is for the jade,
+     As the scabbard for the blade,
+       As for liquor is the can,
+     So man's for woman made,
+       And woman made for man."
+
+
+THE HERO STUDIES THE MONA LISA SMILE IN ITS PROPER SETTING.
+INCIDENTALLY, HE MEETS AN EMPIRE BUILDER
+
+
+Since James was not courting observation he took as inconspicuous a way
+as possible to The Brakes. He was irritably conscious of the incongruity
+of his elaborate afternoon dress with the habits of democratic Verden,
+which had been too busy "boosting" itself into a great city, or at least
+one in the making, to have found time to establish as yet a leisure
+class.
+
+Leaving the car at the entrance to Lakeview Park, he cut across it by
+sinuous byways where madronas and alders isolated him from the twilit
+green of the open lawn. Though it was still early the soft winter dusk
+of the Pacific Northwest was beginning to render objects indistinct.
+This perhaps may have been the reason he failed to notice the skulking
+figure among the trees that dogged him to his destination.
+
+James laughed at himself for the exaggerated precaution he took to cover
+a perfectly defensible action. Why shouldn't he visit at the house of P.
+C. Frome? Entirely clear as to his right, he yet preferred his call not
+to become a matter of public gossip. For he did not need to be told that
+there would be ugly rumors if it should get out that Big Tim had called
+at his office for a conference and he had subsequently been seen going
+to The Brakes. Dunderheads not broad enough to separate social from
+political intercourse would be quick to talk unpleasantly about it.
+
+Deflecting from the path into a carriage driveway, he came through
+a woody hollow to the rear of The Brakes. The grounds were spacious,
+rolling toward the road beyond in a falling sweep of well-kept lawn. He
+skirted the green till he came to a "raveled walk" that zig-zagged up
+through the grass, leaving to the left the rough fern-clad bluff that
+gave the place its name.
+
+The man who let him in had apparently received his instructions, for
+he led Farnum to a rather small room in the rear of the big house. Its
+single occupant was reclining luxuriantly among a number of pillows on
+a lounge. From her lips a tiny spiral of smoke rose like incense to the
+ceiling. James was conscious of a little ripple of surprise as he looked
+down upon the copper crown of splendid hair above which rested the thin
+nimbus of smoke. He had expected a less intimate reception.
+
+But the astonishment had been sponged from his face before Valencia Van
+Tyle rose and came forward, cigarette in hand.
+
+"You did find time."
+
+"Was it likely I wouldn't?"
+
+"How should I know?" her little shrug seemed to say with an indifference
+that bordered on insolence.
+
+James was piqued. After all then she had not opened to him the door to
+her friendship. She was merely amusing herself with him as a provincial
+_pis aller._
+
+Perhaps she saw his disappointment, for she added with a touch of
+warmth: "I'm glad you came. Truth is, I'm bored to death of myself."
+
+"Then I ought to be welcome, for if I don't exorcise the devils of ennui
+you can now blame me."
+
+"I shall. Try that big chair, and one of these Egyptians."
+
+He helped himself to a cigarette and lit up as casually as if he had
+been in the habit of smoking in the lounging rooms of the ladies he
+knew. She watched him sink lazily into the chair and let his glance
+go wandering over the room. In his face she read the indolent sense
+of pleasure he found in sharing so intimately this sanctum of her more
+personal life.
+
+The room was a bit barbaric in its warmth of color, as barbaric as was
+the young woman herself in spite of her super-civilization. The walls,
+done in an old rose, were gilded and festooned to meet a ceiling almost
+Venetian in its scheme of decoration. Pink predominated in the brocaded
+tapestries and in the rugs, and the furniture was a luxurious modern
+compromise with the Louis Quinze. There were flowers in profusion--his
+gaze fell upon the American Beauties he had sent an hour or two ago--and
+a disorder of popular magazines and French novels. Farnum did not need
+to be told that the room was as much an exotic as its mistress.
+
+"You think?" her amused voice demanded when his eyes came back to her.
+"that the room seems made especially for you."
+
+She volunteered information. "My uncle gave me a free hand to arrange
+and decorate it."
+
+As he looked at her, smoking daintily in the fling of the fire glow,
+every inch the pampered heiress of the ages, his blood quickened to
+an appreciation of the sensuous charm of sex she breathed forth so
+indifferently. The clinging crepe-de-chine--except in public she did
+not pretend even to a conventional mourning for the scamp whose name she
+bore lent accent to her soft, rounded curves, and the slow, regular
+rise and fall of her breathing beneath the filmy lace promised a perfect
+fullness of bust and throat. He was keenly responsive to the physical
+allure of sex, and Valencia Van Tyle was endowed with more than her
+share of magnetic aura.
+
+"You have expressed yourself. It's like you," he said with finality.
+
+Her tawny eyes met his confident appraisal ironically. "Indeed! You know
+then what I am like?"
+
+"One uses his eyes, and such brains as heaven has granted him," he
+ventured lightly.
+
+"And what am I like?" she asked indolently.
+
+"I'm hoping to know that better soon--I merely guess now."
+
+"They say all women are egoists--and some men." She breathed her soft
+inscrutable ripple of laughter. "Let me hasten to confess, and crave a
+picture of myself."
+
+"But the subject deserves an artist," he parried.
+
+"He's afraid," she murmured to the fire. "He makes and unmakes
+senators--this Warwick; but he's afraid of a girl."
+
+James lit a fresh cigarette in smiling silence.
+
+"He has met me once--twice--no, three times," she meditated aloud. "But
+he knows what I'm like. He boasts of his divination and when one puts
+him to the test he repudiates."
+
+"All I should have claimed is that I know I don't know what you are
+like."
+
+"Which is something," she conceded.
+
+"It's a good deal," he claimed for himself. "It shows a beginning of
+understanding. And--given the opportunity--I hope to know more." He
+questioned of her eyes how far he might go. "It's the incomprehensible
+that lures. It piques interest and lends magic. Behind those eyelids a
+little weary all the subtle hidden meaning of the ages shadows. The gods
+forbid that I should claim to hold the answer to the eternal mystery of
+woman."
+
+"Dear me! I ask for a photograph and he gives me a poem," she mocked,
+touching an electric button.
+
+"I try merely to interpret the poem."
+
+She looked at him under lowered lids with a growing interest. Her
+experience had not warranted her in hoping that he would prove worth
+while. It would be clear gain if he were to disappoint her agreeably.
+
+"I think I have read somewhere that the function of present-day
+criticism is to befog the mind and blur the object criticised."
+
+He considered an answer, but gave it up when a maid appeared with a
+tray, and after a minute of deft arrangement disappeared to return
+with the added paraphernalia that goes to the making and consuming of
+afternoon tea.
+
+James watched in a pleasant content the easy grace with which the
+flashing hands of his hostess manipulated the brew. Presently she flung
+open a wing of the elaborate cellaret that stood near and disclosed a
+gleaming array of cut-glass decanters. Her fingers hovered over them.
+
+"Cognac?"
+
+"Think I'll take my tea straight just as you make it."
+
+"Most Western men don't care for afternoon tea. You should hear my
+father on the subject."
+
+"I can imagine him." He smiled. "But if he has tried it with you I
+should think he'd be converted."
+
+She laughed at him in the slow tantalizing way that might mean anything
+or nothing. "I absolve you of the necessity of saying pretty things.
+Instead, you may continue that portrait you were drawing when the maid
+interrupted."
+
+"It's a subject I can't do justice."
+
+She laughed disdainfully. "I thought it was time for the flattery. As
+if I couldn't extort that from any man. It's the A B C of our education.
+But the truth about one's self--the unpalatable, bitter truth--there's a
+sting of unexpected pleasure in hearing that judicially."
+
+"And do you get that pleasure often?"
+
+"Not often. Men are dreadful cowards, you know. My father is about the
+only man who dares tell it to me."
+
+Farnum put down his cup and studied her. She was leaning back with her
+fingers laced behind her head. He wondered whether she knew with what
+effectiveness the posture set off her ripe charms--the fine modeling of
+the full white throat, the perfect curves of the dainty arms bare to the
+elbows, the daring set of the tawny, tilted head. A spark glowed in his
+eyes.
+
+"Far be it from me to deny you an accessible pleasure, though I
+sacrifice myself to give it. But my sketch must be merely subjective. I
+draw the picture as I see it."
+
+She sipped her tea with an air of considering the matter. "You promise
+at least a family likeness, with not an ugly wrinkle of character
+smoothed away."
+
+"I don't even promise that. For how am I to know what meaning lurks
+behind that subtle, shadowy smile? There's irony in it--and scorn--and
+sensuous charm--but back of them all is the great enigma."
+
+"He's off," she derided slangily.
+
+"And that enigma is the complex YOU I want to learn. Of course you're a
+specialized type, a product of artistic hothouse propagation. You're
+so exquisite in your fastidiousness that to be near you is a luxury.
+Simplicity and you have not a bowing acquaintance. One looks to see your
+most casual act freighted with intentions not obvious."
+
+"The poor man thinks I invited him here to propose to him," she told the
+fire gravely, stretching out her little slippered feet toward it.
+
+He laughed. "I'm not so presumptuous. You wouldn't aim at such small
+game. You would be quite capable of it if you wanted to, but you don't.
+But I'm devoured with curiosity to know why you asked me, though of
+course I shan't find out."
+
+Her narrowed eyes swept him with amusement. "If I knew myself! Alice
+says it was to make a fool of you. I don't think she is right. But
+if she is I'm in to score a failure. You're too coolheaded and--" She
+stopped, her eyes sparkling with the daring of her unvoiced suggestion.
+
+"Say it," he nodded.
+
+"--and selfish to be anybody's fool. Perhaps I asked you just in the
+hope you might prove interesting."
+
+He got up and stood with his arm on the mantel. From his superior height
+he looked down on her dainty insolent perfection, answering not too
+seriously the challenge of her eyes. No matter what she meant--how much
+or how little she was wonderfully attractive. The provocation of the
+mocking little face lured mightily.
+
+"I am going to prove interested at any rate. Let's hope it may be a
+preliminary to being interesting."
+
+"But it never does. Symptoms of too great interest bore one. I enjoy
+more the men who are impervious to me. Now there's my father. He comes
+nearer understanding me than anybody else, but he's quite adamantine to
+my wiles."
+
+"I shall order a suit of chain armor at once."
+
+"An unnecessary expense. Your emotions are quite under control," she
+told him saucily.
+
+"I wish I were as sure."
+
+"I thought you promised to be interesting," she complained.
+
+"Now you're afraid I'm going to make love to you. Let me relieve your
+mind. I'm not."
+
+"I knew you wouldn't be so stupid," she assured him.
+
+"No objection to my admiring your artistic effect at a distance, as a
+spectator in a gallery?"
+
+"I shall expect that," she rippled.
+
+"Just as one does a picture too expensive to own."
+
+"I suppose I AM expensive."
+
+"Not a doubt of it. But if you don't mind I'll come occasionally to the
+gallery to study the masterpiece."
+
+"I'll mind if you don't."
+
+Voices were heard approaching along the hall. The portieres parted. The
+immediate effect on Farnum of the great figure that filled the doorway
+was one of masterful authority. A massive head crested a figure of
+extraordinary power. Gray as a mediaeval castle, age had not yet touched
+his gnarled strength. The keen steady eyes, the close straight lips, the
+shaggy eyebrows heavy and overhanging, gave accent to the rugged force
+of this grim freebooter who had reversed the law of nature which decrees
+that railroads shall follow civilization. Scorning the established
+rule of progress, he had spiked his rails through untrodden forests and
+unexplored canons to watch the pioneer come after by the road he had
+blazed. Chief among the makers of the Northwest, he yearly conceived
+and executed with amazing audacity enterprises that would have marked as
+monumental the life work of lesser men.
+
+Farnum, rising from his seat unconsciously as a tribute of respect,
+acknowledged thus tacitly the presence of greatness in the person of Joe
+Powers.
+
+The straight lips of the empire builder tightened as his eyes gleamed
+over the soft luxury of his daughter's boudoir. James would have been
+hard put to it to conceive any contrast greater than the one between
+this modern berserk and the pampered daughter of his wealth. A Hun or
+a Vandal gazing down with barbaric scorn on some decadent paramour of
+captured Rome was the most analogous simile Farnum's brain could summon.
+What freak of nature, he wondered, had been responsible for so alien an
+offspring to this ruthless builder? And what under heaven had the two in
+common except the blood that ran in both their veins?
+
+Peter C. Frome, who had followed his brother-in-law into the room,
+introduced the young man to the railroad king.
+
+The great man's grip drove the blood from Farnum's hand.
+
+"I've heard about you, young man. What do you mean by getting in my
+way?"
+
+The young man's veins glowed. He had made Joe Powers notice him. Not
+for worlds would he have winked an eyelash, though the bones of his hand
+felt as if they were being ground to powder.
+
+"Do I get in your way, sir?" he asked innocently.
+
+"Do you?" boomed the deep bass of the railroader. "You and that mad
+brother of yours."
+
+"He's my cousin," James explained.
+
+"Brother or cousin, he's got to get off the track or be run over. And
+you, too, with that smooth tongue of yours."
+
+Farnum laughed. "Jeff's pretty solid. He may ditch the train, sir."
+
+"No!" roared Powers. "He'll be flung into the ditch." He turned abruptly
+to Frome. "Peter, take me to a room where I can talk to this young man.
+I need him."
+
+"'Come into my little parlor,' said the spider to the fly."
+
+They wheeled as at a common rein to the sound of the young mocking
+voice. Alice Frome had come in unnoticed and was standing in the doorway
+smiling at them. The effect she produced was demurely daring. The long
+lines of her slender sylph-like body, the girlishness of her golden
+charm, were vigorously contradicted in their suggestion of shyness by
+the square tilted chin and the challenge in the dancing eyes.
+
+"Alice," admonished her father with a deprecatory apology in his voice
+to his brother-in-law.
+
+Powers knit his shaggy brows in a frown not at all grim. The young woman
+smiled back confidently. She could go farther with him than anybody else
+in the world could, and she knew it. For he recognized in her vigorous
+strength of fiber a kinship of the spirit closer than that between
+him and his own daughter. An autocrat to the marrow, it pleased him to
+recognize her an exception to his rule. Valencia was also an exception,
+but in a different way.
+
+"Have you any remarks to make, Miss Frome?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, I've made it," returned the girl unabashed. She turned to James and
+shook hands with him. "How do you do, Mr. Farnum? I see you are going to
+be tied to Uncle Joe's kite, too."
+
+Was there in her voice just a hint of scorn? James did not know. He
+laughed a little uneasily.
+
+"Shall I be swallowed up alive, Miss Frome?"
+
+"You think you won't, but you will. He always gets what he wants."
+
+For all the warmth and energy of youth in her there was a vivid
+spiritual quality that had always made a deep appeal to James. He sensed
+the something fine and exquisite she breathed forth and did reverence to
+it.
+
+"And what does he want now?" the young man parried.
+
+"He wants YOU."
+
+"Unless you would like him yourself, Alice," her uncle countered.
+
+The color washed into her cheeks. "Not just now, thank you. I was merely
+giving him a friendly warning."
+
+"I'm awfully obliged to you. I'll be on my guard," laughed James.
+
+He stepped across to the lounge to make his farewell to Mrs. Van Tyle.
+
+"You'll come again," she said in a low voice.
+
+"Whenever the gallery is open--if I am sent a ticket of admission."
+
+"Wouldn't it be better to apply for a ticket and not wait for it to be
+sent?"
+
+"I think it would--and to apply for one often."
+
+"I am waiting, Mr. Farnum," interrupted Powers impatiently.
+
+To the young man the suggestion sounded like a command. He bowed to
+Alice and followed the great man out of the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10
+
+     Many business men of every community are respectable
+     cowards. The sense of property fills them with a cramping
+     timidity.--From the Note Book of a Dreamer.
+
+
+SAFE AND SOUND BUSINESS RALLIES TO THE DEFENSE OF THE COUNTRY. THE
+REBEL, FRUSTRATED, PLANS FURTHER VILLAINIES
+
+
+Part 1
+
+When James reached his office next morning he found Killen waiting for
+him. One glance at the weak defiant face told him that the legislator
+was again in revolt. The lawyer felt a surge of disgust sweep over him.
+All through the session he had cajoled and argued the weak-kneed back
+into line. Why didn't Hardy do his own dirty work instead of leaving it
+to him to soil his hands with these cheap grafters?
+
+No longer ago than yesterday it had been a keen pleasure to feel himself
+so important a factor in the struggle, to know that his power and his
+personality were of increasing value to his side.
+
+But to-day--somehow the salt had gone out of it. The value of the issue
+had dwindled, his enthusiasm gone stale. After all, what did it matter
+who was elected? Why should not the corporate wealth that was developing
+the country see that men were chosen to office who would safeguard
+vested interests? It was all very well for Jeff to talk about democracy
+and the rights of the people. But Jeff was an impracticable idealist.
+He, James, stood for success. Within the past twenty-four hours there
+had been something of a shift of standards for him.
+
+His visit to The Brakes had done that for him. He craved luxury just as
+he did power, and the house on the hill had said the final word of both
+to him in the personalities of Joe Powers and his daughter. It had come
+home to him that the only way to satisfy his ambition was by making
+money and a lot of it. This morning, with the sharpness of his hunger
+rendering him irritable, he was in no mood to conciliate disaffectants
+to the cause of which he was himself beginning to weary.
+
+"Well?" he demanded sharply of Killen.
+
+"I've been looking for your cousin, but I can't find him. He was to have
+met me here later."
+
+"Then I presume he'll be here when he said he would." The eyes of the
+lawyer were cold and hard as jade.
+
+"You can tell him it won't be necessary for me to see him. I've made
+other arrangements," Killen said uneasily.
+
+"You mean that you repudiate your agreement with him. Is that it?"
+Farnum's voice was like a whiplash.
+
+"I've decided to support Frome. Fact is--"
+
+"Oh, damn the facts! You made an agreement. You're going to sell out.
+That's all there is to it."
+
+The young man's face was dark with furious disgust.
+
+Killen flared up. "You better be careful how you talk to me, Mr. Farnum.
+I might want to know what Big Tim was doing in your office yesterday. I
+might want to know what business took you up to The Brakes by a mighty
+roundabout way."
+
+James strode forward in a rage. "Get out of here before I throw you out,
+you little spying blackguard."
+
+"You bet I'll get out," screamed the mill man. "Get clear out and have
+nothing more to do with your outfit. But I want to tell you that folks
+will talk a lot when they know how you and Big Tim fixed up a deal--"
+Killen, backing toward the door as he spoke, broke off to hasten his
+exit before the lawyer's threatening advance.
+
+James slammed the door shut on him and paced up and down in an impotent
+fury of passion. "The dirty little blackleg! He'd like to bracket me in
+the same class as himself. He'd like to imply that I--By Heaven, if
+he opens his lying mouth to a hint of such a thing I'll horsewhip the
+little cad."
+
+But running uneasily through his mind was an undercurrent of
+disgust--with himself, with Jeff, with the whole situation. Why had he
+ever let himself get mixed up with such an outfit? Government by the
+people! The thing was idiotic, mere demagogic cant. Power was to the
+strong. He had always known it. But yesterday that old giant at The
+Brakes had hammered it home to him. He did not like to admit even to
+himself that his folly had betrayed Hardy's cause, but at bottom he knew
+he should not have gone to The Brakes until after the election and
+that he ought never to have let Killen out of the office without an
+explanation. Yesterday he would have won back the man somehow by an
+appeal to his loyalty and his self-interest.
+
+He must send word at once to Jeff and let him try to remedy the
+mischief.
+
+His cousin, coming into the office with Rawson just as James took down
+the receiver of the telephone, noticed at once the disturbance of the
+latter.
+
+James told his story. It was clear to him that he must anticipate
+Killen's disclosure of his visit to The Brakes and so draw the sting
+from it as far as possible. But his natural reluctance to shoulder blame
+made him begin with Killen's defection.
+
+"I told you to let me deal with the little traitor," Rawson exploded.
+
+"He was quite satisfied when I left him yesterday. They must have got
+at him again," Jeff suggested. "I left O'Brien with him. But I was dead
+sure of him."
+
+James cleared his throat and began casually. "I expect the little beggar
+got suspicious when he saw Big Tim coming to my office."
+
+"To your office?" Rawson cut in sharply.
+
+The lawyer flushed, but his eyes met and quelled the incipient doubt in
+those of the politician. "Yes, he came to feel the ground. Of course I
+told him flatly where I stood. But Killen must have thought something
+was doing he wasn't in on. It seems he followed me to The Brakes
+yesterday afternoon when I called on Mrs. Van Tyle."
+
+"Followed you to The Brakes. Good Lord!" groaned Rawson. "What in Mexico
+were you doing there?"
+
+"Thought I mentioned that I was calling on Mrs. Van-Tyle," returned
+James stiffly.
+
+"Wasn't that call a little injudicious under the circumstances, James?"
+contributed Jeff with his whimsical smile.
+
+"I suppose I may call wherever I please."
+
+"It was a piece of dashed foolishness, that's what it was. You say
+Killen saw you. The thing will fly like dust in the wind. It will be
+buzzed all over the House by this time and every man that wants to sell
+out will find a reason right there," stormed Rawson.
+
+"Are you implying that I sold out?" demanded James icily.
+
+Jeff put a conciliatory hand on his cousin's shoulder. "Of course he
+doesn't. He isn't a fool, James. But there's a good deal in what Rawson
+says. It was a mistake. The waverers will find in it their excuse for
+deserting. Of course Big Tim has been at them all night. We'll go right
+up to the House in your machine, Rawson. We haven't a moment to lose."
+
+Rawson nodded. "It's dollars to doughnuts the thing is past mending, but
+it's up to us to see. If I can only get at Killen in time I'll choke the
+story in his throat. You wait here at the 'phone, Jeff, and I'll call
+you up if you're needed at this end of the line. Better have a taxi
+waiting below in case you need one. Come along, James."
+
+If he did not get to Killen in time it was not Rawson's fault, for he
+made his car flash up and down Verden's hills with no regard to the
+speed limit. He swept it along Powers Avenue, dodging in and out among
+the traffic of the busy city like a halfback through a broken field
+after a kick. With a twist of the wheel he put the machine at the steep
+hill of Yarnell Way, climbed the brow of it, and plunged with a flying
+leap down the long incline to the State House.
+
+James clung to the swaying side of the car as it raced down. It was
+raining hard, and the drops stung their faces like bird shot. Two
+hundred yards in front appeared a farm wagon, leaped toward them, and
+disappeared in the gulf behind. A dog barking at them from the roadside
+was for an instant and then was not. In their wake they left cursing
+teamsters, frightened horses, women and children scurrying for safety;
+and in the driver's seat Rawson sat goggle-eyed and rigid, swallowing
+the miles that lay in front of him.
+
+The car took the last incline superbly and swung up the asphalt carriage
+way to a Yale finish at the marble stairway of the State House. Rawson
+was running up the steps almost before the machine had stopped. Farnum
+caught him at the elevator and a minute later they entered together the
+assembly room of the House.
+
+One swift glance told Rawson that Killen was not in his seat, and as
+his eyes swept the room he noted also the absence of Pitts, Bentley, and
+Miller. Of the doubtful votes only Ashton and Reilly were present.
+
+He flung a question, "anything of Bentley, Akers?"
+
+"Mr. Bentley! Why, yes, sir. He was called to the telephone a few
+minutes ago and he left at once. Mr. Miller went with him, and Mr.
+Pitts."
+
+"Were Ashton and Reilly here then?"
+
+"No, sir. They came in a moment before you did."
+
+Rawson drew Farnum to one side and whispered.
+
+"Killen must have gone right from your room to Big Tim. They got the
+others on the phone. They must have been on that street car we met a
+mile back. There's just a chance to head 'em off. I'll chase back in my
+machine while you call up Jeff and have him meet the car as it comes in.
+Tell him not to let them out of his sight if he has to hold them with a
+gun. You keep an eye on Reilly and Ashton. Don't let anyone talk to them
+or get them on the phone. Better take them up to the library."
+
+James nodded sulkily. He did not like Rawson's peremptory manner any
+the better because he knew his indiscretion had called it down upon him.
+What he had been unable to forget for the past hour was that if this
+break to Frome had happened yesterday it would have been he that gave
+the orders and Rawson who jumped to execute them. Now he had slipped
+back to second place.
+
+He caught Jeff on the line and repeated Rawson's orders without comment
+of his own, after which he went back from the committee room, gathered
+up Reilly and Ashton, and took them on a pretext to the library.
+
+It must have been nearly an hour later that a messenger boy handed James
+a note. It was a hasty scribble from Rawson.
+
+Euchred, by thunder! Both Jeff and I missed them. Big Tim butted in with
+a car at Grover Street before we could make connections. Am waiting
+at the House for them. Don't bring A. & R. in till time to vote. FROME
+CAN'T WIN IF YOU MAKE THEM BOTH STICK.
+
+James stuck the note in his pocket and flung himself with artificial
+animation into the story he was telling. Once or twice the others
+suggested a return to the House, but he always had just one more good
+story they must hear. Since only routine business was under way there
+was no urgency, and when at length they returned to the House chamber
+the clock pointed to five minutes to twelve.
+
+Rawson and two or three of the staunchest Hardy men relieved Farnum of
+his charge in the cloak room and took care of the two doubtfuls. The
+seats of Bentley, Miller, Pitts and Killen were still vacant, and there
+was a tense watchfulness in the room that showed rumors were flying of a
+break in the deadlock.
+
+Already the state senators were drifting in for the noon joint sessions,
+and along with them came presently the missing assemblymen flanked by
+O'Brien and Frome adherents.
+
+The President of the Senate called the session to order and announced
+that the eleventh general assembly would now proceed to take the
+sixty-fourth ballot for the election of a United States Senator.
+
+In an oppressive silence the clerk began to call the roll.
+
+"Allan."
+
+A raw-boned farmer from one of the coast counties rose and answered
+"Hardy."
+
+"Anderson."
+
+In broken English a fat Swede shouted, "Harty."
+
+"Ashton."
+
+"Hardy." The word fell hesitantly from dry lips. The man would have
+voted for the Transcontinental candidate had he dared, but he was not
+sure enough that the crucial moment was at hand and the pressure of his
+environment was too great.
+
+"Bentley."
+
+Three hundred eyes focused expectantly on the gaunt white-faced
+legislator who rose nervously at the sound of his name and almost
+inaudibly gulped the word "Frome."
+
+A fierce tumult of rage and triumph rose and fell and swelled again.
+Bentley became the center of a struggling vortex of roaring humanity and
+found himself tossed hither and thither like a chip in a choppy sea.
+
+It was many minutes before the clerk could proceed with the roll-call.
+When his name was reached James said "Hardy" in a clear distinct voice
+that brought from the gallery a round of applause sharply checked by the
+presiding officer. Killen gave his vote for Frome tremulously and shrank
+from the storm he had evoked. Rawson could be seen standing on his
+seat, one foot on the top of his desk, shaking his fist at him in purple
+apoplectic rage, the while his voice rose above the tumult, "You damned
+Judas! You damned little traitor!"
+
+The presiding officer beat in vain with his gavel for quiet. Not until
+they had worn themselves to momentary exhaustion could the roll-call be
+continued.
+
+Miller and Pitts voted for Frome and stirred renewed shouts of support
+and execration.
+
+"Takes one more change to elect Frome. All depends on Reilly now,"
+Rawson whispered hoarsely to Jeff. "If he sticks we're safe for another
+twenty-four hours."
+
+But Reilly, knowing the decisive moment had come, voted for Frome and
+gave him the one more needed to elect. Pandemonium was loose at once.
+The Transcontinental forces surrounded him and fought off the excited
+men he had betrayed who tried to get at him to make him change his vote.
+The culminating moment of months of battle had come and mature men
+gave themselves to the abandon of the moment like college boys after a
+football game.
+
+When at last the storm had subsided Ashton, who had seen several
+thousand dollars go glimmering because his initial came at the beginning
+of the alphabet instead of at the close, in the hope of still getting
+into the bandwagon in time moved to make the election unanimous. His
+suggestion was rejected with hoots of derision, and Frome made the
+conventional speech of acceptance to a House divided against itself.
+
+Jeff joined his cousin as he was descending the steps to the lower hall.
+"Don't blame yourself, old man. It would have happened anyhow in a day
+or two. They were looking for a chance to desert. We couldn't have held
+them. Better luck next time."
+
+James found cold comfort in such consolation. He was dissatisfied with
+the part he had played in the final drama. Instead of being the hero
+of the hour, he was the unfortunate whose blunder had started the
+avalanche. Yet he was gratified when Rawson said in effect the same
+thing as Jeff.
+
+"And I'm going to have the pleasure of telling that damned little Killen
+what I think of him," the politician added with savage satisfaction.
+
+"Don't blame him. He's only a victim. What we must do is to change the
+system that makes it possible to defeat the will of the people through
+money," Jeff said.
+
+"How are you going about it?" Rawson demanded incredulously.
+
+"We'll go after the initiative and referendum right now while the people
+are stirred up about this treachery. The very men who threw us down will
+support us to try and square themselves. The bill will slip through as
+if it were oiled," Jeff prophesied.
+
+"Oh, hang your initiative and referendum. I'm a politician, not a
+socialist reformer," grinned Rawson.
+
+James said nothing.
+
+
+Part 2
+
+If the years were bringing Jeff a sharper realization of the forces that
+control so much of life they were giving him too the mellowness that
+can be in revolt without any surrender of faith in men. He could for
+instance now look back on his college days and appreciate the kindness
+and the patience of the teachers whom he had then condemned. They had
+been conformists. No doubt they had compromised to the pressure of their
+environment. But somehow he felt much less like judging men than he used
+to in the first flush of his intellectual awakening. It was perhaps this
+habit of making allowance for weakness, together with his call to the
+idealism in them, that made him so effective a worker with men.
+
+He was as easy as an old shoe, but people sensed the steel in him
+instinctively. In his quiet way he was coming to be a power. For one
+thing he was possessed of the political divination that understands how
+far a leader may go without losing his following. He knew too how to get
+practical results. It was these qualities that enabled him out of the
+wreckage of the senatorial defeat to build a foundation of victory for
+House Bill 77.
+
+To bring into effect Jeff's pet measure of the initiative and referendum
+necessitated an amendment to the state constitution, which must be
+passed by two successive legislative assemblies and ratified by a vote
+of the people in order to become effective. The bill had been slumbering
+in committee, but immediately after the senatorial election Jeff
+insisted on having it brought squarely to the attention of the House.
+
+His feeling for the psychological moment was a true one and he succeeded
+by a skillful newspaper campaign in rallying the people to his support.
+The sense of outrage felt at this shameless purchase of a seat in the
+Senate, accented by a knowledge of its helplessness to avenge the wrong
+done it, counted mightily in favor of H. B. No. 77 just now. It promised
+a restoration of power to the people, and the clamor for its passage
+became insistent.
+
+A good deal of quiet lobbying had been done for the bill, and the
+legislators who had sold themselves, having received all they could
+reasonably expect from the allied corporations, were anxious to make
+a show of standing for their constituents. Politicians in general
+considered the bill a "freak" one. Some who voted for it explained that
+they did not believe in it, but felt the people should have a chance to
+vote on it themselves. By a large majority it passed the House. Two days
+later it squeezed through the Senate.
+
+Rawson, who had been persuaded half against his judgment to support the
+bill, lunched with Jeff that day.
+
+"Now watch the corporations dig a grave for your little pet at the next
+legislature," he chuckled, helping himself to bread while he waited for
+the soup.
+
+"They may. Then again they may not," Farnum answered. "We are ruled by
+political machines and corporations only as long as we let them. I've a
+notion the people are going to assert themselves at the next election."
+
+"How are you going to make the will of the dear people effective with
+the assembly?" asked Rawson, amused.
+
+"Make the initiative and referendum the issue of the campaign. Pledge
+the legislators to vote for it before nominating them."
+
+"Pledge them?" grinned Rawson cynically. "Weren't they pledged to
+support Hardy? And did they?"
+
+"No, but they'll stick next time, I think."
+
+"You're an incurable optimist, my boy."
+
+"It isn't optimism this time. It's our big stick."
+
+"Didn't know we had one."
+
+"Do you remember House Bill 19?"
+
+"No. What's that got to do with it?"
+
+"It slipped through early in the session. Anderson introduced it. Nobody
+paid any attention to it because he's a back country Swede and his bill
+was very wordy. The governor signed it to-day. That bill provides for
+the recall of any public official, alderman or legislator if the people
+are not satisfied with his conduct."
+
+The big man stared. "I thought it only applied to district road
+supervisors. Were you back of that bill, Jeff?"
+
+"I had it drawn up and helped steer it through the committee, though I
+was careful not to appear interested."
+
+"You sly old fox! And nobody guessed it had general application. None
+of us read the blamed thing through. You're going to use it as a club to
+make the legislators stand pat on their pledges."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But don't you see how revolutionary your big stick is?" Rawson's smile
+was expansive. "Why, hang it, man, you're destroying the fundamental
+value of representative government. It's a deliberate attack on graft."
+
+"Looks like it, doesn't it?"
+
+It was while Rawson was waiting for his mince pie piled with ice cream
+that he ventured a delicate question.
+
+"Say, Jeff! What about James? Is he getting ready to flop over to the
+enemy?"
+
+"No. Why do you ask that?"
+
+"I notice he explained when he voted for House Bill 77 that he reserved
+the right to oppose it later. Said he hadn't made up his mind, but felt
+the people should be given a chance to express themselves on it."
+
+Upon Farnum's face rested a momentary gravity. "I can't make James
+out lately. He's lost his enthusiasm. Half the time he's irritable and
+moody. I think perhaps he's been blaming himself too much for Hardy's
+defeat."
+
+Rawson laughed with cynical incredulity. "That's it, is it?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11
+
+     "Faustina hath the fairest face,
+     And Phillida the better grace;
+       Both have mine eye enriched:
+     This sings full sweetly with her voice;
+     Her fingers make so sweet a noise;
+       Both have mine ear bewitched.
+     Ah me! sith Fates have so provided,
+     My heart, alas! must be divided."
+
+
+THE HERO, ASSISTED BY THE MONA LISA SMILE, DEPLORES THE DEBILITATING
+EFFECTS OF MODERN CIVILIZATION
+
+
+Part 1
+
+With the adjournment of the legislature politics became a less absorbing
+topic of interest. James at least was frankly glad of this, for his
+position had begun to be embarrassing. He could not always stand with a
+foot in either camp. As yet he had made no break with the progressives.
+Joe Powers had given him a hint that he might be more useful where he
+was. But as much as possible he was avoiding the little luncheons at
+which Jeff and his political friends were wont to foregather. He gave
+as an excuse the rush of business that was swamping him. His excuse at
+least had the justification of truth. His speeches had brought him a
+good many clients and Frome was quietly throwing cases his way.
+
+It was at one of these informal little noonday gatherings that Rawson
+gave his opinion of the legal ability of James.
+
+"He isn't any great lawyer, but he never gives it away. He knows how to
+wear an air of profound learning with a large and impressive silence.
+Roll up the whole Supreme Court into one and it can't look any wiser
+than James K. Farnum."
+
+Miller laughed. "Reminds me of what I heard last week. Jeff was walking
+down Powers Avenue with James and an old fellow stopped me to point them
+out. There go the best citizen and the worst citizen in this town, he
+said. I told him that was rather hard on James. You ought to have heard
+him. For him James is the hero of the piece and Jeff the villain."
+
+"Half the people in this town have got that damn fool notion," Captain
+Chunn interrupted violently.
+
+"More than half, I should say."
+
+"Every day or two I hear about how dissipated Jeff used to be and how
+if it were not for his good and noble cousin he would have gone to the
+deuce long ago," Rawson contributed.
+
+Chunn pounded on the table with his fist. "Jeff's own fault. Talk about
+durn fools! That boy's got them all beat clear off the map. And I'm
+dashed if I don't like him better for it."
+
+"Move we change the subject," suggested Rawson. "Here comes Verden's
+worst citizen."
+
+With a casual nod of greeting round the table Jeff sat down.
+
+"Any of you hear James' speech before the Chamber of Commerce yesterday?
+It was bully. One of his best," he said as he reached for the menu card.
+
+Captain Chunn groaned. The rest laughed. Jeff looked round in surprise.
+"What's the joke?"
+
+
+Part 2
+
+It was a great relief to James, in these days when the complacency of
+his self-satisfaction was a little ruffled, to call often on Valencia
+Van Tyle and let himself drift pleasantly with her along primrose paths
+where moral obligations never obtruded. Under the near-Venetian ceiling
+of her den, with its pink Cupids and plump dimpled cherubs smiling down,
+he was never troubled about his relation to Hardy's defeat. Here he
+got at life from another slant and could always find justification to
+himself for his course.
+
+She had a silent divination of his moods and knew how to minister
+indolently to them. The subtle incense of luxury that she diffused
+banished responsibility. In her soft sensuous blood the lusty beat of
+duty had small play.
+
+But even while he yielded to the allure of Valencia Van Tyle, admitting
+a finish of beauty to which mere youth could not aspire, all that was
+idealistic in him went out to the younger cousin whose admiration and
+shy swift friendship he was losing. His vanity refused to accept this
+at first. She was a little piqued at him because of the growing intimacy
+with Valencia. That was all. Why, it had been only a month or two ago
+that her gaze had been warm for him, that her playful irony had mocked
+sweetly his ambition for service to the community. Their spirits had
+touched in comradeship. Almost he had caught in her eyes the look they
+would hold for only one man on earth. The best in him had responded to
+the call. But now he did not often meet her at The Brakes. When he did a
+cool little nod and an indifferent word sufficed for him. How much this
+hurt only James himself knew.
+
+One of the visible signs of his increasing prosperity was a motor car,
+in which he might frequently be seen driving with the daughter of Joe
+Powers, to the gratification of its owner and the envy of Verden. The
+cool indifference with which Mrs. Van Tyle ignored the city's social
+elite had aroused bitter criticism. Since she did not care a rap for
+this her escapades were frankly indiscreet. James could not really
+afford a machine, but he justified it on the ground that it was an
+investment. A man who appears to be prosperous becomes prosperous. A
+good front is a part of the bluff of twentieth century success. He did
+not follow his argument so far as to admit that the purchase of the
+car was an item in the expenses of a campaign by which he meant to make
+capital out of a woman's favor to him, even though his imagination toyed
+with the possibilities it might offer to build a sure foundation of
+fortune.
+
+"You should go to New York," she told him once after he had sketched,
+with the touch of eloquence so native to him, a plan for a line of
+steamers between Verden and the Orient.
+
+"To be submerged in the huddle of humanity. No, thank you."
+
+"But the opportunities are so much greater there for a man of ability."
+
+"Oh, ability!" he derided. "New York is loaded to the water line with
+ability in garrets living on crusts. To win out there a man must have
+a pull, or he must have the instinct for making money breed, for taking
+what other men earn."
+
+She studied him, a good-looking, alert American, sheet-armored in the
+twentieth century polish of selfishness, with an inordinate appetite for
+success. Certainly he looked every inch a winner.
+
+"I believe you could do it. You're not too scrupulous to look out for
+yourself." Her daring impudence mocked him lightly.
+
+"I'm not so sure about that." James liked to look his conscience in the
+face occasionally. "I respect the rights of my fellows. In the money
+centers you can't do that and win. And you've got to win. It doesn't
+matter how. Make good--make good! Get money--any way you can. People
+will soon forget how you got it, if you have it."
+
+"Dear me! I didn't know you were so given to moral reflections." To
+Alice, who had just come into the room to settle where they should spend
+their Sunday, Valencia explained with mock demureness the subject of
+their talk. "Mr. Farnum and I are deploring the immoral money madness of
+New York and the debilitating effects of modern civilization. Will you
+deplore with us, my dear?"
+
+The younger woman's glance included the cigarette James had thrown away
+and the one her cousin was still smoking. "Why go as far as New York?"
+she asked quietly.
+
+Farnum flushed. She was right, he silently agreed. He had no business
+futtering away his time in a pink boudoir. Nor could he explain that he
+hoped his time was not being wasted.
+
+"I must be going," he said as casually as he could.
+
+"Don't let me drive you away, Mr. Farnum. I dropped in only for a
+moment."
+
+"Not at all. I have an appointment with my cousin."
+
+"With Mr. Jefferson Farnum?" Alice asked in awakened interest.
+"I've just been reading a magazine article about him. Is he really a
+remarkable man?"
+
+"I don't think you would call him remarkable. He gets things done, in
+spite of being an idealist."
+
+"Why, in spite of it?"
+
+"Aren't reformers usually unpractical?"
+
+"Are they? I don't know. I have never met one." She looked straight at
+Farnum with the directness characteristic of her. "Is the article in
+Stetson's Magazine true?"
+
+"Substantially, I think."
+
+Alice hesitated. She would have liked to pursue the subject, but she
+could not very well do that with his cousin. For years she had
+been hearing of this man as a crank agitator who had set himself in
+opposition to her father and his friends for selfish reasons. Her father
+had dropped vague hints about his unsavory life. The Stetson write-up
+had given a very different story. If it told the truth, many things she
+had been brought up to accept without question would bear study.
+
+James suavely explained. "The facts are true, but not the inferences
+from the facts. Jeff takes rather a one-sided view of a very complex
+situation. But he's perfectly honest in it, so far as that goes."
+
+"You voted for his bill, didn't you?" Alice asked.
+
+"Yes, I voted for it. But I said on the floor I didn't believe in it. My
+feeling was that the people ought to have a chance to express an opinion
+in regard to it."
+
+"Why don't you believe in it?"
+
+Valencia lifted her perfect eyebrows. "Really, my dear, I didn't know
+you were so interested in politics."
+
+Alice waited for the young man's answer.
+
+"It would take me some time to give my reasons in full. But I can give
+you the text of them in a sentence. Our government is a representative
+one by deliberate choice of its founders. This bill would tend to make
+it a pure democracy, which would be far too cumbersome for so large a
+country."
+
+"So you'll vote against it next time to save the country," Alice
+suggested lightly. "Thank you for explaining it." She turned to her
+cousin with an air of dismissing the subject. "Well, Val. What about the
+yacht trip to Kloochet Island for Sunday? Shall we go? I have to 'phone
+the captain to let him know at once."
+
+"If you'll promise not to have it rain all the time," the young widow
+shrugged with a little move. "Perhaps Mr. Farnum could join us? I'm sure
+uncle would be pleased."
+
+Alice seconded her cousin's invitation tepidly, without any enthusiasm.
+James, with a face which did not reflect his disappointment, took his
+cue promptly. "Awfully sorry, but I'll be out of the city. Otherwise I
+should be delighted."
+
+Valencia showed a row of dainty teeth in a low ripple of amusement.
+Alice flashed her cousin one look of resentment and with a sentence of
+conventional regret left the room to telephone the sailing master.
+
+Farnum, seeking permission to leave, waited for his hostess to rise from
+the divan where she nestled.
+
+But Valencia, her fingers laced in characteristic fashion back of her
+neck, leaned back and mocked his defeat with indolent amused eyes.
+
+"My engagement," he suggested as a reminder.
+
+"Poor boy! Are you hard hit?"
+
+"Your flights of fancy leave me behind. I can't follow," he evaded with
+an angry flush.
+
+"No, but you wish you could follow," she laughed, glancing at the door
+through which her cousin had departed. Then, with a demure impudent
+little cast of her head, she let him have it straight from the shoulder.
+"How long have you been in love with Alice? And how will you like to see
+Ned Merrill win?"
+
+"Am I in love with Miss Frome?"
+
+"Aren't you?"
+
+"If you say so. It happens to be news to me."
+
+"As if I believed that, as if you believed it yourself," she scoffed.
+
+Her pretty pouting lips, the long supple unbroken lines of the soft
+sinuous body, were an invitation to forget all charms but hers.
+He understood that she was throwing out her wiles, consciously or
+unconsciously, to strike out from him a denial that would convince her.
+His mounting vanity drove away his anger. He forgot everything but
+her sheathed loveliness, the enticement of this lovely creature whose
+smoldering eyes invited. Crossing the room, he stood behind her divan
+and looked down at her with his hands on the back of it.
+
+"Can a man care much for two women at the same time?" he asked in a low
+voice.
+
+She laughed with slow mockery.
+
+Her faint perfume was wafted to his brain. He knew a besieging of the
+blood. Slowly he leaned forward, holding her eyes till the mockery faded
+from them. Then, very deliberately, he kissed her.
+
+"How dare you!" she voiced softly in a kind of wonder not free from
+resentment. For with all her sensuous appeal the daughter of Joe Powers
+was not a woman with whom men took liberties.
+
+"By the gods, why shouldn't I dare? We played a game and both of us have
+lost. You were to beckon and coolly flit, while I followed safely at a
+distance. Do you think me a marble statue? Do you think me too wooden
+for the strings of my heart to pulsate? By heaven, my royal Hebe, you
+have blown the fire in me to life. You must pay forfeit."
+
+"Pay forfeit?"
+
+"Yes. I'm your servant no longer, but your lover and your master--and I
+intend to marry you."
+
+"How ridiculous," she derided. "Have you forgotten Alice?"
+
+"I have forgotten everything but you--and that I'm going to marry you."
+
+She laughed a little tremulously. "You had better forget that too. I'm
+like Alice. My answer is, 'No, thank you, kind sir.'"
+
+"And my answer, royal Hebe, is this." His hot lips met hers again in
+abandonment to the racing passion in him.
+
+"You--barbarian," she gasped, pushing him away.
+
+"Perhaps. But the man who is going to marry you."
+
+She looked at him with a flash of almost shy curiosity that had the
+charm of an untasted sensation. "Would you beat me?"
+
+"I don't know." He still breathed unevenly. "I'd teach you how to live."
+
+"And love?" She was beginning to recover her lightness of tone, though
+the warm color still dabbed her cheeks.
+
+"Why not?" His eyes were diamond bright. "Why not? You have never known
+the great moments, the buoyant zest of living in the land that belongs
+only to the Heirs o Life."
+
+"And can you guide me there?" The irony in her voice was not untouched
+with wistfulness.
+
+"Try me."
+
+She laughed softly, stepped to the table, and chose a cigarette. "My
+friend, you promise impossibilities. I was not born to that incomparable
+company. To be frank, neither were you. Alice, grant you, belongs there.
+And that mad cousin of yours. But not we two earth creepers. We're
+neither of us star dwellers. In the meantime"--she lit her Egyptian and
+stopped to make sure of her light every moment escaping more definitely
+from the glamor of his passion--"you mentioned an engagement that was
+imperative. Don't let me keep you from it."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12
+
+     From The New Catechism
+
+     Question: What is the whole duty of man?
+
+     Answer: To succeed.
+
+     Q. What is success?
+
+     A. Success is being a Captain of Industry.
+
+     Q. How may one become a Captain of Industry?
+
+     A. By stacking in his barns the hay made by others while the
+     sun shines.
+
+     Q. But is this not theft?
+
+     A. Not if done legally and respectably on a large scale. It
+     is high finance.
+
+
+THE REBEL AND THE UNDESIRABLE CITIZEN TALK TREASON. THE HERO HAS PRIVATE
+CONVERSE WITH A GREAT PIONEER OF CIVILIZATION
+
+
+Part 1
+
+Jeff never for a day desisted from his fight to win back for the people
+the self rule that had been wrested from them for selfish purposes by
+corporate greed. "Government by the people" was the watchword he kept
+at the head of his editorial column. Better a bad government that is
+representative than a good one emanating from the privileged few, he
+maintained with conviction.
+
+To his office came one day Oscar Marchant, the little, half-educated
+Socialist poet, coughing from the exertion of the stairs he had just
+climbed. He had come begging, the consumptive presently explained.
+
+"Remember Sobieski, the Polish Jew?"
+
+Jeff smiled. "Of course. Philosophical anarchy used to be his remedy."
+
+"Starvation is the one he's trying now," returned Marchant grimly. "He's
+had typhoid and lost his job. The rent's due and they'll be turned out
+tomorrow. He's got a wife and two kids."
+
+Farnum asked questions briefly and pulled out his check book. "Tell
+Sobieski not to worry," he said as he handed over a check. "I'll send
+a reporter out there and we'll make an appeal through the _World_. Of
+course his own name won't be used. No one will know who it really is.
+We'll look out for him till he's on his feet again."
+
+Marchant gave him the best he had. "You're a pretty good Socialist, even
+though you don't know it."
+
+"Am I?"
+
+"But you're blind as a bat. The things you fight for in the _World_
+don't get to the bottom of what ails us."
+
+"We've got to forge the tools of freedom before we can use them, haven't
+we?"
+
+"You're all for patching up the rotten system we've got. It will never
+do."
+
+"Great changes are most easily brought about under the old forms. Men's
+minds in the mass move slowly. They can see only a little truth at a
+time."
+
+"Because they are blinded by ignorance and selfishness. Get at bottom
+facts, Farnum. What's the one great crime?"
+
+Without a moment's hesitation Jeff answered. "Poverty. All other crimes
+are paltry beside that."
+
+Marchant cocked himself up on the window seat with his legs doubled
+under him tailor fashion. "Why?"
+
+"Because it stamps out hope and love and aspiration, all that is fine
+and true in life."
+
+"Exactly. Men ought to love their work. But how can they love that which
+is always associated in their minds with a denial of justice? Is it
+likely that men will work better under a system whereby they are
+condemned in advance to failure than under one standing rationally for a
+just and fair division of the fruits of labor? I tell you, Farnum, under
+present conditions the Juggernaut of progress is forever wasting
+humanity."
+
+"I've always thought it a pity that the mainsprings of work should be
+fear and greed instead of hope and love," Jeff agreed.
+
+"Why is it that poverty coexists with wealth increasing so rapidly? Why
+is it that productive power has been so enormously developed without
+lightening the burdens of labor?"
+
+Marchant's eyes were starlike in their earnestness. He had a passion
+for humanity that neither want nor disease could quench, and with it
+a certain gift of expression street oratory had brought out. Even in
+private conversation he had got into the way of declaiming. But Jeff
+knew he was no empty talker. All that he had he literally gave to the
+poor.
+
+"Because the whole spirit of business life is wrong," Farnum responded.
+
+"Of course it's wrong. It's a survival of the law of the jungle, of
+tooth and fang. Its motto is dog eat dog. We all work under the rule of
+get and grab. What's the result of this higgledypiggledy system? One
+man starves and another has indigestion. That's the trouble with Verden
+to-day. Some of us haven't enough and others have too much. They take
+from us what we earn. That's the whole cause of poverty. The Malthusian
+theory is all wrong. It's not nature, but man that is to blame."
+
+Farnum knew the little Socialist was right so far. Here in Verden, under
+the forms of freedom, was the very essence of slavery. All the product
+of labor was taken from it except enough to sustain a mere animal
+existence. Something was wrong in a world where a man begs in vain for
+work to support his family. Given proper conditions, men would not rise
+by trampling each other down, but by lending a hand to the unfortunate.
+The effect of efficiency would be to make things easier for the weak.
+The reward of service would be more service.
+
+"The principle of the old order is dead," Marchant went on, wagging his
+thin forefinger at Jeff. "The whole social fabric is made up of lies,
+compromises, injustice. The only reason it has hung together so long
+is that people have been trained to think along certain lines like show
+animals. But they're waking up. Look at Germany. Look at England. What
+the plutocrats call the menace of Socialism is everywhere. Now that
+every worker knows he is being robbed of what he earns, how long do
+you think he will carry the capitalistic system on his back? From the
+beginning of the world we have tried it. With what result? An injustice
+that is staggering, a waste that is appalling, an inhumanity that is
+deadening."
+
+Jeff let a hand fall lightly on his shoulder. "Of course it's all wrong.
+We know that. But can you show me how to make it right, except out of
+the hearts of men growing slowly wiser and better?"
+
+"Why slowly?" demanded Marchant. "Why not to-day while we're still alive
+to see the smiles of men and women and children made glad? You always
+want to begin at the wrong end. I tell you that you can't change men's
+hearts until you change the conditions under which they live."
+
+"And I tell you that you can't change the conditions until you change
+men's hearts," Jeff answered with his wistful smile.
+
+"Rubbish! The only way to change the hearts of most plutocrats is to
+hit them over the head with a two-by-four. Smug respectability is in the
+saddle, and it knows it's right. We'll get nowhere until we smash this
+iniquitous system to smithereens."
+
+"So you want to substitute one system for another. You think you can
+eliminate by legal enactment all this fatty degeneration of greed and
+selfishness that has incased our souls. I'm afraid it will be a slower
+process. We must free ourselves from within. I believe we are moving
+toward some sort of a socialistic state. No man with eyes in his head
+can help seeing that. But we'll move a step at a time, and only so fast
+as the love and altruism inside us can be organized into external law."
+
+"No. You'll wake up some morning and find that this whole capitalistic
+organization has crumbled in the night, fallen to pieces from dry rot."
+
+Jeff might not agree with him, but he knew that Marchant, dreamer and
+incoherent poet, his heart aflame with zeal for humanity, was far nearer
+the truth of life than the smug complacent Pharisees that fattened from
+the toil of the helpless many who could do nothing but suffer in dumb
+silence.
+
+
+Part 2
+
+As the months passed Jeff grew in stature with the people of the state.
+In spite of his energy he was always fair. The plain truth he felt to be
+a better argument than the tricks of a demagogue.
+
+A rational common sense was to be found in all his advice. Add to this
+that he had no personal profit to seek, no political axe to grind, and
+was always transparent as a child. More and more Verden recognized
+him as the one most conspicuous figure in the state dedicated to
+uncompromising war against the foes of the Republic.
+
+Those who knew him best liked his humility, his good humor, the
+gentleness that made him tolerant of the men he must fight. His poise
+lifted him above petty animosities, and the daily sand-stings of life
+did not disturb his serenity.
+
+Everywhere his propaganda gained ground. People's Power Leagues were
+formed with a central steering committee at Verden. Politicians with
+their ears close to the ground heard rumbles of the coming storm. They
+began to notice that reputable business men, prominent lawyers not
+affiliated with corporations, and even a few educators who had shaken
+away the timidity of their class were lining up to support Jeff's freak
+legislation. It began to look as if one of those periodical uprisings of
+the people was about to sweep the state.
+
+Big Tim found his ward workers met persistently by the same questions
+from their ordinarily docile following. "Why shouldn't we tie strings to
+our representatives so as to keep them from betraying us?... Why can't
+we make laws ourselves in emergency and kill bad laws the legislature
+makes?... What's the matter with taking away some of the power from our
+representatives who have abused it?"
+
+In the city election O'Brien went down to defeat. Only fragments of his
+ticket were saved from the general wreckage. Next day Joe Powers wired
+James Farnum to join him immediately at Chicago.
+
+"I'm going to put you in charge of the political field out there," the
+great man announced, his gray granite eyes fastened on the young lawyer.
+"Ned Merrill won't do. Neither will O'Brien. Between them they've made a
+mess of things."
+
+"I don't know that it is their fault, except indirectly. One of those
+populistic waves swept over the city."
+
+"Why didn't they know what was going to happen? Why didn't they let me
+know? That's what I pay them for."
+
+"A child could have foreseen it, but O'Brien wouldn't believe his eyes.
+He's been giving Verden an administration with too much graft. The
+people got tired of it."
+
+"What were Merrill and Frome up to? Why did they permit it?" demanded
+Powers impatiently.
+
+"They were looking out for their franchises. To get the machine's
+support they had to give O'Brien a free hand."
+
+"If necessary you had better eliminate Big Tim. Or at least put him and
+his gang in the background. Make the machine respectable so that good
+citizens can indorse it."
+
+James nodded agreement. "I've been thinking about that. The thing can
+be done. A business men's movement from inside the party to purify it. A
+reorganization with new men in charge. That sort of thing."
+
+"Exactly. And how about the state?"
+
+"Things don't look good to me."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"This initiative and referendum idea is spreading."
+
+Powers drove his fist into a pile of papers on the desk. "Stop it. I
+give you carte blanche. Spend as much as you like. But win. What good is
+a lobby to me if those hare-brained farmers can kill every bill we pass
+through their grafting legislature?"
+
+The possibilities grew on Farnum. "I'll send Professor Perkins of Verden
+University to New Zealand to prepare a paper showing the thing is a
+failure there. I'll have every town in the state thoroughly canvassed by
+lecturers and speakers against the bill. I'll bombard the farmers with
+literature."
+
+"What about the newspapers?"
+
+"We control most of them. At Verden only the _World_ is against us."
+
+"Buy it."
+
+"Can't be bought. Its editorial columns are not for sale."
+
+"Anything can be bought if you've got the price. Who owns it?"
+
+"A Captain Chunn. He made his money in Alaska. My cousin is the editor.
+He is the real force back of it."
+
+"Does the paper have any influence?"
+
+"A great deal."
+
+"I've heard of your cousin. A crack-brained Socialist, I understand."
+
+"You'll find he's a long way from that," James denied.
+
+"Whatever he is, buy him," ordered Powers curtly.
+
+The young man shook his head. "Can't be done. He doesn't want the things
+you have to offer."
+
+"Every man has his price. Find his, and buy him."
+
+James shook his head decisively. "Absolutely impossible. He's an
+idealist and an altruist."
+
+Powers snorted impatiently. "Talk English, young man, and I'll
+understand you."
+
+Farnum had heard Joe Powers was a man who would stand plain talk from
+those who had the courage to give it him. His cool eyes hardened. Why
+not? For once the old gray pirate, chief of the robber buccaneers who
+rode on their predatory way superior to law, should see himself as Jeff
+Farnum saw him.
+
+"What I mean is that the things he holds most important can't be bought
+with dollars and cents. He believes in justice and fair play. He thinks
+the strong ought to bear the burdens of the weak.
+
+"He has a passion to uplift humanity. You can't understand him because
+it isn't possible for you to conceive of a man whose first thought is
+always for what is equitable."
+
+"Just as I thought, a Socialist dreamer and demagogue," pronounced
+Powers scornfully.
+
+"Merrill and Frome have been thinking of him just as you do." James
+waved his hand toward the newspaper in front of the railroad king. "With
+what result our election shows."
+
+"Well, where does his power lie? How can you break it?" the old man
+asked.
+
+"He is a kind of brother to the lame and the halt all over the state.
+Among the poor and the working classes he has friends without number.
+They believe in him as a patriot fighting for them against the foes of
+the country."
+
+"Do you call me a foe of the country, young man?" Powers wanted to know
+grimly.
+
+"Not I," laughed James. "Why should I quarrel with my bread and jam? If
+you had ever done me the honor to read any of my speeches you would see
+that I refer to you as a Pioneer of Civilization and a Builder for the
+Future. But my view doesn't happen to be universal. I was trying to show
+you how the man with the dinner pail feels."
+
+"Who fills his dinner pails?"
+
+James met his frown with a genial eye. "There's a difference of opinion
+about that, sir. According to the economics of Verden University you
+fill them. According to the _World_ editorials it's the other way. They
+fill yours."
+
+"Hmp! And what's your personal opinion? Am I a robber of labor?"
+
+"I think that the price of any success worth while is paid for in the
+failure of others. You win because you're strong, sir. That's the law
+of the game. It's according to the survival of the fittest that you're
+where you are. If you had hesitated some other man would have trampled
+you down. It's a case of wolf eat wolf."
+
+The old railroad builder laughed harshly. This was the first time in his
+experience that a subordinate had so analyzed him to his face.
+
+"So I'm a wolf, am I?"
+
+"In one sense of the word you're not that at all, sir. You're a great
+builder. You've done more for the Northwest than any man living.
+You couldn't have done it if you had been squeamish. I hold the end
+justifies the means. What you've got is yours because you've won it. Men
+who do a great work for the public are entitled to great rewards."
+
+"Glad to know you've got more sense than that fool cousin of yours. Now
+go home and beat him. I don't care how you do it, just so that you
+get results. Spend what money you need, but make good, young man--make
+good."
+
+"I'll do my best," James promised.
+
+"All I demand is that you win. I'm not interested in the method you use.
+But put that cousin of yours out of the demagogue business if you have
+to shanghai him."
+
+James laughed. "That might not be a bad way to get rid of him till after
+the election. The word would leak out that he had been bought off."
+
+The old buccaneer's eyes gleamed. He was as daring a lawbreaker as ever
+built or wrecked a railroad. "Have you the nerve, young man?"
+
+"When I'm working for you, sir," retorted James coolly.
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"If I've studied your career to any purpose, sir, one thing stands out
+pretty clear. You haven't the slightest respect for law merely as law.
+When it's on your side you're a stickler for it; when it isn't you say
+nothing, but brush it aside as if it did not exist. In either case you
+get what you want."
+
+"I'm glad you've noticed that last point. Now we'll have luncheon." He
+smiled grimly. "I daresay you'll enjoy it no less because I stole it
+from the horny hand of labor, by your mad cousin's way of it."
+
+"Not a bit," answered James cheerfully.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13
+
+     "Must it be? Must we then
+     Render back to God again
+     This, His broken work, this thing
+     For His man that once did sing?"
+     --Josephine Prestor Peabody.
+
+     "And listen! I declare to you that if all is as you say--and
+     I do not doubt it--you have never ceased to be virtuous in
+     the sight of God!"--Victor Hugo.
+
+
+THE REBEL PROVES THAT HE IS LOST TO GOOD FORM AND RESPECTABILITY BY
+STEPPING BETWEEN A SINNER AND THE WAGES OF SIN, THUS EVIDENCING TO THE
+PILLARS OF SOCIETY HIS COMPLETE DEGENERATION
+
+
+Part 1
+
+Sam Miller came into Jeff's office one night as he was looking over the
+editorials. Farnum nodded abstractedly to him.
+
+"Take a chair, Sam. Be through in a minute."
+
+Presently Jeff pushed the galley proof to one side and looked at his
+friend. "Well, Sam?" Almost at once he added: "What's the matter?"
+
+There were queer white patches on Miller's fat face. He looked like a
+man in hell. A lump rose in his throat. Two or three times he swallowed
+hard.
+
+"It's--it's Nellie."
+
+"Nellie Anderson?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+Jeff felt as if his heart had been drenched in icy water. "What about
+her?"
+
+"She's--gone."
+
+"Gone where?"
+
+"We don't know. She left Friday. There was a note for her mother. It
+said to forget her, because she was a disgrace to her name."
+
+"You mean--" Jeff did not finish his question. He knew what the answer
+was, and in his soul lay a reflection of the mortal sickness he saw in
+his friend's face.
+
+Miller nodded, unable to speak. Presently his words came brokenly.
+"She's been acting strangely for a long time. Her mother noticed it....
+So did I. Like as if she wasn't happy. We've been worried. I...I..." He
+buried his face in his arm on the table. "My God, I love her, Jeff. I
+have for years. If I'd only known... if she'd only told me."
+
+Jeff was white as the galley proof that lay before him with the
+unprinted side up. "Tell me all about it, Sam."
+
+Miller looked up. "That's all. We don't know where she's gone. She had
+no money to speak of."
+
+"And the man?" Jeff almost whispered.
+
+"We don't know who he is. Might be any one of the clerks at the Verden
+Dry Goods Company. Maybe it's none of them. If I knew I'd cut his heart
+out."
+
+The clock on the wall ticked ten times before Jeff spoke. "Did she go
+alone?"
+
+"We don't know. None of the clerks are missing from the store where she
+worked. I checked up with the manager yesterday."
+
+Another long silence. "They may have rooms in town here."
+
+"Not likely." Presently Miller added miserably: "She's--going to be a
+mother soon. We found the doctor she went to see."
+
+"You're sure she hasn't been married? Of course you've looked over the
+marriage licenses for the past year."
+
+"Yes. Her name isn't on the list."
+
+"Did she have money?"
+
+"About fifteen dollars, we figure."
+
+"That wouldn't take her far--unless the man gave her some. Have you been
+to a detective agency?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"We'll put blind ads in all the papers telling her to come home. We'll
+rake the city and the state with a fine tooth comb. We're bound to hear
+of her."
+
+"She's desperate, Jeff. If she's alone she'll think she has no friends.
+We've got to find her in time or--"
+
+Jeff guessed the alternative. She might take the easy way out, the one
+which offered an escape from all her earthly troubles. Girls of her type
+often did. Nellie was made for laughter and for happiness. He had known
+her innocent as a sunbeam and as glad. Now that she was in the pit,
+facing disgrace and disillusionment and despair, the horror and the
+dread of existence to her would be a millstone round her neck.
+
+The damnable unfairness of it took. Jeff by the throat. Was it her fault
+that she had inherited a temperament where passions lurked unsuspected
+like a banked fire? Was she to blame because her mother had brought her
+up without warning, because she had believed in the love and the honor
+of a villain? Her very faith and trust had betrayed her. Every honest
+instinct in him cried out against the world's verdict, that she must pay
+with salt tears to the end of her life while the scoundrel who had led
+her into trouble walked gaily to fresh conquests.
+
+Cogged dice! She had gone forth smiling to play the game of life with
+them, never dreaming that the cubes were loaded. He remembered how once
+her every motion sang softly to him like music, with what dear abandon
+she had given herself to his kisses. Her fondness had been a thing to
+cherish, her innocence had called for protection. And her chivalrous
+lover had struck the lightness forever from her soul.
+
+For long he never thought of her without an icy sinking of the heart.
+
+
+Part 2
+
+Weeks passed. Sam Miller gave his whole time to the search for the
+missing girl. Jeff supplied the means; in every way he could he
+encouraged him and the broken mother. For a thousand miles south and
+east the police had her description and her photograph. But no trace
+of her could be found. False clews there were aplenty. A dozen haggard
+streetwalkers were arrested in mistake for her. Patiently Sam ran down
+every story, followed every possibility to its hopeless end.
+
+The weeks ran into months. Mrs. Anderson still hoped drearily. Every
+night the light in the hall burned now till daybreak. And every night
+she wept herself to sleep for that her one ewe lamb was lost in a
+ravenous world.
+
+Tears were for the night. Wan smiles for the day, when she and Sam,
+drawn close by a common grief, met to understand each other with few
+words. He was back again at his work as curator of the museum at the
+State House, a place Jeff had secured for him after the election.
+
+Outside of Nellie's mother the one friend to whom Sam turned now was
+Jeff. He came for comfort, to sit long hours in the office while Farnum
+did his night work. Sometimes he would read; more often sit brooding
+with his chin in his hands. When the midnight rush was past and Jeff was
+free they would go together to a restaurant.
+
+Afterwards they would separate at the door of the block where Jeff had
+his rooms.
+
+
+Part 3
+
+Yet when Jeff found her it was not Sam who was with him, but Marchant.
+They had been to see Sobieski about a place Captain Chunn had secured
+for him as a night watchman of the shipbuilding plant of which Clinton
+Rogers was part owner. The Pole had mounted his hobby and it had been
+late when they got away from his cabin under the viaduct.
+
+Just before they turned into lower Powers Avenue from the deadline below
+Yarnell Way, Marchant clutched at the sleeve of his friend.
+
+"See that woman's face?" he asked sharply.
+
+"No."
+
+Jeff was interested at once. For during the past months he had fallen
+into a habit of scanning the countenance of any woman who might be the
+one they sought.
+
+"She knew you. I could see fear jump to her eyes."
+
+"We'll go back," Jeff decided instantly.
+
+"She's in deep water. Death is written on her face."
+
+Already Jeff was swinging back, almost on the run. But she had gone
+swallowed up in the darkness of the night. They listened, but could hear
+only the steady splashing of the rain. While they stood hesitating the
+figure of a woman showed at the other end of the alley and was lost at
+once down Pacific Avenue.
+
+Jeff ran toward the lights of the other avenue, but before he reached it
+she had again disappeared. Marchant joined him a few moments later. The
+little socialist leaned against the wall to steady himself against the
+fit of coughing that racked him.
+
+"Nuisance... this... being a lunger... What's it all... about, Jeff?"
+
+"I know her. We'll cover the waterfront. Take from Coffee Street up.
+Don't miss a wharf or a boathouse. And if you find the girl don't let
+her get away."
+
+The editor crossed to the Pacific & Alaska dock, his glance sweeping
+every dark nook and cranny that might conceal a huddled form. Out of a
+sodden sky rain pelted in a black night.
+
+He was turning away when an empty banana crate behind him crashed down
+from a pyramid of them. Jeff whirled, was upon her in an instant before
+she could escape.
+
+She was shrinking against the wall of the warehouse, her face a tragic
+mask in its haggard pallor, a white outline clenched hard against the
+driving rain. One hand was at her heart, the other beat against the air
+to hold him back.
+
+"Nellie!" he cried.
+
+"What do you want? Let me alone! Let me alone!" She was panting like
+a spent deer, and in her wild eyes he saw the hunted look of a forest
+creature at bay.
+
+"We've looked everywhere for you. I've come to take you home."
+
+"Home!" Her strange laughter mocked the word. "There's no home for folks
+like me in this world."
+
+"Your mother is breaking her heart for you. She thinks of nothing else.
+All night she keeps a light burning to let you know."
+
+She broke into a sob. "I've seen it. To-night I saw it--for the last
+time."
+
+"It is pitiful how she waits and waits," he went on quietly. "She takes
+out your dresses and airs them. All the playthings you used when you
+were a little girl she keeps near her. She--"
+
+"Don't! Don't!" she begged.
+
+"Your place is set at the table every day, so that when you come in it
+may be ready."
+
+At that she leaned against the crates and broke down utterly. Jeff knew
+that for the moment the battle was won. He slipped out of his rain coat
+and made her put it on, coaxing her gently while the sobs shook her. He
+led her by the hand back to Pacific Avenue, talking cheerfully as if it
+were a matter of course.
+
+Here Marchant met them.
+
+"I want a cab, Oscar," Jeff told him.
+
+While he was gone they waited in the entrance to a store that sheltered
+them from the rain.
+
+Suddenly the girl turned to Jeff. "I--I was going to do it to-night,"
+she whispered.
+
+He nodded. "That's all past now. Don't think of it. There are good days
+ahead--happy days. It will be new life to your mother to see you. We've
+all been frightfully anxious."
+
+She shivered, beginning to sob once more. Not for an instant had he
+withdrawn the hand to which she clung so desperately.
+
+"It's all right, Nellie...All right at last. You're going home to those
+that love you."
+
+"Not to-night--not while I'm looking like this. Don't take me home
+to-night," she begged. "I can't stand it yet. Give me to-night, please.
+I..."
+
+She trembled like an aspen. Jeff could see she was exhausted, in deadly
+fear, ready to give way to any wild impulse that might seize her. To
+reason with her would do no good and might do much harm. He must humor
+her fancy about not going home at once. But he could not take her to a
+rooming house and leave her alone while her mind was in this condition.
+She must be watched, protected against herself. Otherwise in the morning
+she might be gone.
+
+"All right. You may have my rooms. Here's the cab."
+
+Jeff helped her in, thanked Marchant with a word, got in himself,
+and shut the door. They were driven through streets shining with rain
+beneath the light clusters. Nellie crouched in a corner and wept. As
+they swung down Powers Avenue they passed motor car after motor car
+filled with gay parties returning from the theaters. He glimpsed young
+women in furs, wrapped from the cruelty of life by the caste system in
+which wealth had incased them. Once a ripple of merry laughter floated
+to him across the gulf that separated this girl from them.
+
+A year ago her laughter had been light as theirs. Life had been a thing
+beautiful, full of color. She had come to it eagerly, like a lover, glad
+because it was so good.
+
+But it had not been good to her. By the cluster lights he could see how
+fearfully it had mauled her, how cruelly its irony had kissed hollows in
+her young cheeks. All the bloom of her was gone, all the brave pride and
+joy of youth--gone beyond hope of resurrection. Why must such things
+be? Why so much to the few, so little to the many? And why should that
+little be taken away? He saw as in a vision the infinite procession of
+her hopeless sisters who had traveled the same road, saw them first
+as sweet and carefree children bubbling with joy, and again, after
+the _World_ had misused them for its pleasure, haggard, tawdry, with
+dragging steps trailing toward the oblivion that awaited them. Good God,
+how long must life be so terribly wasted? How long a bruised and broken
+thing instead of the fine, brave adventure for which it was meant?
+
+Across his mind flashed Realf's words:
+
+     "Amen!" I have cried in battle-time,
+     When my beautiful heroes perished;
+     The earth of the Lord shall bloom sublime
+     By the blood of his martyrs nourished.
+     "Amen!" I have said, when limbs were hewn
+     And our wounds were blue and ghastly
+     The flesh of a man may fail and swoon
+     But God shall conquer lastly.
+
+
+Part 4
+
+As Jeff helped her from the cab in front of the block where he lived a
+limousine flashed past. It caught his glance for an instant, long enough
+for him to recognize his Cousin James, Mrs. Van Tyle and Alice Frome.
+The arm which supported Nellie did not loosen from her waist, though he
+knew they had seen him and would probably draw conclusions.
+
+The young woman was trembling violently.
+
+"My rooms are in the second story. Can you walk? Or shall I carry you?"
+Farnum asked.
+
+"I can walk," she told him almost in a whisper.
+
+He got her upstairs and into the big armchair in front of the gas log.
+Now that she had slipped out of his rain coat he saw that she was wet
+to the skin. From his bedroom he brought a bathrobe, pajamas, woolen
+slippers, anything he could find that was warm and soft. In front of her
+he dumped them all.
+
+"I'm going down to the drug store to get you something that will warm
+you, Nellie. While I'm away change your clothes and get into these
+things," he told her.
+
+She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "You're good."
+
+A lump rose in his heart. He thought of those evenings before the grate
+alone with her and of the desperate fight he had had with his passions.
+Good! He accused himself bitterly for the harm that he had done her. But
+before her his smile was bright and cheerful.
+
+"We're all going to be so good to you that you'll not know us. Haven't
+we been waiting two months for a chance to spoil you?"
+
+"Do you... know?" she whispered, color for an instant in her wan face.
+
+"I know things aren't half so bad as they seem to you. Dear girl, we
+are your friends. We've not done right by you. Even your mother has
+been careless and let you get hurt. But we're going to make it up to you
+now."
+
+A man on the other side of the street watched Jeff come down and cross
+to the drug store. Billie Gray, ballot box stuffer, detective, and
+general handy man for Big Tim O'Brien, had been lurking in that entry
+when Jeff came home. He had sneaked up the stairs after them and had
+seen the editor disappear into his rooms with one whom he took to be a
+woman of the street. Already a second plain clothes man was doing sentry
+duty. The policeman whose beat it was sat in the drug store and kept an
+eye open from that quarter.
+
+To the officer Jeff nodded casually. "Bad weather to be out all night
+in, Nolan."
+
+"Right you are, Mr. Farnum."
+
+The editor ordered a bottle of whiskey and while it was being put up
+passed into the telephone booth and closed the door behind him. He
+called up Olive 431.
+
+Central rang again and again.
+
+"Can't get your party," she told him at last.
+
+"You'll waken him presently. Keep at it, please. It's very important."
+
+At last Sam Miller's voice answered. "Hello! Hello! What is it?"
+
+"I've found Nellie.... Just in time. thank God...She's at my rooms....
+Have Mrs. Anderson bring an entire change of clothing for her.... Yes,
+she's very much exhausted. I'll tell you all about it later.... Come
+quietly. She may be asleep when you get here."
+
+Jeff hung up the receiver, paid for the whiskey, and returned to
+his rooms. He did not know that he had left three good and competent
+witnesses who were ready to take oath that he had brought to his rooms
+at midnight a woman of the half world and that he had later bought
+liquor and returned with it to his apartment.
+
+Billie Gray thumped his fist into his open palm. "We've got him. We've
+got him right. He can't get away from it. By Gad, we've got him at
+last!"
+
+Jeff found Nellie wrapped in his bathrobe in the big chair before the
+gas log. Her own wet clothes were out of sight behind a screen.
+
+"You locked the door when you went out," she charged.
+
+"Some of my friends might have dropped in to see me," he explained with
+his disarming smile.
+
+But he could see in her eyes the unreasoning fear of a child that has
+been badly hurt. He had locked the door on the outside. She was going to
+be dragged home whether she wanted to go or not. Dread of that hour was
+heavy on her soul. Jeff knew the choice must be hers, not his. He spoke
+quietly.
+
+"You're not a prisoner, of course. You may go whenever you like. I would
+have no right to keep you. But you will hurt me very much if you go
+before morning."
+
+"Where will you stay?" she asked.
+
+"I'll sleep on the lounge in this room," he answered in his most matter
+of fact voice.
+
+While he busied himself preparing a toddy for her she began to tell
+brokenly, by snatches, the story of her wanderings. She had gone to
+Portland and had found work in a department store at the notion counter.
+After three weeks she had lost her place. Days of tramping the streets
+looking for a job brought her at last to an overall factory where she
+found employment. The foreman had discharged her at the end of the third
+day. Once she had been engaged at an agency as a servant by a man, but
+as soon as his wife saw her Nellie was told she would not do. Bitter
+humiliating experiences had befallen her. Twice she had been turned out
+of rooming houses. Jeff read between the lines that as her time drew
+near some overmastering impulse had drawn her back to Verden. Already
+she was harboring the thought of death, but she could not die in a
+strange place so far from home. Only that morning she had reached town.
+
+After she had retired to the bedroom Jeff sat down in the chair she
+had vacated. He heard her moving about for a short time. Presently came
+silence.
+
+It must have been an hour and a half later that Sam and Mrs. Anderson
+knocked gently on the door.
+
+"Cars stopped running. Had to 'phone for a taxi," Miller whispered.
+
+The agitation of the mother was affecting. Her fingers twitched with
+nervousness. Her eyes strayed twenty times in five minutes toward the
+door behind which her daughter slept. Every little while she would
+tip-toe to it and listen breathlessly. In whispers Jeff told them the
+story, answering a hundred eager trembling questions.
+
+Slowly the clock ticked out the seconds of the endless night. Gray day
+began to sift into the room. Mrs. Anderson's excursions to the bedroom
+door grew more frequent. Sometimes she opened it an inch or two. On one
+of these occasions she went in quickly and shut the door behind her.
+
+"Good enough. They don't need us here, Sam. We'll go out and have some
+breakfast," Jeff proposed.
+
+On the street they met Billie Gray. He greeted the editor with a knowing
+grin. "Good morning, Mr. Farnum. How's everything? Fine and dandy, eh?"
+
+Jeff looked at him sharply. "What the mischief is he doing here?" he
+asked Miller by way of comment.
+
+All through breakfast that sinister little figure shadowed his thoughts.
+Gray was like a stormy petrel. He was surely there for no good, barring
+the chance of its being an accident. Both of them kept their eyes open
+on their way back, but they met nobody except a policeman swinging his
+club as he leaned against a lamp post and whistled the Merry Widow waltz.
+
+But Farnum was not satisfied. He cautioned both Sam and Mrs. Anderson
+to say nothing, above all to give no names or explanation to anybody. A
+whisper of the truth would bring reporters down on them in shoals.
+
+"You had better stay here quietly to-day," their host advised. "I'll see
+you're not disturbed by the help. Sam will bring your meals in from a
+restaurant. I'd say stay here as long as you like, but it can't be done
+without arousing curiosity, the one thing we don't want."
+
+"No, better leave late to-night in a taxi," Sam proposed.
+
+"Better still, I'll bring around Captain Chunn's car and Sam can drive
+you home. We can't be too careful."
+
+So it was arranged. Mrs. Anderson left it to them and went back into the
+bedroom where her wounded lamb lay.
+
+About midnight Jeff stopped a car in front of the stairway. The two
+veiled women emerged, accompanied by Sam. They were helped into the
+tonneau and Miller took the driver's seat. Just as the machine began to
+move a little man ran across the street toward them.
+
+Jeff's forearm went up suddenly and caught him under the chin. Billie
+Gray's head went back and his heels came up. Farnum was on him in an
+instant, ostensibly to help him up, but really to see he did not get
+up too quickly. As soon as the automobile swung round the corner Jeff
+lifted him to his feet.
+
+"Sorry. Hope I didn't hurt you," he smiled.
+
+"Smart trick, wasn't it?" snarled the detective. "Never mind, Mr.
+Farnum. We've got your goat right."
+
+"Again?" Jeff asked with pleasant impudence.
+
+"Got you dead to rights this trip." Gray fired another shot as he turned
+away. "And we'll find out yet who your lady friends are. Don't you
+forget it."
+
+But Billie had overlooked a bet. He had been in the back of the drug
+store getting a drink when Sam and Mrs. Anderson arrived. The policeman
+on guard had not connected the coming of these with Jeff. None of the
+watchers knew that Jeff had not been alone with the girl all night.
+
+
+Part 5
+
+Sam called on Jeff two days later.
+
+"I want you to come round to-night at seven-fifteen. We're going to be
+married," he explained.
+
+The newspaper man's eye met his in a swift surprise. "You and Nellie?"
+
+"Yes." Miller's jaw set. "Why not? YOU'RE not going to spring that
+damned cant about--"
+
+"I thought you knew me better," his friend interrupted.
+
+Miller's face worked. "I'll ask your pardon for that, Jeff. You've been
+the best friend she has. Well, we've thrashed it all out. She fought her
+mother and me two days; didn't think it right to let me give my name to
+her, even though she admits she has come to care for me. You can see how
+she would be torn two ways. It's the only road out for her and the baby
+that is on the way, but she couldn't bring herself to sacrifice me, as
+she calls it. I've hammered and hammered at her that it's no sacrifice.
+She can't see it; just cries and cries."
+
+"Of course she would be unusually sensitive; Her nerves must be all bare
+so that she shrinks as one does when a wound is touched."
+
+"That's it. She keeps speaking of herself as if she were a lost soul.
+At last we fairly wore her out. After we are married her mother and she
+will take the eight o'clock for Kenton. Nobody there knows them, and
+she'll have a chance to forget."
+
+"You're a white man, Sam," Jeff nodded lightly. But his eyes were
+shining.
+
+"I'm the man that loves her. I couldn't do less, could I?"
+
+"Some men would do a good deal less."
+
+"Not if they looked at it the way I do. She's the same Nellie I've
+always known. What difference does it make to me that she stumbled in
+the dark and hurt herself--except that my heart is so much more tender
+to her it aches?"
+
+"If you hold to that belief she'll live to see the day when she is a
+happy woman again," the journalist prophesied.
+
+"I'm going to teach her to think of it all as only a bad nightmare she's
+been through." His jaw clinched again so that the muscles stood out
+on his cheeks. "Do you know she won't say a word--not even to her
+mother--about who the villain is that betrayed her? I'd wring his coward
+neck off for him," he finished with a savage oath.
+
+"Better the way it is, Sam. Let her keep her secret.. The least said and
+thought about it the better."
+
+Miller looked at his watch. "Perhaps you're right. I've got to go to
+work. Remember, seven-fifteen sharp. We need you as a witness. Just your
+business suit, you understand. No present, of course."
+
+The wedding took place in the room where Jeff had been used to drinking
+chocolate with his little friend only a year before. It was the first
+time he had been here since that night when the danger signal had
+flashed so suddenly before his eyes. The whole thing came back to him
+poignantly.
+
+It was a pitiful little wedding, with the bride and her mother in tears
+from the start. The ceremony was performed by their friend Mifflin, the
+young clergyman who had a mission for sailors on the waterfront. Nobody
+else was present except Marchant, the second witness.
+
+As soon as the ceremony was finished Sam put Nellie and her mother into
+a cab to take them to their train. The other three walked back down
+town.
+
+As Jeff sat before his desk four hours later, busy with a tax levy
+story, Miller came in and took a seat. Jeff waved a hand at him and
+promptly forgot he was on earth until he rose and put on his coat an
+hour later.
+
+"Well! Did they get off all right?" he asked.
+
+Miller nodded absently. Ten minutes later he let out what he was
+thinking about.
+
+"I wish to God I knew the man," he exploded.
+
+Jeff looked at him quietly. "I'm glad you don't. Adding murder to it
+wouldn't help the situation one little bit, my friend."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14
+
+     Only the man who is sheet-armored in a triple plate of
+     selfishness can be sure that weak hands won't clutch at him
+     and delay his march to success.--From the Note Book of a
+     Dreamer.
+
+
+THE HERO, CONFRONTED WITH AN UNPLEASANT POSSIBILITY, PROVES HIS
+GREATNESS BY RISING SUPERIOR TO SENTIMENT
+
+
+Part 1
+
+James came down to the office one morning in his car with a smile of
+contentment on his handsome face. It had been decided that he was to be
+made speaker of the House after the next election, assuming that he
+and his party were returned to power. Jeff and the progressives were to
+stand back of him, and he felt sure that after a nominal existence the
+standpatters would accept him. He intended by scrupulous fair play to
+win golden opinions for himself. From the speakership to the governor's
+chair would not be a large step. After that--well, there were many
+possibilities.
+
+He did not for a moment admit to himself that there was anything of
+duplicity in the course he was following. His intention was to line up
+with the progressives during the campaign, to win his reelection on that
+platform, and to support a rational liberal program during the session.
+He would favor an initiative and referendum amendment not so radical as
+the one Jeff offered, a bill that would not cripple business or alarm
+capital. As he looked at it life was a compromise. The fusion of many
+minds to a practical result always demanded this. And results were more
+important than any number of theories.
+
+As James passed into his office the stenographer stopped him with a
+remark.
+
+"A man has been in twice to see you this morning, Mr. Farnum."
+
+"Did he leave his name?"
+
+"No. He said he would call again."
+
+James passed into his private office and closed the door.
+
+A quarter of an hour later his stenographer knocked. "He's here again,
+Mr. Farnum."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The man I told you of."
+
+"Oh!" James put down the brief he was reading. "Show him in."
+
+A figure presently stood hesitating in the doorway. James saw an oldish
+man, gray and stooped with a rather wistful lost-dog expression on his
+face.
+
+"What can I do for you, sir?" he questioned.
+
+"Don't you know me?" the stranger asked with a quaver in his voice.
+
+The lawyer did not, but some premonition of disaster clutched at his
+heart. He rose swiftly and closed the door behind his caller.
+
+A faint smile doubtful of its right touched the weak face of the little
+old man. "So you don't know your own father--boy!"
+
+A sudden sickness ran through the lawyer and sapped his strength. He
+leaned against the desk uncertainly. It had come at last. The whole
+world would learn the truth about him. The Merrills, the Fromes,
+Valencia Van Tyle--all of them would know it and scorn him.
+
+"What are you doing here?" James heard himself say hoarsely.
+
+"Why, I--I--I came to see my son."
+
+"What for?"
+
+Before so harsh and abrupt a reception the weak smile went out like a
+blown candle.
+
+"I thought you'd be glad to see me--after so many years."
+
+"Why should I be glad to see you? What have you ever done for me but
+disgrace me?"
+
+Tears showed in the watery eyes. "That's right. It's gospel truth, I
+reckon."
+
+"And now, when I've risen above it, so that all men respect me, you come
+back to drag me down."
+
+"No--no, I wouldn't do that, son."
+
+"That's what you'll do. Do you think my friends will want to know a man
+who is the son of a convict? I've got a future before me. Already I've
+been mentioned for governor. What chance would I have when people know
+my father is a thief?"
+
+"Son," winced the old man.
+
+"Oh, well! I'm not picking my words," James went on with angry
+impatience. "I'm telling you the facts. I've got enemies. Every strong
+man has. They'll smash me like an empty eggshell."
+
+"They don't need to know about me. I'll not do any talking."
+
+"That's all very well. Things leak out," James grumbled a little more
+graciously. "Well, you better sit down now you're here. I thought you
+were living in Arkansas."
+
+"So I am. I've done right well there. And I thought I'd take a little
+run out to see you. I didn't know but what you might need a little
+help." He glanced aimlessly around the well-furnished office. "But I
+expect you don't, from the looks of things."
+
+"If you think I've got money you're wrong," James explained. "I'm just
+starting in my profession, and of course I owe a good deal here and
+there. I've been hard pressed ever since I left college."
+
+His father brightened up timidly. "I owe you money. We can fix that up.
+I've got a little mill down there and I've done well, though it was hard
+sledding at first."
+
+James caught at a phrase. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Owe me money!
+
+"I knew it must be you paid off the shortage at the Planters' National.
+When I sent the money it was returned. You'd got ahead of me. I was THAT
+grateful to you, son."
+
+The lawyer found himself flushing. "Oh, Jeff paid that. He was earning
+money at the time and I wasn't. Of course I intended to pay him back
+some day."
+
+"Did Jeff do that? Then you and he must be friends. Tell me about him."
+
+"There's not much to tell. He's managing editor of a paper here that has
+a lot of influence. Yes. Jeff has been a staunch friend to me always.
+He recognizes that I'm a rising man and ought to be kept before the
+public."
+
+"I wonder if he's like his father."
+
+"Can't tell you that," his son replied carelessly. "I don't remember
+Uncle Phil much. Jeff's a queer fellow, full of Utopian notions about
+brotherhood and that sort of thing. But he's practical in a way. He gets
+things done in spite of his softheadedness."
+
+There was a knock at the door. "Mr. Jefferson Farnum, sir."
+
+James considered for a second. "Tell him to come in, Miss Brooks."
+
+The lawyer saw that the door was closed before he introduced Jeff to his
+father. It gave him a momentary twinge of conscience to see his cousin
+take the old man quickly by both hands. It was of course a mere detail,
+but James had not yet shaken hands with his father.
+
+"I'm glad to see you, Uncle Robert," Jeff said.
+
+His voice shook a little. There was in his manner that hint of affection
+which made him so many friends, the warmth that suggested a woman's
+sympathy, but not effeminacy.
+
+The ready tears brimmed into his uncle's eyes. "You're like your father,
+boy. I believe I would have known you by him," he said impulsively.
+
+"You couldn't please me better, sir. And what about James--would you
+have known him?"
+
+The old man looked humbly at his handsome, distinguished son. "No, I
+would never have known him."
+
+"He's becoming one of our leading citizens, James is. You ought to hear
+him make a speech. Demosthenes and Daniel Webster hide their heads when
+the Honorable James K. Farnum spellbinds," Jeff joked.
+
+"I've read his speeches," the father said unexpectedly. "For more than a
+year I've taken the _World_ so as to hear of him."
+
+"Then you know that James is headed straight for the Hall of Fame.
+Aren't you, James?"
+
+"Nonsense! You've as much influence in the state as I have, or you would
+have if you would drop your fight on wealth."
+
+"Bless you, I'm not making a fight on wealth," Jeff answered with good
+humor. "It's illicit wealth we're hammering at. But when you compare me
+to James K. I'll have to remind you that I'm not a silver-tongued orator
+or Verden's favorite son."
+
+The father's wistful smile grew bolder. Somehow Jeff's arrival had
+cleared the atmosphere. A Scriptural phrase flashed into his mind as
+applicable to this young man. Thinketh no evil. His nephew did not
+regard him with suspicion or curiosity. To him he was not a sinner or
+an outcast, but a brother. His manner had just the right touch of easy
+deference youth ought to give age.
+
+"Of course you're going to make us a long visit, Uncle Robert."
+
+The old man's propitiating gaze went to his son. "Not long, I reckon.
+I've got to get back to my business."
+
+"Nonsense! We'll not let you go so easily. Eh, James?"
+
+"No, of course not," the lawyer mumbled. He was both annoyed and
+embarrassed.
+
+"I don't want to be selfish about it, but I do think you had better put
+up with me, Uncle. James is at the University Club, and only members
+have rooms there. We'll let him come and see you if he's good," Jeff
+went on breezily.
+
+James breathed freer. "That might be the best way, if it wouldn't put
+you out, Jeff."
+
+"I wouldn't want to be any trouble," the old man explained.
+
+"And you won't be. I want you. James wants you, too, but he can't very
+well arrange it. I can. So that's settled."
+
+In his rooms that evening Jeff very gently made clear to his uncle that
+Verden believed him to be his son.
+
+"If you don't mind, sir, we'll let it go that way in public. We don't
+want to hurt the political chances of James just now. And there are
+other things, too. He'll tell you about them himself probably."
+
+"That's all right. Just as you say. I don't want to disturb things."
+
+"I adopted you as a father about a year ago without your permission. It
+won't do for you to give me away now," the nephew laughed.
+
+Robert Farnum nodded without speaking. A lump choked his throat. He had
+found a son after all, but not the one he had come to meet.
+
+
+Part 2
+
+At the ensuing election the progressives swept the state in spite of
+all that the allied corporations could do. James was returned to the
+legislature with an increased majority and was elected speaker of
+the House according to program. His speech of acceptance was the most
+eloquent that had ever been heard in the assembly hall. The most radical
+of his party felt that the committees appointed by him were in their
+personnel a little too friendly to the vested interests of Verden,
+but the _World_ took the high ground that he could render his party no
+higher service than absolute fair play, that the bills for the rights of
+the people ought to pass on their merits and not by tricky politics.
+
+Never before had there been seen at the State House a lobby like the
+one that filled it now. The barrel was tapped so that the glint of gold
+flowed through the corridors, into committee rooms, and to out of the
+way corners where legislators fought for their honor against an attack
+that never ceased. Sometimes the corruption was bold. More often it
+was insidious. To see how one by one men hitherto honest surrendered to
+bribery was a sight pathetic and tragic.
+
+The Farnum cousins were the centers around whom the reformers rallied.
+James directed their counsels in the House and Jeff pounded away in the
+_World_ with vital trenchant editorials and news stories. Every day
+that paper carried to the farthest corner of the state bulletins of the
+battle. Farmers and miners and laboring men watched its roll of honor to
+see if the local representatives were standing firm. As the weeks
+passed the fight grew more bitter. Now and again men fell by the wayside
+disgraced. But the pressure from their constituents was so strong that
+Jeff believed his bill would go through.
+
+His friends forced it through the committee and pushed it to a vote.
+House Bill 33, as the initiative and referendum amendment was called,
+passed the lower legislative body with a small majority. The pool rooms
+offered five to four that it would carry in the senate.
+
+It was on the night of the twenty-first of December that the amendment
+passed the House. On the morning of the twenty-third the _Herald_ sprang
+a front page sensation. It charged that the editor of the _World_ had
+ruined a girl named Nellie Anderson at a house where he had boarded and
+that she had subsequently disappeared. It featured also a story of how
+he had been seen to enter his rooms at midnight with a woman of the
+street, who remained there until morning reveling with him. Attached to
+this were the affidavits of two detectives, a police officer, and the
+druggist who had furnished the liquor.
+
+The story exploded like a bomb shell in the camp of the progressives.
+Rawson tried at once without success to get Jeff on the telephone. He
+was not at the office, nor had he reached his rooms at all after leaving
+the _World_ building on the previous night. None of his friends had seen
+or heard of him.
+
+The afternoon papers had a sensation of their own. Jefferson Farnum had
+left Verden secretly without leaving an address. Evidently he had been
+given a hint of the exposure that was to be made of his life and had
+decamped rather than face the charges.
+
+Rumor had a hundred tales to tell. The waverers at the State House chose
+to believe that Jeff had sold them out and fled with his price. It was
+impossible to deny the stories of his immorality, since it happened that
+Sam Miller, the only man who knew the whole story, was far up in the
+mountains arranging for a shipment of Rocky Mountain sheep to the
+state museum. Farnum's friends could only affirm their faith in him
+or surrender. Some gave way, some stood firm. The lobbyists and the
+opposition went about with confident, "I-told-you-so" smiles writ large
+on their faces. Within a few days it became apparent that the reform
+bill would be defeated in the senate. Its fate had been so long tied
+up with the people's belief in Jeff that with his collapse the general
+opinion condemned it to defeat. Its friends hung back, unwilling to risk
+a vote as yet.
+
+The situation called for a leader and developed one. James Farnum
+stepped into the breach and took command. In a ringing speech he called
+for a new alignment. He would yield to none in the devotion he had given
+to House Bill Number 33. But it needed no prophet to see that now
+this amendment was doomed. Better half a loaf than no bread. He was a
+practical man and wanted to see practical results. Rather than see
+the will of the people frustrated he felt that House Bill I7 should
+be passed. While not an ideal bill it was far better than none. The
+principle of direct legislation at least would be established.
+
+H. B. No. I7 was brought hurriedly out of committee. It had been
+introduced as a substitute measure to defeat the real reform. According
+to its provision legislation could be initiated by the people, but
+to make it valid as a law the legislature had to approve any bill so
+passed. The people could advise. They could not compel.
+
+The speech of the speaker of the House precipitated a bitter fight. The
+more eager friends of H. B. No. 33 accused him of treachery, but
+many felt that it was the best possible practical politics under the
+circumstances. For weeks the issue hung in doubt, but gradually James
+gathered adherents among both progressives and conservatives. It became
+almost a foregone conclusion that H. B. No. I7 would pass.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15
+
+     "Old Capting Pink of the Peppermint,
+       Though kindly at heart and good,
+     Had a blunt, bluff way of a-gittin' 'is say
+       That we all of us understood.
+
+     When he brained a man with a pingle spike
+       Or plastered a seaman flat,
+     We should 'a' been blowed but we all of us knowed
+       That he didn't mean nothin' by that.
+
+     I was wonderful fond of old Capting Pink,
+       And Pink he was fond o' me,
+     As he frequently said when he battered me head
+       Or sousled me into the sea."
+     --Wallace Irwin.
+
+
+BULLY GREEN PRESERVES DISCIPLINE AND THE REBEL LEARNS TO SAY "SIR"
+
+
+Part 1
+
+On the night of the twenty-second of December Jeff left the _World_
+building and moved down Powers Avenue to the all night restaurant he
+usually frequented. The man who was both cook and waiter remembered
+afterwards that Farnum called for coffee, sausage, and a waffle.
+
+Before the editor left the waffle house it was the morning of the
+twenty-third. He had never felt less sleepy. Nor did a book and a pipe
+before his gas log seem quite what he wanted. The vagabond streak in him
+was awake, the same potent wanderlust that as a boy had driven him to
+the solitude of the forests and the hills. This morning it sent him
+questing down Powers Avenue to that lower town where the derelicts of
+the city floated without a rudder.
+
+A cold damp mist had crept up from the water front and enwrapped the
+city so that its lights showed like blurred moons. Some instinct took
+him toward the wharves. He could hear the distant cough of a tug as
+it fussed across the bay, and as he drew near the big Transcontinental
+wharves of Joe Powers the black hulk of a Japanese liner rose black out
+of the gray fog shadow. But the freighters, the coasters, tramps that
+went hither and thither over the earth wherever fat cargoes lured
+them--they were either swallowed in the mist or shadowed to a ghost-like
+wraith of themselves so tenuous that all detail was lost in the haze.
+
+Jeff leaned on a pile and let his imagination people the harbor with
+the wandering children of the earth who had been drawn from all its
+seafaring corners to this Mecca of trade. He knew that here were swarthy
+little Japanese with teas and silks, dusky Kanakas with copra, and
+Alaskan liners carrying gold and returning miners. There would be
+brigs from Buenos Ayres and schooners that had nosed into Robert Louis
+Stevenson's magic South Sea islands. Puffy London steamers, Nome and
+Skagway liners condemned long since on the Atlantic Coast, queer rigged
+hybrids from Rio and other South American ports, were gorging themselves
+with lumber or wheat or provisions according to their needs. Here truly
+lay before him the romance of the nations.
+
+The sound of a stealthy footfall warned him of impending danger.
+He whirled, and faced three men who were advancing on him. A vague
+suspicion that had oppressed him more than once in the past week leaped
+to definite conviction in his brain. He was the victim of a plot to
+waylay--perhaps to murder him. One of these men was a huge Swede,
+another a swarthy Italian with rings in his ears. He had seen them
+before, lurking in the shadows of an alley outside the _World_ building.
+Last night he had come out from the office with Jenkins, which no doubt
+had saved him for the time. This morning he had played into the hands
+of these men, had obligingly wandered down to the waterfront where they
+could so easily conceal murder in a tide running out fast.
+
+Strangely enough he felt no fear; rather a fierce exultant drumming of
+the blood that braced him for the struggle. His eyes swept the wharf for
+a weapon and found none.
+
+"What do you want?" he demanded sharply.
+
+The man in command ignored his question. "Stand by and down him."
+
+The Italian crouched and leaped. Jeff's fist caught him fairly between
+the eyes. He went down like a log, rolled over once and lay still. The
+others closed instantly with Farnum and the three swayed in a fierce
+silent struggle.
+
+Both of his attackers were more powerful than Jeff, but he was far more
+active. The darkness, too, aided him and hampered them. The Swede he
+could have managed, for the fellow was awkward as a bear. But the leader
+stuck to him like a burr. They went down together over a cleat in the
+flooring, rolling over and over each other as they fought.
+
+Somehow Jeff emerged out of the tangle. He dragged himself to his knees
+and hammered with his fist at an upturned face beside him. Battered,
+bleeding, and winded, he got to his feet and shook off the hands that
+reached for him. Dodging past, he lurched along the wharf like a drunken
+man. The Italian had gathered himself to his knees. When Jeff came
+opposite him he dived like a football tackle and threw his arms
+around the moving legs. The newspaper man crashed heavily down to
+unconsciousness.
+
+When Farnum opened his eyes upon a world strangely hazy he found himself
+lying in a row boat, his head bolstered by a man's knees.
+
+"Drink this, mate," ordered a voice that seemed very far away.
+
+The neck of a bottle was thrust between his lips and tilted so that he
+could not escape drinking.
+
+"That dope'll hold him for a while, Say, Johnny Dago, put your back into
+them oars," he heard indistinctly.
+
+Faintly there came to him the slap of the waves against the side of the
+boat. These presently died rhythmically away.
+
+It was daylight when he awakened again. His throbbing head slowly
+definitized the vile hole in which he lay as the forecastle of a ship.
+Gradually the facts sifted back to him. He recalled the fight on the
+wharf and the drink in the boat. In this last he suspected knockout
+drops. That he had been shanghaied was beyond suspicion.
+
+Laboriously he sat up on the side of his bunk and in doing so became
+aware of a sailor asleep in the crib opposite. His stertorous breathing
+stirred a doubt in Jeff's mind. Perhaps the crimps had taken him too.
+
+The ship was rolling a good deal, but by a succession of tacks Jeff
+staggered to the scuttle and climbed the hatchway to the deck. A wintry
+sun was shining, and for a few moments he stood blinking in the light.
+
+She was a three-masted schooner and was plunging forward into the choppy
+seas outside the jaws of the harbor. He whiffed the salt tang of the air
+and tasted the flying spray. An ebb tide was lifting the vessel forward
+on a freshening wind, and trim as a greyhound she slipped through the
+cat's-paws.
+
+A thickset, powerful figure paced to and fro on the quarter-deck,
+occasionally bellowing an order in a tremendous voice like the roar of
+a bull. He was getting canvas set for the fresh breeze of the open seas
+that was catching him astern, and the sailors were jumping to obey his
+orders. The pounding sails and the singing cordage, the rattling blocks
+and the whipping ropes, would have told Jeff they were scudding along
+fast, even if the heeling of the schooner and its swift forward leaps
+had not made it plain.
+
+"By God, Jones, she's walking," he heard the captain boom across to the
+mate.
+
+Just then a figure cut past him and made straight for the captain.
+Farnum recognized in it the sailor whom he had left asleep in the
+forecastle and even in that fleeting glance was aware of the man's livid
+fury. Up the steps he went like a wild beast.
+
+"What kind of a boat is this?" he panted hoarsely.
+
+The captain turned toward him. His eyes were shining wickedly, but his
+voice was ominously suave and honeyed. "This boat, son, is a threemasted
+schooner, name of _Nancy Hanks_, Master Joshua Green, bound for the
+Solomon Islands with a cargo of Oregon fir."
+
+"I've been shanghaied. This is a nest of crimps," the man screamed.
+
+Joshua Green's salient jaw came forward. "Been shanghaied, have you?
+And we're a nest of crimps, are we? Son, the less I hear of that line of
+talk the better. Put that in your pipe and smoke it."
+
+The man turned loose a flood of profanity and swore he would rot in hell
+before he would touch a rope on that ship.
+
+Out went Green's great gnarled fist. The seaman shot back from the
+quarterdeck and struck a pile of rope below. He was up again and down
+again almost quicker than it takes to tell. Three times he hit the
+planks before he lay still.
+
+The captain stood over him, his eyes blazing. He looked the savage,
+barbaric slavedriver he was.
+
+"Me, I'm Bully Green, and don't you forget it. Been shanghaied, have
+you? Not going to touch a rope? Then, by thunder, you white-livered
+beachcomber, a rope will touch you till you're flayed. Get this in your
+coconut. You'll walk chalk, you lazy son of a sea cook, or I'll haze
+you till you wish you'd never been born." He punctuated his remarks with
+vigorous kicks. "Bully Green runs this tub, strike me dead if he
+don't. Now you hump for'ard and clap a hand to them sheets. Walk, you
+shanghaied Dutchman!"
+
+The sailor crawled away, completely cowed. For one day he had had more
+than enough. The captain watched him for a moment, his great jaw thrust
+grimly out. Then, as on a pivot, he whirled toward Jeff.
+
+"Come here, you! Step lively, Sport!"
+
+Farnum wondered whether he was about to undergo an experience similar to
+that of the sailor. "Do you want to know what kind of a ship this is?"
+
+"No, sir. I'm perfectly satisfied about that," smiled his victim.
+
+"Got no opinions you want to hand out free, son?"
+
+"Think I'll keep them bottled."
+
+"Say 'sir,' Sport!"
+
+"Yes, sir," answered Farnum, his quiet eyes steady and unafraid.
+
+"When I give an order you expect to jump?"
+
+"Jump isn't the word."
+
+"Sir!" thundered Green, and "Sir" the newspaper man corrected himself.
+
+"Got no story to spiel about being shanghaied, son?"
+
+"Would it do any good, sir?"
+
+"Not unless you're aching to get what that son of a Dutchman got. See
+here, sport! You walk the chalk line, and Bully Green and you'll get
+along fine. I'm a lamb, I am, when I'm not riled. But get gay--and
+you'll have a hectic time. I'll rough you till you're shark-food. Get
+that through your teeth?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Now you trot down to the fo'c'sle and dive into them slops you find
+there. You got just three minutes to do the dress-suit act."
+
+Jeff, as he passed below, could hear the great bull voice roaring orders
+to the men. "Set y'r topsails! Jam 'er down hard, Johnnie Dago! Stand
+by, you lubbers!... Now then, easy does it... easy!"
+
+Within the allotted three minutes Farnum had climbed into the foul
+oilskin coat and tarry breeches he found below and was ready for orders.
+
+"Clap on to that windlass, sport! No loafing here.... Hump y'rself. D'ye
+hear me? Hump?"
+
+Jeff threw his one hundred and fifty pounds of bone and muscle against
+the crank of the windlass. Some men would have fought first as long
+as they could stand and see. Others would have begged, argued, or
+threatened. But Jeff had schooled himself to master impulses of rage.
+He knew when to fight and when to yield. Nor did he give way sullenly or
+passionately. It was an outrage--highhanded tyranny--but at the worst
+it was a magnificent adventure. As he flung his weight into the crank he
+smiled.
+
+
+Part 2
+
+Before the trade winds the _Nancy Hanks_ foamed along day after day, all
+sails set, making excellent time. But for his anxiety as to the effect
+his disappearance would have upon the political situation, Jeff would
+have enjoyed immensely the wild rough life aboard the schooner. But he
+could not conceal from himself the interpretation of his absence the
+machine agents would scatter broadcast. He foresaw a reaction against
+his bill and its probable defeat.
+
+The issue was on the knees of chance. The fact that could not be
+obliterated was that he had been wiped from the slate until after the
+legislature would adjourn. For every hour was carrying him farther from
+the scene of action.
+
+His only hope was that the _Nancy Hanks_ might put in at the Hawaiian
+Islands, from which place he might get a chance to write, or, better
+still, to cable the reason of his absence. Captain Green himself wiped
+out this expectation. He jocosely intimated to Farnum one afternoon that
+he had no intention of calling the Islands.
+
+"When we get through this six months' cruise you'll be a first-rate
+sailorman, son, and you'll get a sailorman's wages," he added genially.
+
+The shanghaied man met his eye squarely. "I think I could arrange
+to draw on Verden for a thousand dollars if you would drop me at the
+Islands."
+
+"Not for twenty thousand. You're going to stay with us till we get to
+the Solomon Islands, and don't you forget it."
+
+Bully Green had taken rather a fancy to this amiable young man who had
+taken so sensible a view of the little misadventure that had befallen
+him, but of course business was business. He had been paid to keep him
+out of the way and he intended to fulfil the contract.
+
+"Here I'm educatin' you, makin' an able-bodied seaman out of you, son.
+You had ought to be grateful," he grinned.
+
+"Oh, I am," Jeff agreed with a twinkle.
+
+But Captain Green had reckoned without the weather. The _Nancy Hanks_
+drifted into three days of calm and sultry heat. At the end of the third
+day she began to rock gently beneath a murky sky.
+
+"Dirty weather," predicted the mate, the same who had assisted at the
+shanghaing. "When you see a satin sea turn indigo and that peculiar
+shade in the sky you want to look out for squalls," he explained to
+Jeff.
+
+It came on them in a rush. The sun went out of a black sky like a blown
+candle and the sea began to whip itself to a froth. The wind quickened,
+boomed to a roar, and sent the schooner heeling to a squall across the
+leaden waters. The open sea closed in on them. Before they could get in
+sail and make secure the sheets ripped with a scream, braces parted and
+the topmasts snapped off. The _Nancy_ went pitching forward into the
+yawning deeps with drunken plunges from which it seemed she would never
+emerge. Great combing seas toppled down and pounded the decks, while the
+sailors clung to stays or whatever would give them a hold.
+
+The squall lasted scarce an hour, but it left the schooner dismantled.
+Her sheets were in ribbons, her topmasts and bowsprit gone. There was
+nothing for it but a crippled beat toward the Islands.
+
+Four days later she made an offing in the harbor at Honolulu just as a
+liner was nosing her way out.
+
+Bully Green ranged up beside Farnum and cast a speculative eye on him.
+
+"Sport, I had ought to iron you and keep you in the fo'c'sle until we
+leave here. It's the only square thing to do."
+
+Jeff's gaze was on the advancing steamer. She was scarce two hundred
+yards away now and he could plainly read the name painted on her side.
+She was the _Bellingham_ of Verden.
+
+"I don't see the necessity, sir," he answered.
+
+"I reckon you do, son. Samuel Green stands by his word to a finish. Now
+I've promised to keep you safe, and you can bet your last dollar I'm
+a-going to do it."
+
+His prisoner turned from the rail against which he was leaning to the
+captain. Pinpoints of light were gleaming in the big eyes.
+
+"How much safer do you want me than this?"
+
+Green expectorated at a chip in the water and shifted his quid. "You've
+got brains, son. No telling what you might try to do. But see here.
+You're no drunken beachcomber. I know a gentleman when I see one. Gimme
+your word you'll not try to skip out or send a message back to the
+States and I'll go easy on you. I'm so dashed kindhearted, I am, that--"
+
+Jeff leaped to the rail, stood poised an instant, and dived into the
+blue Pacific.
+
+"Well, I'll be," Bully Green interrupted himself to roar an order to
+lower a boat.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 16
+
+     A young man left his father's house to see the world.
+     Everywhere he found busy human beings. Cities were rising
+     toward the skies, seas and plains were being lined with
+     traffic, school, mill and office hummed with life. He
+     wondered why men were so busy and what they were trying to
+     do.
+
+     He went to a railroad director and asked: "Why are you
+     building railroads?" "For profits," was the answer. But a
+     laborer beckoned him aside and whispered: "No--we are making
+     the _World_ one neighborhood. East is now next door to West,
+     and all peoples dwell in one continuing city."
+
+     The young man went to the boss of a labor union. "Why," he
+     asked, "do you spend your days breeding discontent and
+     leading strikes?" "Why?" repeated the leader fiercely, "that
+     the workers receive more pay for shorter hours." "No,"
+     whispered a laborer, "we are teaching the _World_ the sacred
+     value of human beings. We are learning how to be brotherly--
+     how to stand up for each other.--James Oppenheim.
+
+
+UNDER STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCES THE REBEL MAKES HIS BOW TO POLITE SOCIETY.
+TAKING AN APPLE AS A TEXT, HE PREACHES ON THE RISE OF ADAM
+
+
+Part 1
+
+"Man overboard!"
+
+Somebody on the liner sang it out. Instantly there was a rush of
+passengers to the side. From the schooner a boat was being lowered and
+manned.
+
+"I see him. He's swimming this way. I believe he's trying to escape,"
+one slender young woman cried.
+
+"Nonsense, Alice! He fell overboard and he's probably so frightened he
+doesn't know which way he is swimming." This suggestion was from the
+beautiful blonde with bronze hair who stood beside her under a tan
+parasol held by a fresh-faced globetrotter.
+
+"Don't you believe it, Val. Look how he's cutting through the water.
+He's trying to reach us. Oh, I hope they won't get him. Somebody get a
+rope to throw out."
+
+"By Jove, you're right, Miss Alice," cried the Englishman. "It's a race,
+and it's going to be a near thing." He disappeared and was presently
+back with a rope.
+
+"Come on! Come on!" screamed the passengers to the swimmer.
+
+"He's ripping strong with that overhead stroke. Ye gods, it's close!"
+exclaimed the Britisher.
+
+It was. The swimmer reached the side of the ship not four yards in
+front of the pursuing boat. He caught at the trailing rope and began to
+clamber up hand over hand, while the Englishman, a man standing near,
+and Alice Frome dragged him up.
+
+The mate of the Nancy Hanks, standing up in the boat, caught at his foot
+and pulled. The man's hold loosened on the rope. He slid down a foot,
+steadied himself. Suddenly the left leg shot out and caught the grinning
+mate in the mouth. He went over backward into the bottom of the
+boat. Before he could extricate himself from the tangle his fall had
+precipitated, the dripping figure of the swimmer stood safely on the
+deck of the _Bellingham._
+
+In his wet foul slops the man was a sight to draw stares. The cabin
+passengers moved back to give him a wide circle, as men do with a wet
+retriever.
+
+"What does this mean, my man?" demanded the captain of the _Bellingham,_
+pushing forward. He was a big red-faced figure with a heavy roll of fat
+over his collar.
+
+"I have been shanghaied, sir. From Verden. I'm the editor of the _World_
+of that city."
+
+"That's a lie," proclaimed the mate of the _Nancy Hanks_, who by this
+time had reached the deck. "He's a nutty deckswabber we picked up at
+'Frisco."
+
+"Why, it's Mr. Farnum," cried a fresh young voice from the circle.
+
+The rescued man turned. His eyes joined those of a slim golden girl and
+he was struck dumb.
+
+"You know this man, Miss Frome?" the captain asked.
+
+"I know him by sight." She stepped to the front. "There can't be any
+doubt about it. He's Mr. Farnum of Verden, the editor of the _World._"
+
+"You're quite sure?"
+
+"Quite sure, Captain Barclay. My cousin knows him, too."
+
+The captain turned to Mrs. Van Tyle. She nodded languidly.
+
+Barclay swung back to the mate of the _Nancy Hanks_. "I know your kind,
+my man, and I can tell you that I think the penitentiary would be the
+proper place for you and your captain, with my compliments to him."
+
+"Better come and pay 'em yourself, sir," sneered the mate.
+
+"Get off my deck, you dirty crimp," roared the captain. "Slide now, or
+I'll have you thrown off."
+
+Mr. Jones made a hurried departure. Once in the boat, he shook his fist
+at Barclay and cursed him fluently.
+
+The captain turned away promptly. "Mr. Farwell, if you'll step this way
+the steward will outfit you with some clothes. If they don't fit they'll
+do better than those togs you're wearing."
+
+The English youth came forward with a suggestion. "Really, I think I can
+do better than that for Mr. Far--" He hesitated for the name.
+
+"Farnum," supplied the owner of it.
+
+"Ah! You're about my size, Mr. Farnum. If you don't mind, you know,
+you're quite welcome to anything I have."
+
+"Thank you very much."
+
+"Very well. Mr. Farwell--Farnum, I mean--shake hands with Lieutenant
+Beauchamp," and with the sense of duty done the worthy captain dismissed
+the new arrival from his mind.
+
+Jeff bowed to Miss Frome and followed his broad-shouldered guide to a
+cabin. He was conscious of an odd elation that had not entirely to do
+with a brave adventure happily ended. The impelling cause of it was
+rather the hope of a braver adventure happily begun.
+
+
+Part 2
+
+"By Jove, I envy you, Mr. Farnum. Didn't know people bucked into
+adventures like that these tame days. Think of actually being
+shanghaied. It's like a novel. My word, the ladies will make a lion of
+you!"
+
+The Englishman was dragging a steamer trunk from under his bed. It
+needed no second glance at his frank boyish face to divine him a friend
+worth having. Fresh-colored and blue-eyed, he looked very much the
+country gentleman Jeff had read about but never seen. It was perhaps by
+the gift of race that he carried himself with distinction, though the
+flat straight back and the good shoulders of the cricketer contributed
+somewhat, too. Jeff sized him up as a resolute, clean-cut fellow,
+happily endowed with many gifts of fortune to make him the likable chap
+he was.
+
+Beauchamp threw out some clothes from a steamer trunk and left the
+rescued man alone to dress. Ten minutes later he returned.
+
+"Expect you'd like an interview with the barber. I'll take you round. By
+the way, you'll let me be your banker till you reach Verden?"
+
+"Thank you. Since I must."
+
+From the barber shop the Englishman took him to the dining saloon.
+"Awfully sorry you can't sit at our table, Mr. Farnum. It's full up.
+You're to be at the purser's."
+
+Jeff let a smile escape into his eyes. "Suits me. I've been at the
+bos'n's for several weeks."
+
+"Beastly outrage. We'll want to hear all about it. Miss Frome's
+tremendously excited. Odd you and she hadn't met before. Didn't know
+Verden was such a big town."
+
+"I'm not a society man," explained Jeff. "And it happens I've been
+fighting her father politically for years. Miss Frome and Mrs. Van Tyle
+are about the last people I would be likely to meet."
+
+From his seat Jeff could see the cousins at the other end of the room.
+They were seated near the head of the captain's table, and that
+officer was paying particular attention to them, perhaps because the
+_Bellingham_ happened to be one of a line of boats owned by Joe Powers,
+perhaps because both of them were very attractive young women. They were
+types entirely outside Farnum's very limited experience. The indolence,
+the sheathed perfection, the soft sensuous allure of the young widow
+seemed to Jeff a product largely of her father's wealth. But the charm
+of her cousin, with its sweet and mocking smile, its note of youthful
+austerity, was born of the fine and gallant spirit in her.
+
+Beauchamp sat beside Miss Frome and the editor observed that they were
+having a delightful time. He wondered what they could be talking about.
+What did a man say to bring such a glow and sparkle of life into a
+girl's face? It came to him with a wistful regret for his stolen youth
+that never yet had he sat beside a young woman at dinner and entertained
+her in the gay adequate manner of Lieutenant Beauchamp. James could do
+it, had done it a hundred times. But he had been sold too long to an
+urgent world of battle ever to know such delights.
+
+
+Part 3
+
+After dinner Jeff lost no time in waiting upon Miss Frome to thank her
+for her assistance. It was already dark. When he found her it was not
+in one of the saloons, but on deck. She was leaning against the deck
+railing in animated talk with Beauchamp, the while Mrs. Van Tyle
+listened lazily from a deck chair.
+
+"I like the way that red head of his came bobbing through the water,"
+Beauchamp was saying. "Looks to me as if he would take a lot of beating.
+He's no quitter. Since I haven't the pleasure of knowing Mr. Powers or
+Senator Frome, I think I'll back Farnum to win."
+
+"It's very plain you don't know Joe Powers. He always wins," contributed
+his daughter blandly.
+
+"But Mr. Farnum is a remarkable man just the same," Alice added. Then,
+with a little cry to cover her flushed embarrassment: "Here he is. We do
+hope you're a little deaf, Mr. Farnum. We've been talking about you."
+
+"You may say anything you like about me, Miss Frome, except that I'm not
+grateful for the lift aboard you gave me this afternoon," Jeff answered.
+
+He found himself presently giving the story of his adventure. He did not
+look at Alice, but he told the tale to her alone and was aware of the
+eagerness with which she listened.
+
+"But why should they want to kidnap you? I don't see any reason for it,"
+Alice protested.
+
+A shadowy smile lay in the eyes of Mrs. Van Tyle. "Mr. Farnum is in
+politics, my dear."
+
+A fat pork packer from Chicago joined the group. "I've been thinking
+about the sharks, Mr. Farnum. You played in great luck to escape them."
+
+"Sharks!" Jeff heard the young woman beside him give a gasp. In the
+moonlight her face showed white.
+
+"These waters are fairly infested with them," the Chicagoan explained.
+"We saw two this morning in the harbor. It was when the stewards threw
+out the scraps. They turned over on their--"
+
+"Don't!" cried Alice Frome sharply.
+
+The petrified horror on the vivid mobile face remained long as a sweet
+memory to Jeff. It had been for him that she had known the swift heart
+clutch of terror.
+
+
+Part 4
+
+Farnum, pacing the deck as he munched at an apple, heard himself
+hailed from the bridge above. He looked up, to see Alice Frome, caught
+gloriously in the wind like a winged Victory. Her hair was parted in the
+middle with a touch of Greek simplicity and fell in wavy ripples over
+her temples beneath the jaunty cap. She put her arms on the railing and
+leaned forward, her chin tilted to an oddly taking boyish piquancy.
+
+"I say, give a fellow a bite."
+
+By no catalogue of summarized details could this young woman have
+laid claim to beauty, but in the flashing play of her expression, the
+exquisite golden coloring, one could not evade the charm of a certain
+warm witchery, of the passionate beat of innocent life. The wonder of
+her lay in the sparkle of her inner self. Every gleam of the deep true
+eyes, every impulsive motion of the slight supple body, expressed some
+phase of her infinite variety. Her flying moods swept her from demure
+to daring, from warm to cool. And for all her sweet derision her friends
+knew a heart full of pure, brave enthusiasms that would endure.
+
+"I don't believe in indiscriminate charity," Jeff explained, and he took
+another bite.
+
+"Have you no sympathy for the deserving poor?" she pleaded. "Besides,
+since you're a socialist, it isn't your apple any more than it is mine.
+Bring my half up to me, sir."
+
+"Your half is the half I've already eaten. And if you knew as much as
+you pretend to about socialism you'd know it isn't yours until you've
+earned it."
+
+Her eyes danced. He noticed that beneath each of them was a sprinkle of
+tiny powdered freckles. "But haven't I earned it? Didn't I blister my
+hands pulling you aboard?"
+
+He promptly shifted ground. "We're living under the capitalistic system.
+You earn it and I eat it," he argued. "The rest of this apple is my
+reward for having appropriated what didn't belong to me."
+
+"But that's not fair. It's no better than stealing."
+
+"Sh--h! It's high finance. Don't use that other word," he whispered.
+"And what's fair hasn't a thing to do with it. It's my apple because
+I've got it."
+
+"But--"
+
+He waved her protest aside blandly. "Now try to be content with the lot
+a wise Providence has awarded you. I eat the apple. You see me eat it.
+That's the usual division of profits. Don't be an agitator, or an
+anarchist."
+
+"Don't I get even the core?" she begged.
+
+"I'd like to give it to you, but it wouldn't be best. You see I don't
+want to make you discontented with your position in life." He flung what
+was left of the apple into the sea and came up the steps to join her.
+
+Laughter was in the eyes of both, but it died out of hers first.
+
+"Mr. Farnum, is it really as bad as that?" Before he could find an
+answer she spoke again. "I've wanted for a long time to talk with some
+one who didn't look at things as we do. I mean as my father does and my
+uncle does and most of my friends. Tell me what you think of it--you and
+your friends."
+
+"That's a large order, Miss Frome. I hardly know where to begin."
+
+"Wait! Here comes Lieutenant Beauchamp to take me away. I promised to
+play ring toss with him, but I don't want to go now." She led a swift
+retreat to a spot on the upper deck shielded from the wind and warmed by
+the two huge smokestacks. Dropping breathless into a chair, she invited
+him with a gesture to take another. Little imps of mischief flashed out
+at him from her eyes. In the adventure of the escape she had made him
+partner. A rush of warm blood danced through his veins.
+
+"Now, sir, we're safe. Begin the propaganda. Isn't that the word you
+use? Tell me all about everything. You're the first real live socialist
+I ever caught, and I mean to make the most of you."
+
+"But I'm unfortunately not exactly a socialist."
+
+"An anarchist will do just as well."
+
+"Nor an anarchist. Sorry."
+
+"Oh, well, you're something that's dreadful. You haven't the proper bump
+of respect for father and for Uncle Joe. Now why haven't you?"
+
+And before he knew it this young woman had drawn from him glimpses of
+what life meant to him. He talked to her of the pressure of the struggle
+for existence, of the poverty that lies like a blight over whole
+sections of cities, spreading disease and cruelty and disorder, crushing
+the souls of its victims, poisoning their hearts and bodies. He showed
+her a world at odds and ends, in which it was accepted as the natural
+thing that some should starve while others were waited upon by servants.
+
+He made her see how the tendency of environment is to reduce all things
+to a question of selfinterest, and how the great triumphant fact of
+life is that love and kindness persist. Her interest was insatiable. She
+poured questions upon him, made him tell her stories of the things he
+had seen in that strange underworld that was farther from her than Asia.
+So she learned of Oscar Marchant, coughing all day over the shoes he
+half-soled and going out at night to give his waning life to the service
+of those who needed him. He told her--without giving names--the story
+of Sam Miller and his wife, of shop girls forced by grinding poverty to
+that easier way which leads to death, of little children driven by want
+into factories which crushed the youth out of them.
+
+Her eyes with the star flash in them never left his face. She was
+absorbed, filled with a strange emotion that made her lashes moist. She
+saw not only the tragedy and waste of life, but a glorious glimpse of
+the way out. This man and his friends set the common good above their
+private gain. For them a new heart was being born into the world. They
+were no longer consumed with blind greed, with love of their petty
+selves. They were no longer full of cowardice and distrust and enmity.
+Life was a thing beautiful to them. It was flushed with the color of
+hope, of fine enthusiasms. They might suffer. They might be defeated.
+But nothing could extinguish the joy in their souls. They walked like
+gods, immortals, these brothers to the spent and the maimed. For they
+had found spiritual values in it that made any material profit of small
+importance. Alice got a vision of the great truth that is back of all
+true reforms, all improvement, all progress.
+
+"Love," she said almost in a whisper, "is forgetting self."
+
+Jeff lost his stride and pulled up. He thought he could not have heard
+aright. "I beg your pardon?"
+
+"Nothing. I was just thinking out loud. Go on please."
+
+But she had broken the thread of his talk. He attempted to take it up
+again, but he was still trying for a lead when Alice saw Mrs. Van Tyle
+and Beauchamp coming toward them.
+
+She rose. Her eyes were the brightest Jeff had ever seen. They were
+filled with an ardent tenderness. It was as if she were wrapped in a
+spiritual exaltation.
+
+"Thank you. Thank you. I can't tell you what you've done for me."
+
+She turned and walked quickly away. To be dragged back to the
+commonplace at once was more than she could bear. First she must get
+alone with herself, must take stock of this new emotion that ran like
+wine through her blood. A pulse throbbed in her throat, for she was in a
+passionate glow of altruism.
+
+"I'm glad of life--glad of it--glad of it!" she murmured through the
+veil she had lowered to screen her face from observation.
+
+It had come to her as a revelation straight from Heaven that there can
+be no salvation without service. And the motive back of service must
+be love. Love! That was what Jesus had come to teach the world, and all
+these years it had warped and mystified his message.
+
+She felt that life could never again be gray or colorless. For there was
+work waiting that she could do, service that she could give. And surely
+there could be no greater happiness than to find her work and do it
+gladly.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 17
+
+     All sorts of absurd assumptions pass current as fixed and
+     non-debatable standards. We might be free, and we tie
+     ourselves to the slavery of rutted convention. Afraid of
+     ideas, we come to no definite philosophy of life that is the
+     result of clear and pellucid thinking.
+
+     We must get rid of our bonds, but only in order to take on
+     new ones. For our convictions will shackle us. The
+     difference is that then we shall be servants of Truth and
+     not of dead Tradition.--From the Note Book of a Dreamer.
+
+
+THE CHAPERONE EXPLAINS THAT THE REBEL IS IMPOSSIBLE AND THE CHAPERONED
+BEGS LEAVE TO DIFFER
+
+
+Part 1
+
+"And why mustn't I?" Alice demanded vigorously.
+
+Her cousin regarded her with indolent amusement. "My dear, you are
+positively the most energetic person I know. It is refreshing to see
+with what interest you enter into a discussion."
+
+Miss Frome, very erect and ready for argument, watched her steadily from
+the piano stool of their joint sitting room. "Well?"
+
+"I didn't say you mustn't, my dear. I know better than to deal in
+imperatives with Miss Alice. What I did was mildly to suggest that you
+are going rather far. It's all very well to be civil, but--" Mrs. Van
+Tyle shrugged her shoulders and let it go at that. She was leaning back
+in an easychair and across its arm her wrist hung. Between the fingers,
+polished like old ivory to the tapering pink nails, was a lighted
+cigarette.
+
+"Why shouldn't I be--pleasant to him? I like him." Her color deepened,
+but the eyes of the girl did not give way. There was in them a little
+flare of defiance.
+
+"Be pleasant to him if you like, and if it amuses you. But--" Again
+Valencia stopped, but after a puff or two at her cigarette she added
+presently: "Don't get too interested in him."
+
+"I'm not likely to," Alice returned with a touch of scorn. "Can't I
+like a man and admire him without wanting to marry him? I think that's a
+hateful way to look at it."
+
+"It's your interpretation, not mine," Mrs. Van Tyle answered with
+perfect good humor. "Of course you couldn't want to marry him under
+any circumstances. His station in life--his anarchistic ideas--his
+reputation as a confirmed libertine--all of them make the thought of
+such a thing impossible."
+
+Miss Frome's mind seized on only one of the charges. "I don't believe
+it. I don't believe a word of it. Anybody can throw mud--and some of it
+is bound to stick. He's a good man. You can see that in his face."
+
+"You can perhaps. I can't." Valencia studied her beneath a droop of
+eyelids behind which she was very alert. "Those things aren't said about
+a man unless they are true. Moreover, it happens we don't have to depend
+on hearsay."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Do you remember that night we saw the Russian dancers?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"On the way home our car passed him. He was helping a woman out of a cab
+in front of the building where he rooms. She was intoxicated, and--his
+arm was round her waist."
+
+"I don't believe it. It was somebody else," the young woman flamed.
+
+"His cousin recognized him. So did I."
+
+"There must be some explanation. I'll ask him."
+
+"Ask him!" Valencia's level eyebrows lifted "Really, I don't think that
+will do. Better quietly eliminate him."
+
+"You mean treat him as if he were guilty when, I am sure he is not."
+
+Mrs. Van Tyle's little laugh rippled out. "You're quite dramatic about
+it, my dear. The man's of no importance. He's a _poseur_, a demagogue,
+and one with a vicious streak in him. I understand, of course, that
+you're interested only because he different from the other men you know.
+That merely a part of his pose."
+
+"I'm sure it isn't."
+
+"You're romantic, my dear. I'll admit his arrival on this ship was
+dramatic. No doubt you're imagining him a knight going back to save
+gallantly a day that is lost. He's only a politician, and so far as I
+can understand they are almost all a bad lot."
+
+"Including Father and Uncle Joe and Ned Merrill?" Alice asked acidly.
+
+"They are not politicians, but business men. They are in politics merely
+to protect their interests. But I didn't intend to start a discussion
+about Mr. Farnum. I ask you to remember that as your chaperone I'm here
+to represent your father. Would he wish you to be friendly with this
+man?"
+
+Alice was silent. What her father would think was not a matter of doubt.
+
+"The man's impossible," Mrs. Van Tyle went on pleasantly. "And it's just
+as well to be careful. Not that I'm very prudish myself. But if you're
+going to marry Ned Merrill--"
+
+She had struck the wrong note. Like a flash Alice answered.
+
+"I'm not. That's definitely decided."
+
+"Really! I thought it was rather arranged," Valencia smiled blandly.
+
+It was all very well for Alice to protest, but in the end she would be
+a good girl and do as she was told. Not that her cousin objected to her
+having a little fling before the fatal day. But why couldn't the girl do
+her flirting with Beauchamp instead of with this wild socialist?
+
+Valencia reflected that at any rate she had done her duty.
+
+
+Part 2
+
+Jeff was tramping the deck, his hands in his coat pockets, waiting for
+the trumpeter to fling out the two bars of music that would summon him
+to breakfast. He walked vigorously? drawing in deep breaths of the salt
+sea air. His thoughts were of Alice Frome. He was a lover, and in his
+imagination she embodied all things beautiful. Her charm flowed through
+him, pierced him with delight. When he heard music his mind flew to her.
+It voiced the rhythm of her motions and the sound of her warm laughter.
+The sunshine but reflected the golden gleams of light in her wavy hair.
+
+As he swung round the smoking saloon Jeff came face to face with Alice.
+He turned and caught step with her. The coat she wore came to her
+ankles, but it could not conceal her light, strong tread nor the long
+lines of the figure that gave her the grace of a captured wood nymph.
+
+"Only five hundred miles from Verden. By night we ought to be in
+wireless communication," he suggested.
+
+Her glance flashed at him. "You'll be glad to get home."
+
+"I will and I won't. There's work for me to do there. But it's the first
+real vacation I ever had in my life that lasted over a week. You can't
+think how I've enjoyed it."
+
+"So have I. More than anything I can remember." They stopped to look
+at a steamer which lay low on the distant horizon line. After they had
+fallen into step again she continued at the point where they had been
+interrupted: "And after we reach home? Are you going to come and see
+me? Are you going to let me meet your friends, those dear people who
+are giving themselves to make life less hideous and harsh for the weak?
+Shall I meet Mr. Mifflin... and Mr. Miller and your little Socialist
+poet? Or are you going to desert me?"
+
+He smiled a little at her way of putting it, but he was troubled none
+the less. "Are you sure that your way is our way? One can give service
+on the Hill just as much as down in the bottoms. There's no moral
+grandeur in rags or in dirt. Isn't your place with your friends?"
+
+"Haven't I a right to take hold of life for myself at first hand?
+Haven't I a right to know the truth? What have I done that I should be
+walled off from all these people who earn the bread I eat?"
+
+"But your friends... your father..."
+
+Her ironic smile derided him. "So after all you haven't the courage of
+your convictions. Because I'm Peter C. Frome's daughter I'm not to have
+the right to live."
+
+"No, it's your right to take hold of life with both hands. But surely
+you must live it among your own people."
+
+"I've got to learn how to live it first, haven't I? Most of my friends
+are not even aware there a problem of poverty. They thrust the thought
+of it from them. Our wealthy class has no social consciousness. Take my
+father. He thinks the submerged are lost because they are thriftless and
+that all would be right if they wouldn't drink. To him they are just a
+waste product of civilization.
+
+"But can you study the life of the people without growing discontented
+with the life you must lead?"
+
+"There is a divine discontent, you know. I've got to see things for
+myself. Why should all my opinions, my faith, be given to me ready-made.
+Why must I live by a formula I have never examined? If it isn't true
+I want to know it. And if it is true I want to know it." She had been
+looking straight before them toward the rising sun but now her gaze
+swept round on him. "Don't blame yourself for giving me new thoughts. I
+suppose all new ideas are likely to make trouble. But I've been working
+in this direction for years. Ever since I've been a little girl my
+heresies have puzzled my father. Meeting you has shown me a short cut.
+That's all."
+
+Something she had said recalled to him a fugitive memory.
+
+"Do you know, I think I saw you once when you were a little bit of a
+thing?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"On the doorstep of your old place. I was rather busy at the time
+fighting Edward Merrill."
+
+She stopped, looking at him in surprise. "Were you that boy?"
+
+"I was that boy."
+
+"You fought him to help a little ragged girl. She was a foreigner."
+
+"I've forgotten why I fought him. The reason I remember the occasion is
+that I met then for the first time two of my friends."
+
+She claimed a place immediately. "Who was the other one?"
+
+"Captain Chunn."
+
+Presently she bubbled into a little laugh. "How did the fight come out?
+My nurse dragged me into the house."
+
+"Don't remember. I know the school principal licked me next day. I had
+been playing hookey."
+
+They made another turn of the deck before she spoke again.
+
+"So we're old acquaintances, and I didn't know it. That was nearly
+eighteen years ago. Isn't it strange that after so long we should meet
+again only last week?"
+
+Jeff felt the blood creep into his face. "We met once before, Miss
+Frome."
+
+"Oh, on the street. I meant to speak."
+
+"So did I."
+
+"When?"
+
+With his eyes meeting hers steadily Jeff told her of the time she had
+found him in the bushes and mistaken him for a sick man. He could see
+that he had struck her dumb. She looked at him and looked away again.
+
+"Why do you tell me this?" she asked at last in a low voice.
+
+"It's only fair you should know the truth about me."
+
+They tramped the circuit once more. Neither of them spoke. The
+trumpeter's bugle call to breakfast rang out.
+
+At the bow she stopped and looked down at the waters they were
+furrowing. It was a long time before she raised her head and met his
+eyes. The color had whipped into her cheeks, but she put her question
+steadily.
+
+"Are you telling me... that I must lose my friend?"
+
+"Isn't that for you to say?"
+
+"I don't know." She faltered for words, but not the least in her
+intention. "Are you--what I have always heard you are?"
+
+"Can you be a little more definite?" he asked gently.
+
+"Well--dissipated! You're not that?"
+
+"No. I've trodden down the appetite. I'm a total abstainer."
+
+"And you're not... those worse things that the papers say?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I knew it." Triumph rang in her voice. She breathed a generous trust.
+To know him for a true man it was necessary only to look into his
+fearless eyes set deep in the thin tanned face. It was impossible for
+anything unclean to survive with his humorous humility and his pervading
+sympathy and his love of truth. "I didn't care what they said. I knew it
+all the time."
+
+Her sweet faith was a thing to see with emotion. He felt tears scorch
+the back of his eyes.
+
+"The thing you know is bad enough."
+
+"Oh, that! That is nothing... now. It doesn't matter."
+
+Lieutenant Beauchamp emerged from a saloon and bore down upon them.
+
+"Mrs. Van Tyle has sent me to bring you to breakfast, Miss Frome.
+Mornin', Mr. Farnum."
+
+"And I'm ready for it, We've been round the deck ever so many times.
+Haven't we, Mr. Farnum?"
+
+She nodded lightly to Jeff and walked away with the Englishman. The
+sunshine of her warm vitality was like quicksilver in Farnum's veins.
+What a gallant spirit, at once delicate and daring, dwelt in that vivid
+slender form! A snatch of Chesterton came to his mind:
+
+     Her face was like an open word
+       When brave men speak and choose,
+     The very colors of her coat
+       Were better than good news.
+
+     "It is the hour of man: new purposes,
+       Broad shouldered, press against the world's slow gate;
+     And voices from the vast eternities
+       Publish the soul's austere apostolate.
+
+     Man bursts the chains that his own hands have made;
+       Hurls down the blind, fierce gods that in blind years
+     He fashioned, and a power upon them laid
+       To bruise his heart and shake his soul with fears."
+     --Edwin Markham.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 18
+
+
+THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY ARE GIVEN AN ILLUSTRATION OF A ROORBACK
+
+
+Part 1
+
+Rawson sat in the rotunda of the Pacific Hotel in desultory conversation
+with Captain Chunn, Hardy and Rogers. He brought his clenched hand down
+on the padded leather arm of the big chair.
+
+"They'll jam it through to-morrow. That's what they'll do. James K.
+Farnum's been playing mighty pretty politics and he has got the votes to
+deliver the goods."
+
+Hardy nodded as he knocked the ash from his cigar. "Now that it's all
+over we can see James K.'s trail easily enough. He meant to defeat
+the initiative and referendum amendment, and he meant to do it without
+losing his popularity. He's done it too. Jeff's disappearance made it
+certain our bill wouldn't go through. James jumps in with a hurrah and
+passes one that isn't worth the powder to blow it up. But he's going to
+claim it as a great victory for the people--and if I know that young man
+he'll get away with his bluff. Yet it's certain as taxes that he's been
+working for Joe Powers all the time."
+
+"I wouldn't put it past him to have engineered some deal to get rid of
+his cousin," Chunn suggested.
+
+Rawson shook his head. "No. Not respectable enough for James. And he's
+not fool enough to run his head into a trap. But I'd bet my head Big Tim
+gave him a tip it was to be pulled off. J. K. had to know. Otherwise
+he wouldn't have been in a position to play the game for them. But he
+didn't know any details--just a suggestion. Enough to wise him without
+making him responsible."
+
+"And the play he's been making in the papers. Offering a reward
+for information about Jeff, insisting publicly that he has absolute
+confidence in his cousin's integrity while he shakes his head in
+private. If you want my opinion, that young man is a whited sepulchre. I
+never did believe in him."
+
+Rogers turned to Captain Chunn with an incredulous smile. "But you still
+believe in Jeff. Frankly, it looks to me like a double sell out."
+
+The old Confederate's eyes gleamed. "Sir, I've known that boy since he
+was a little tad. He's never told me a lie. He's square as they make
+them."
+
+"I used to believe in his cousin James, too," Rogers commented.
+
+"Oh, James! He's another proposition." Rawson's voice was sour with
+disgust. "He just naturally looked to see where his bread was buttered.
+He's as selfish as the devil for all that suave, cordial way of his.
+Right from the first his idea has been to make a big personal hit. And
+he figured out he could do it easier with Joe Powers back of him than
+against him. James K. is the smoothest fraud on the Pacific Coast.
+But Jeff--why, every hair of his head is straight. He's one out of a
+million, believe me."
+
+"You've said it," Chunn agreed.
+
+Rogers smiled across at them. "He's left a lot of good friends behind
+him anyhow. But it's strange he could drop off the earth without a soul
+knowing about it."
+
+"The men who murdered him know about it," Rawson answered significantly.
+
+Captain Chunn shook his head. "No, that boy will turn up yet."
+
+"But not in time to save us. We're licked. There's not one chance in a
+million for us. That's the discouraging feature of it, to be sold out
+after we had won our fight."
+
+Rawson agreed with Hardy. "Yes, we're licked. Even if Jeff were to show
+up, with all these stories against him, we wouldn't be able to stem the
+tide now."
+
+"Mister Raw-w-son--Mister Raw-w-son." The singsong voice of a bellhop
+echoed through the rotunda.
+
+Captain Chunn's walking stick flagged the lad and brought him sliding
+across the polished floor.
+
+"Telegram for Mr. Rawson."
+
+The big politician ripped it open and ran his eyes rapidly over the
+yellow slip. From his lips burst a sudden oath of surprise.
+
+"By Jupiter, the miracle's happened. Jeff is alive and on his way here.
+He's sent me a wireless from out at sea somewhere."
+
+"What!" Captain Chunn let out a whoop of joy.
+
+"Listen here." Rawson read aloud his message. "'Shanghaied on schooner
+_Nancy Hanks_. Escaped at Honolulu. Back in Verden to-night. Keep up the
+fight.'"
+
+"Didn't I say Jeff was alive? Didn't I say he would come back and beat
+those robbers yet?" the owner of the _World_ demanded.
+
+"Don't get excited. It may be a fake." This from Hardy, who was almost
+as much moved himself.
+
+"Fake nothing! We'll go down to the telegraph office and make sure it's
+0. K. Won't this make a bully story for the _World_ 'Shanghaied' in big
+letters across the top, and underneath a red hot roast of the old city
+hall gang's methods of trying to defeat the will of the people." Rawson
+laughed aloud as his imagination pictured the story.
+
+The old soldier's eyes gleamed. "I'll run twice as many copies as usual.
+We'll plaster the state with them, calling for mass meetings everywhere
+to insist on the legislature passing our bill."
+
+"Go easy, gentlemen," advised Rogers. "If it's true we hold a trump
+card, but we want to play it mighty carefully so as to make it carry as
+much dynamite as possible."
+
+The company could give no information more definite than that the
+message had come from the _Bellingham,_ which was still a couple of
+hundred miles out at sea.
+
+In view of the value of the news from a strategic slant his friends
+succeeded in keeping the lid on Captain Chunn's enthusiasm until the
+party was safe aboard a fast yacht steaming out of the harbor to meet
+the _Bellingham._ The old Confederate's first impulse had been to run an
+extra immediately, but he was argued out of it.
+
+"We don't want to go off half cocked. We've got a beautiful comeback if
+we play it right. That is, if Jeff's got any proof. But we better wait
+and let Jeff run the newspaper end of it, Captain."
+
+This was Hardy's view, and it was indorsed by the others.
+
+"Another thing. This story has got to come just like an explosion on
+James K. Farnum's supporters. We've got to sweep them right back to our
+bill. Now if we break the force of it by giving them warning that swarm
+of lobbyists will get busy and stay busy all night," Rawson added.
+
+Jim Dunn, the star reporter of the _World,_ was hurriedly summoned by
+telephone. Chunn explained to the city editor that Dunn and the staff
+photographer were needed to cover a big story, but of what the story was
+no mention was made to the office. As soon as Dunn and Quillen reached
+the wharf the _Fly by Night_ shot out of the dock.
+
+
+Part 2
+
+In the wintry afternoon sunlight Beauchamp and Alice were playing
+a match of shuffleboard against Jeff and the daughter of a Honolulu
+missionary. The game had reached an exciting and critical stage when
+they noticed that the ship was no longer quivering from the throb of the
+engines.
+
+"A steam yacht, probably from Verden," the ship purser remarked to the
+first mate as they passed.
+
+The players gave up their game to watch the boat that was being lowered
+from the deck of a yacht close at hand. Into it stepped five men in
+addition to the crew. Presently Jeff, leaning against the rail, borrowed
+the glasses of a man near. After Alice had looked she handed them to
+Farnum.
+
+He gave a little exclamation of surprise.
+
+"I beg your pardon?" the girl beside him murmured.
+
+"They are my friends, Miss Frome. Come to meet me, I expect. The little
+man in gray with one arm is Captain Chunn."
+
+She was all excitement at once. "Then they must have received your
+message?"
+
+"Probably."
+
+Jeff was the first man to meet Captain Chunn as he walked up the steps.
+The gray little man gave a whoop of joy.
+
+"David!"
+
+Their hands gripped.
+
+Rawson fell on Farnum from behind and pounded him jubilantly. Instantly
+the editor was the center of a group of eager, urgent wellwishers.
+
+Alice explained to Captain Barclay what it was all about and stood back
+smiling while questions and answers flew back and forth.
+
+"What about our bill?" Jeff inquired as soon as the first hubbub had
+quieted.
+
+"Dead as a door nail. Your cousin has substituted H. B. I7. They will
+pass it to-morrow or the next day."
+
+A swift sickness ran through Farnum. "James gone back on us?"
+
+"That's what. He's double-crossed us." Rawson snapped the words out
+bitterly.
+
+"Why--why--surely not James." Jeff's mind groped for some possible
+
+explanation.
+
+"Says our bill was lost anyhow and it was a question of getting through
+Garman's bill or none."
+
+"But Garman's bill was framed by Ned Merrill. It doesn't give us
+anything."
+
+Rawson nodded grimly. "That's the idea. We're to get nothing, but it's
+to be wrapped up like a Christmas present so as to fool us."
+
+"And isn't there any chance at all for our bill?"
+
+"Just this one chance." Rawson leaned forward and spoke in a low voice,
+driving his hand down on the deck railing. "That you've got a charge of
+dynamite up your sleeve to throw into their camp. If you can't stampede
+them we're down and out."
+
+Jeff and his allies presently moved away together to hold a conference
+of ways and means. The boat crew pulled back to the yacht. The engines
+began to throb once more. The _Bellingham_ gathered momentum and was
+soon plunging forward at full speed.
+
+
+Part 3
+
+With a queer little surge of pride in him Alice watched Jeff and his
+friends move away. They depended on him. Unless he could save it their
+fight was lost. To her he was a prophet of the better civilization that
+would some day rise on the ruins of an Individualism grown topheavy.
+But he was neither a dreamer nor a weakling. His idealism was sane and
+practical, and he would fight to the last ditch when he must.
+
+And this was another strange thing about him, that though his democracy
+was a faith, vital and ardent, it was tempered with the liberal spirit.
+He could make allowances; held no grudges, would laugh away insults at
+which another man would have raged. Out of her very limited experience
+Alice decided that he was a great man. That he was so warm and human
+with it all was one of his seizing charms. No boy could have been more
+interested in winning the shuffleboard game than he.
+
+The fat pork packer from Chicago came wheezing toward her. He took the
+steamer chair beside Alice and jerked his head toward the spot where
+Jeff had disappeared.
+
+"Now if you want my notion, Miss Frome, that's the kind of a man that
+breeds anarchy. I've seen his paper. He fills it full of stuff that
+makes the workingman discontented with his lot. A trouble maker, that's
+what he is. Stops the wheels of industry. Gets in the road of the
+boosters to croak hard times."
+
+Alice observed the thick rolls of purple fat that bulged over his
+collar.
+
+"Progress now," he went on. "I'm for progress. Develop the country. That
+gives work to the laborers and keeps them contented. But men like Farnum
+are always hampering development by annoying capital. Now that's foolish
+because capital employs labor."
+
+The young woman suggested another possibility. "Or else labor employs
+capital."
+
+"What!" The fat little man sat bolt upright in surprise. "I guess you
+never heard your Uncle Joe Powers talk any such foolishness." He snorted
+indignantly. "Hmp! The best friend labor has got is capital. If I had
+the say so I'd crush every labor union--for the good of the working
+people themselves."
+
+Alice decided that the mental indigestion of the rich sat heavily upon
+him. She felt her temper rising and took advantage of the approach of
+Beauchamp to leave quickly.
+
+"Oh, Lieutenant! Have you seen Valencia?"
+
+The Englishman showed surprise. It happened that Alice had at that
+moment a view of Mrs. Van Tyle stretched on a deck chair some thirty
+feet away.
+
+Miss Frome hurried him along. Presently, with a low laugh, she
+explained. "I wanted to get away from him. Carelessly, I dropped a new
+idea there. It's likely to go off. You know how dangerous they are."
+
+"To people who haven't many. Had it anything to do with making money?"
+
+"Not directly."
+
+"Then you needn't be alarmed on our stout friend's account. He's immune
+to all ideas not connected with that subject."
+
+The double blast of a trumpet invited them to dinner down stairs.
+
+
+Part 4
+
+Dunn was sitting in the smoking room writing his story of the kidnapping
+when a ruddy young Englishman stopped opposite him.
+
+"You're Mr. Dunn, are you not? Reporter for the _World?_"
+
+"Yes." The newspaper man looked him over with a swift, trained
+attention.
+
+"A young lady would like to see you for a few minutes. She is interested
+in this shanghaing of Mr. Farnum."
+
+Dunn's black gimlet eyes searched Beauchamp's face.
+
+"All right. Glad to see her." Dunn's story was being transferred to his
+pocket as he rose.
+
+He followed his guide to the ladies' writing room. A slender young
+woman was standing in front of the bookcase. She turned as they entered.
+Beauchamp introduced the reporter to her, but Dunn failed to catch the
+name of this rather remarkable looking young lady.
+
+"You are to write the story of Mr. Farnum's adventure?" she asked.
+
+The reporter's eyes narrowed very slightly. "What story?"
+
+"The account of the shanghaing. Oh, I know all about it. Have you all
+the facts?"
+
+"I'll be glad to hear what you know, Miss--"
+
+She answered his hesitation by mentioning her name.
+
+Dunn grew more wary. "Miss Alice Frome, daughter of Senator Frome?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Anything you have to say I'll be pleased to hear, Miss Frome."
+
+To his surprise she broke through the hedge of reserve he had withdrawn
+behind.
+
+"You distrust me. You think because I'm Senator Frome's daughter that I
+must be against Mr. Farnum. Is that it?"
+
+"I didn't say that," he sparred.
+
+"I'm not against him. It's because I'm anxious to see him win that I
+want to be sure he has given you the whole story."
+
+"Why shouldn't he give me the whole story?"
+
+"Because he isn't the kind to boast. Did he tell you about the sharks?"
+
+"Or how Miss Frome helped pull him aboard just in time to save him from
+the crimps?"
+
+The reporter's eyes gleamed. "What's that?" he snapped quickly.
+
+"And all about the race from the schooner to the _Bellingham,_ It was
+the most exciting thing I ever saw."
+
+"Great guns! What's the matter with Jeff Farnum? He didn't say a word
+about that--missed the cream of the story."
+
+Alice smiled. "I thought perhaps he might have."
+
+"He said he saw a chance to swim across to the _Bellingham._ That made
+a pretty good story. But sharks--and the shanghaiers chasing him--and
+a young lady helping to haul him aboard to safety--and that young lady
+Miss Alice Frome! Say, this is the biggest story that ever broke in
+Verden. If I fall down on it I'm a dead one sure enough."
+
+"You think it will help Mr. Farnum's fight for his bill?"
+
+"Help it. Say, I'd give fifty dollars to see James K. Farnum's face when
+he reads the _World_ tomorrow morning. The town will go right up in
+the air. Hundreds of telegrams are going to pour in to members of the
+assembly from their constituents. We'll make a Yale finish of this yet."
+
+"It's lucky Miss Frome recognized Mr. Farnum. Otherwise I suppose he
+would have been sent back to the _Nancy Hanks_."
+
+"Oh, Miss Frome recognized him? Jeff said one of the passengers did. He
+couldn't remember who."
+
+"I don't suppose my name is necessary to the story. Just say a young
+woman on board," Alice suggested.
+
+Dunn's black eyes questioned her. "Are you for us, Miss Frome?"
+
+She smiled. "I'm for you."
+
+"Against Senator Frome and Mr. Powers?"
+
+"I think the bill ought to be passed. I'm not against anybody."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you this. It will help the story a lot to have you in
+it. Some people might say we framed the whole thing up. But with Senator
+Frome's daughter starring in it."
+
+"Oh, no, Mr. Farnum's the star."
+
+"Well, you're the leading lady. Don't you see how it helps? Clinches the
+whole thing as genuine. It's as good as putting the Senator himself on
+the stand as a witness for us. We've just got to have you."
+
+"It will really help, you think?"
+
+"No question."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"And photographs. You'll stand for one, of course."
+
+"Now really I don't see."
+
+"They can't get back of a photograph. It carries conviction. Of course
+we've got pictures of you at the office, Miss Frome. But I want to play
+fair with you. Besides, I want them to show the ship setting."
+
+She laughed. "Don't worry. Your enterprising photographer caught me
+twice before I knew it. And he got one of my cousin, Mrs. Van Tyle. She
+doesn't know it, though."
+
+"Good boy, Quillen. Now, if you'll begin at the beginning, Miss Frome,
+I'll listen to your story."
+
+When she had finished his eyes were gleaming. "It's the biggest scoop I
+ever got in on. Sounds too good to be true."
+
+
+Part 5
+
+At Gillam's Point Jeff and his friends, with Dunn and Quillen, left the
+_Bellingham_ on the launch which brought the pilot. They caught the fast
+express a half hour later and reached Verden shortly after midnight.
+His hat drawn down over his eyes and muffled to the ears in an ulster so
+that he might not be recognized, Farnum took a cab with Captain Chunn,
+Dunn and Quillen for the office of the World. He slipped into the
+building and his private room unnoticed by any member of the staff.
+
+Dunn presently brought to him Jenkins, the make-up man.
+
+"Rip your front page to pieces. We've got the story of a life time,"
+Captain Chunn exploded.
+
+Jenkins opened his eyes and grinned at Jeff. "That's what Jim tells me.
+Have you got the proof to hang the thing on Big Tim?"
+
+"I've got a letter he wrote to Captain Green of the _Nancy Hanks_. It's
+on city hall stationery of the last administration."
+
+"Funny he used that paper."
+
+"Someone usually makes a slip in putting a deal of this kind through."
+
+"And the letter?"
+
+"Just a line, signed with O'Brien's initials. 'The terms agreed on are
+satisfactory.' I found the letter in Green's cabin. As I thought I might
+make use of it I helped myself."
+
+"Bully! We'll run a fac-simile of it on the front page."
+
+"Dunn's story covers the whole affair. I don't like some features of it,
+but our friends say it ought to be run as it stands. I've written three
+columns of editorial stuff dealing with the situation. And here's a
+story calling for a mass meeting in front of the State House to-morrow
+morning."
+
+"You'll speak to the people?"
+
+"I'll say a few words. Hardy and Rawson will be the speakers."
+
+"Pity we've lost your cousin. He'd stir them up."
+
+The muscles stood out on Jeff's lean jaw. James was a subject he could
+not yet discuss. "We're nailing the No Compromise flag to our masthead,
+Jenkins. We've got to prevent them from forcing through Garman's
+bill to-morrow. After that every day will be in our favor. Unless I'm
+mistaken the state will waken up as it never has before. The people will
+see how nearly they've been euchred out of what they want."
+
+Jenkins came bluntly to another point. "This story would carry a lot
+more weight if those charges made against your character by the other
+papers had been answered."
+
+"Then we'll answer them."
+
+The night editor looked at him dubiously. "They've got four affidavits
+to back their story."
+
+"Only four?" A gay smile was dancing in Jeff's eyes.
+
+"Both the _Herald_ and the _Advocate_ have been playing it strong. Every
+day they rehash the story and challenge a denial."
+
+"It will all be free advertising for us if we can make them eat crow."
+
+"If we can!" Jenkins did not see how any effective answer was possible
+and he knew that in the present state of public opinion an unsupported
+bluff would be fatal.
+
+"How would this do for a starter?"
+
+Jeff handed him two typewritten sheets. The night editor read them
+through. He looked straight at Jeff.
+
+"Can you back this up?"
+
+"I can."
+
+"But--what about those affidavits?"
+
+Farnum grinned. "We'll take care of them when we come to them."
+
+"It's your funeral," Jenkins admitted.
+
+The whole front page of the _World_ next morning was filled with the
+Farnum story. As part of it there were interviews with Alice Frome, with
+Captain Barclay, and with other passengers. The deadly note from O'Brien
+to Green of the _Nancy Hanks_ occupied the place usually held by the
+cartoon. Beneath it, exactly in the center of the page, was a leaded box
+with the caption "A Challenge." It ran as follows:
+
+The editor of the _World_ does not think his reputation important enough
+to protect it at the expense of a woman. Yet he denies absolutely the
+import of the charges made by the _Herald_ and the _Advocate._ That
+the matter may be forever set at rest the _World_ challenges the papers
+named to a searching investigation. It proposes:
+
+(1) That the names of five representative citizens of Verden be
+submitted to Governor Hawley by each of the three papers, and that
+from this number be select a committee of five to sift thoroughly the
+allegations;
+
+(2) That the meetings of the committee be held in secret, no members of
+the press being admitted, and that those composing it pledge themselves
+never to divulge the names of any witnesses who may appear to give
+evidence;
+
+(3) That the _Herald,_ the _Advocate,_ and the _World_ severally agree
+to print on the front page for a week the findings of the committee as
+soon as received and exactly as received, without any editorial or other
+comment whatsoever.
+
+By the decision of this committee Jefferson Farnum pledges himself to
+abide. If found guilty, he will at once resign from the editorial charge
+of the _World_ and will leave Verden forever.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 19
+
+     The practical man is the man who knows what can't be done.
+     When he begins to let hope take the place of information in
+     this regard, he becomes a conservative. When prejudice takes
+     the place of hope, the mere conservative graduates into a
+     tory, or a justice of the supreme court. It's all a matter
+     of the chemistry of substitution.--Dr. G.L. Knapp.
+
+
+THE SAFE MAN FURNISHES DIVERSION
+
+
+Part 1
+
+For once the machine had overplayed its hand. Caught unexpectedly by
+Jeff's return, no effective counter attack was possible. Dunn's story
+in the _World_ swept the city and the state like wildfire. It was a
+crouched dramatic narrative and its effect was telling. From it only one
+inference could be drawn. The big corporations, driven to the wall, had
+attempted a desperate coup to save the day. It was all very well for Big
+Tim to file a libel suit. The mind of the public was made up.
+
+The mass meeting at the State House drew an enormous crowd, one so great
+that overflow meetings had to be held. Every corridor in the building
+was full of excited jostling people. They poured into the gallery of
+the Senate room and packed the rear of the floor itself. Against such
+a demonstration the upper house did not dare pass the Garman bill
+immediately. It was held over for a few days to give the public emotion
+a chance to die. Instead, the resentment against machine and corporate
+domination grew more bitter. Stinging resolutions from the back counties
+were wired to members who had backslidden. Committees of prominent
+citizens from up state and across the mountains arrived at Verden for
+heart-to-heart talks with the assemblymen from their districts.
+
+At a hurried meeting of the managers of the public utilities companies
+it was decided that the challenge of the _World_ must be accepted. For
+many who had believed in the total depravity of Jefferson Farnum were
+beginning to doubt. Unless the man's character could be impeached
+successfully the day was lost. And with four witnesses against him how
+could the trouble maker escape?
+
+The committee of investigation consisted of Senator Frome; Clinton
+Rogers, the shipbuilder; Thomas Elliott, a law partner of Hardy; James
+Moran, a wholesale wheat shipper, and the leading clergyman of Verden.
+It sat behind locked doors, adjourning from one office to another to
+obtain secrecy.
+
+For the defense appeared as witnesses Marchant, Miller, Mrs. Anderson
+and Nellie. To doubt the truth of the young wife's story was impossible.
+The agony of shyness and shame that flushed her, the simple broken words
+of her little tragedy, bore the stamp of minted gold. It was plain to
+see that she was a victim of betrayal, being slowly won back to love of
+life by her husband and her child.
+
+The committee in its report told the facts briefly without giving names.
+Even P. C. Frome could find no excuse for not signing it.
+
+The effect was instantaneous. On this one throw the machine had staked
+everything. That it had lost was now plain. In a day Jeff was the
+hero of Verden, of the state at large. His long fight for reform, the
+dramatic features of the shanghaing and his return, the collapse of
+the charges against his character, all contributed to lift him to dizzy
+popularity. He was the very much embarrassed man of the hour.
+
+All the power of the Transcontinental, of the old city hall gang, of the
+money that had been spent to corrupt the legislature, was unable to roll
+back the tide of public determination. White-faced assemblymen sneaked
+into offices at midnight to return the bribe money for which they dared
+not deliver the goods. Two days after the report of the investigating
+committee Jeff's bill passed the Senate. Within three hours it was
+signed by Governor Hawley. That it would be ratified by a vote of the
+people and so become a part of the state constitution was a foregone
+conclusion.
+
+Jeff and his friends had forged the first of the tools they needed
+to rescue the government of the state from the control of the allied
+plunderers.
+
+
+Part 2
+
+In the days following her return to Verden Alice Frome devoured the
+newspapers as she never had before. They were full of the dramatic
+struggle between Jeff Farnum and the forces which hitherto had
+controlled the city and state. To her the battle was personal. It
+centered on the attacks made upon the character of her friend and his
+pledge to refute them.
+
+When she read in the _Advocate_ the report of the committee Alice wept.
+It was like her friend, she thought, to risk his reputation for some
+poor lost wanderer of the streets. Another man might have done it for
+the girl he loved or for the woman he had married. But with Jeff it
+would be for one of the least of these. There flashed into her mind an
+old Indian proverb she had read. "I met a hundred men on the road to
+Delhi, and they were all my brothers." Yes! None were too deep sunk in
+the mire to be brothers and sisters to Jeff Farnum.
+
+Ever since her return Alice had known herself in disgrace with her
+father and that small set in which she moved. Her part in the big
+_World_ story had been "most regrettable." It was felt that in
+letting her name be mentioned beside that of one who was a thoroughly
+disreputable vagabond she had compromised her exclusiveness and betrayed
+the cause of her class. Her friends recalled that Alice had always been
+a queer girl.
+
+Her father and Ned Merrill agreed over a little luncheon at the
+Verden Club that girls were likely to lose themselves in sentimental
+foolishness and that the best way to stop such nonsense was for one to
+get married to a safe man. Pending this desirable issue she ought to be
+diverted by pleasant amusements.
+
+The safe man offered to supply these.
+
+
+Part 3
+
+The farthest thing from Merrill's thoughts had been to discuss with her
+the confounded notions she had somehow absorbed. The thing to do, of
+course, was to ignore them and assume everything was all right. After
+all, of what importance were the opinions of a girl about practical
+things?
+
+How the thing cropped up he did not afterward remember, but at the
+thirteenth green he found himself mentioning that all reformers were out
+of touch with facts. They were not practical.
+
+The smug finality of his verdict nettled her. This may or may not have
+been the reason she sliced her ball, quite unnecessarily. But it was
+probably due to her exasperation at the wasted stroke that she let him
+have it.
+
+"I'm tired of that word. It means to be suicidally selfish. There's not
+another word in the language so abused."
+
+"Didn't catch the word that annoys you," the young man smiled.
+
+"Practical! You used it yourself. It means to tear down and not
+build up, to be so near-sighted you can't see beyond your reach. Your
+practical man is the least hopeful member of the community. He stands
+only for material progress. His own, of course!"
+
+"You sound like a Farnum editorial, Alice."
+
+"Do I?" she flashed. "Then I'll give you the rest of it. He--your
+practical man--is rutted to class traditions. This would not be good
+form or respectable. That would disturb the existing order. So let's all
+do nothing and agree that all's well with the world."
+
+Merrill greeted this outburst with a complacent smile. "It's a pretty
+good world. I haven't any fault to find with it--not this afternoon
+anyhow."
+
+But Alice, serious with young care and weighted with the problems of a
+universe, would have none of his compliments.
+
+"Can't you see that there's a--a--" She groped and found a fugitive
+phrase Jeff had once used--"a want of adjustment that is appalling?"
+
+"It doesn't appall me. I believe in the survival of the fittest."
+
+Her eyes looked at him with scornful penetration. They went through the
+well-dressed, broad-shouldered exterior of him, to see a suave,
+gracious Pharisee of the modern world. He believed in the
+God-of-things-as-they-are because he was the man on horseback. He was a
+formalist because it paid him to be one. That was why he and his class
+looked on any questioning of conditions as almost atheistic. They were
+born to the good things of life. Why should they doubt the ethics of a
+system that had dealt so kindly with them?
+
+She gave him up. What was the use of talking about such things to him?
+He had the sense of property ingrained in him. The last thing he would
+be likely to do was to let any altruistic ideas into his head. He would
+play safe. Wasn't he a practical man?
+
+She devoted herself to the game. To see her play was a pleasure to the
+eye. The long lines and graceful curves of her supple young body never
+appeared to better advantage than at golf. Her motions showed the sylvan
+freedom of the woods. Ned Merrill appreciated the long, light tread of
+her, the harmony of movement as of a perfect young animal, together
+with the fine spiritual quality that escaped her personality so
+unconsciously.
+
+At the fifteenth hole he continued her education. "This country is
+founded upon individualism. It stands for the best chance of development
+possible to all its citizens. When you hamper enterprise you stop that
+development."
+
+She took him up dryly. "I see. So you and father and Uncle Joe have
+developed your individualism at the expense of a million other people's.
+You have gobbled up franchises, forests, ore lands, coal mines, and
+every other opportunity worth having. As a result you're making them
+your slaves and crushing out all individuality."
+
+"Not at all. We're really custodians for the people. We administer these
+things for their benefit because we are more fit to do it."
+
+"How do you know you are?"
+
+"The very fact that we have succeeded in getting what we have is
+evidence of it."
+
+"All I can see is that our getting it and keeping it--you and I and
+Uncle Joe and a thousand like us--is responsible for all the poverty in
+the world. We're helping to make it every time we eat a dinner we didn't
+work to get."
+
+Alice made a beautiful approach that landed her ball within four feet of
+the hole. Presently Merrill joined her.
+
+"That was a dandy shot," he told her, and watched Alice hole out. "I
+don't agree with you. For instance, I work as hard as other men."
+
+"But you're not working for the common good."
+
+His impatience reached words. "That sort of talk is nonsense, Alice. I
+don't know what has come over you of late."
+
+She smiled provokingly and changed the subject. Why argue with him? The
+slant with which they got at things was different. Like her father, he
+had the mental rigidity that is death to open-mindedness.
+
+Briskly she returned to small talk. "You're only three up."
+
+
+Part 4
+
+On their way back to the club house the safe man recurred to one phase
+of their talk.
+
+"You ought not to need any telling as to why I work, Alice."
+
+She shot one swift annoyed glance at him. When Ned Merrill tried the
+sentimental she liked him least.
+
+"Oh, all men like to work, I suppose. Uncle Joe says it's half the fun
+of life."
+
+"Most men work for some woman. I'm working for you," he told her
+solemnly.
+
+A little giggle of laughter floated across to him.
+
+"What are you laughing about?" he demanded.
+
+"Oh, the things I notice. Just now it's you, Ned."
+
+"If you'll explain the joke."
+
+"You wouldn't understand it. Dear me, what are you so stiff about?"
+
+Merrill brought things to an issue. "Look here, Alice! What's the use of
+playing fast and loose? I'd like to know where we're at."
+
+"Would you?"
+
+"Yes, I would. You know all about the arrangement just as well as I do.
+I haven't pushed you. I've stood back and let you have your good times.
+Don't you think it's about time for us to talk business?"
+
+"Just as soon as you like, Ned."
+
+"Well, then, let's announce it."
+
+"That we're not engaged to be married and never will be! Is that what
+you want to announce?"
+
+He flushed angrily. "What's the use of talking that way? You know it has
+been arranged for years."
+
+"I'm not going through with it. I told Father so. The thing is
+outrageous," she flamed.
+
+"I don't see why. Our people want it. We are fond of each other. I never
+cared for any girl but you."
+
+"Let's stick to the business reasons, Ned."
+
+"Hang it, you're so acid about it! I do care for you."
+
+Her dry anger spurted out. "That's unfortunate, since I don't care for
+you."
+
+"I know you do. Just now you're vexed at me."
+
+"Yes, I am," she admitted, nodding her head swiftly. "But it doesn't
+make any difference whether I am or not. I've made up my mind. I'm not
+going through with it."
+
+"You promised."
+
+"I didn't, not in so many words. And I was pushed into it. None of you
+gave me a fair chance. But I'll not go on with it."
+
+"But, why?"
+
+"Because I'm an American girl, and here we don't have to marry to
+amalgamate business interests. I won't do it. I'd rather be--" She gave
+a little shrug of her shoulders. The passion died out of her voice. "Oh,
+well! No need getting melodramatic about it. Just the same, I won't do
+it. My mind's made up."
+
+"A pretty figure I'll cut, after all these years," he complained
+sulkily. "Everyone will know you jilted me."
+
+Alice turned to him, mischief sparkling in her eyes. "I wouldn't stand
+it if I were you. Show your spunk."
+
+He stared. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Why don't you jilt ME?"
+
+"Jilt you?"
+
+Her head went up and down in a dozen little nods of affirmation. "Yes.
+Marry Pauline Gillam. You know you'd like to, but you haven't had the
+courage to give me up. Now that you've got to give me up anyhow--"
+
+"I'm very much obliged, Miss Frome. But I don't think it will be
+necessary for you to select another wife for me."
+
+"Have you been married once. I didn't know it."
+
+"You know what I mean?" He was stiff as a poker.
+
+"I believe I do." She was in a perfectly good humor again now. "But
+you better take my advice, Ned. Think what a joke it will be on me.
+Everybody will say you could have had me."
+
+"We'll not discuss the subject if you please."
+
+Nevertheless Alice knew that she had dropped a seed on good ground.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 20
+
+     Now poor Tom Dunstan's cold,
+       Our shop is duller;
+     Scarce a tale is told,
+       And our talk has lost the old
+     Red-republican color!
+
+    .............
+
+     'She's coming, she's coming!' said he;
+     'Courage, boys I wait and see!
+       'FREEDOM'S AHEAD!'
+     --Robert Buchanan.
+
+
+THE HERO IS LURED TO AN ADVENTURE INTO THE UNCONVENTIONAL AND HEARS MUCH
+THAT IS PAINFUL TO A WELL-REGULATED MIND
+
+
+Near the close of a fine spring afternoon James Farnum and Alice Frome
+were walking at the lower end of Powers Avenue. In the conventional garb
+he affected since he had become a man of substance the lawyer might have
+served as a model of fashion to any aspiring youth. His silk hat, his
+light trousers, the double-breasted coat which enfolded his manly form,
+were all of the latest design. The weather, for a change, was behaving
+itself so as not to soil the chaste glory of Solomon thus displayed.
+There had been rain and would be more, but just now they passed through
+a dripping world shot full of sunlight.
+
+"Of course I'm no end flattered at being allowed to go with you. But I'm
+dying of curiosity to know where we are going."
+
+The young woman gave James her beguiling smile. "We're going to call on
+a sick man. I'm taking you along as chaperon. You needn't be flattered
+at all. You're merely a convenience, like a hat pin or an umbrella."
+
+"But I'm not sure this is proper. Now as your chaperone--"
+
+"You're not that kind of a chaperon, Mr. Farnum. You haven't any
+privileges. Nothing but duties. Unless it's a privilege to be chosen.
+That gives you a chance to say something pretty."
+
+They crossed Yarnell Way. James, looking around upon the wrecks of
+humanity they began to meet, was very sure that he did not enjoy this
+excursion. An adventure with Miss Frome outside of the conventions was
+the very thing he did not want. What in the world did the girl mean
+anyhow? Her vagaries were beginning to disturb her relatives. So much he
+had gathered from Valencia.
+
+Before he had got as far as a protest Alice turned in to the entrance of
+a building and climbed a flight of stairs. She pushed a button. A woman
+of rather slatternly appearance came to the door.
+
+"Good afternoon, Mrs. Maloney. I've come to see how Mr. Marchant is."
+
+The landlady brushed into place some flying strands of hair. "Well, now,
+Miss Frome, he's better to-day. The nurse is with him. If you'll jist
+knock at the door 'twill be all right."
+
+While they were in the passage James interposed an objection. "My dear
+Miss Frome, I really don't think--"
+
+She interrupted brightly. "I'm glad you don't. You're not expected to,
+you know. I'm commanding this expedition. Yours not to answer why. Yours
+but to do and die." And she knocked on the door of the room at which
+they had stopped.
+
+It was opened by a nurse in uniform. James observed that she, too, like
+Mrs. Maloney, brightened at sight of the visitor.
+
+"Mr. Marchant will be pleased to see you, Miss Frome."
+
+He was. His gladness illuminated the white face through the skin of
+which the cheek bones appeared about to emerge. A thin blue-veined hand
+shot forward to meet hers.
+
+"Oh, comrade, but I'm glad to meet you."
+
+"I think you know Mr. Farnum."
+
+The man propped up in bed nodded a little grin at the lawyer. "We've
+met. It was years ago in Jeff's rooms."
+
+"Oh--er--yes. Yes, I remember."
+
+Presently Jeff and Sam Miller dropped in to see the invalid. From chance
+remarks the lawyer gathered that the little cobbler had brought himself
+so low by giving his overcoat one bitter night to a poor girl he had
+found shivering in the streets.
+
+The frankness with which they discussed before Alice Frome things never
+referred to in good society shocked James.
+
+It appeared that the story of this little factory girl who had been led
+astray was still urgent in Marchant's mind. At the time of their arrival
+he had just finished scribbling some verses hot from his heart. Jeff
+read them aloud, in spite of the poet's modest insistence that they were
+only a first draft.
+
+        "This is a story that two may tell,
+        I am the one, the other's in hell;
+        A story of passionate amorous fire,
+        With the glamor of love to attune the lyre.
+
+        She traveled the road at breakneck speed,
+        I opened the gates and saddled the steed;
+        "Ride free!" I cried as we dashed along.
+        Her sweet voice echoed a mocking song."
+
+"'Fraid it doesn't always scan. They seldom do," apologized the author
+of the verses.
+
+Jeff rapped for order. "The sense of the meeting is that the blushing
+poet will please not interrupt."
+
+        "Nights of the wildest revel and mirth,
+        Days of sorrow, remorse, and dearth,
+        A heaven of love and a hell of regret--
+        But there's always the woman to pay my debt.
+
+        'Sin,' says the preacher, 'shall be washed free,
+        The blood of the Lamb was shed for thee.'
+        Smugly I pass the sacred wine,
+        The woman in hell pays toll for mine.
+
+        'I am a pillar of Church and State,
+        She but the broken sport of Fate;
+        This is a story that two may tell,
+        I am the one, the other's in hell.'"
+
+There was a moment's silence after Jeff had finished.
+
+"What are you going to call your verses?" the nurse asked.
+
+"I'll call them, 'She Pays.' That's the idea of it."
+
+James was distinctly uneasy. There was positively something indecent
+about this. He had an aversion to thinking about unpleasant things.
+Every well-regulated mind ought to have. He would like to make a
+protest, but he could not very well do that here. He promised himself
+to let Alice Frome know as soon as they were alone what he thought about
+her escapades into this world below the dead line.
+
+He moved uncomfortably in his chair, and in doing so his gaze fell full
+into the eyes of Sam Miller. The fat librarian was staring at him out
+of a very white face. Before James could break the spell an unvoiced
+question had been asked and answered.
+
+Marchant was already riding the hobby that was religion to him. "Four
+dollars a week. That's what she was getting. And her employer is worth
+two millions. Think of it. All her youth to be sold for four dollars a
+week. Just enough to keep body and soul together. And when she went to
+the head of her department to ask for a raise he leered at her and said
+a good looking girl like her could always find someone to take care of
+her. Eight months she stuck it out, getting more ragged every day. Then
+enter the man, offering her some comfort and pleasure and love. Do you
+blame her?"
+
+"You must give me her address," Alice said softly.
+
+Oscar nodded. "Good enough, comrade. Jeff has looked out for her, but
+she needs a woman friend." With a sweep of the hand he went back to
+the impersonal. "Her trouble was economic, just as ours is. Look at
+it. We've got a perfect self-regulating system that adjusts itself
+automatically to bring hard times when we're most prosperous. Give us
+big crops and boom times, and we head straight for a depression. Why?"
+He interrupted himself with a fit of coughing, but presently began
+again, talking also with his swift supple hands. "Because then the
+foreign market will be glutted. Surplus goods won't sell abroad. The
+manufacturer, unable to dispose of his produce, will cut down his force
+or close his plant. Labor, out of work, cannot buy. So every branch
+of industry suffers because we're too well off. It's a vicious absurd
+circle born of the system under which we live. Under socialism the
+remedy would be merely to work less for a time until the surplus was
+used. It would affect nobody injuriously. The whole thing's as simple as
+A B C."
+
+It had been plain to the first casual glance of James that the little
+Socialist was far gone. The amazing thing was the eagerness with which
+his spirit dominated the body in such ill case. He was alive to the
+fingertips, though he was already in the Valley of the Shadow. To the
+lawyer there was something eerie about it all. Marchant was done with
+the business of living. Why didn't he lie down and accept the verdict?
+
+But to Alice it was God-like, a thing to stand uncovered before. His
+remedies might be all wrong. Probably they were. None the less his vital
+courage for life took her by the throat.
+
+Jeff nodded at the invalid cheerfully. "We're going to change all that,
+Oscar. Into this little old world a new soul is being born. Or perhaps
+the old soul is being born again."
+
+The Socialist caught at this swiftly. "Yes, we're going to change this
+terrible waste of human lives. I see a new world, where men will live
+like brothers and not like wolves rending each other. There poverty will
+be blotted out... and disease and all mean and cruel things that hamper
+and destroy life. Law and justice will walk hand in hand through a land
+of peace and plenty. Our cities, the expression of our social life, will
+be clean and sunny and beautiful because the lives of the common people
+are so. There strong men and deep-breasted women will work for the joy
+of working, since all is for the common good. Their children will be
+free and happy and well fed... yes, and equal to each other. From that
+highly socialized state, because it is tied together by love, will come
+that restrained freedom which is the most perfect individualism."
+
+The nurse forced him gently back upon the pillows. "There! You've talked
+enough to-day."
+
+He lay coughing, a hectic flush above the high cheek bones. Presently,
+at a look from the nurse, his guests departed.
+
+Outside the building Miller left the rest abruptly. Flanked by the two
+cousins, Alice crossed Yarnell Way back to that world to which she had
+always belonged.
+
+James laid down the law to her concerning the folly of such excursions
+into the unconventional. Alice listened. She discovered that his
+viewpoint was exactly like that of Ned Merrill. Any deviation from
+the conventional was a mistake. Any attempt to escape from existing
+conditions was a form of treason. Trade, property, business,
+respectability, good form; these were the shibboleth they worshipped. It
+was just because she did not want to believe this of James Farnum that
+she had taken him with her to call on Marchant. It was in a sense a
+test, and he was answering it by showing himself complacently callous
+and hidebound.
+
+Surely he had not always been like this, a smug and well-clad Pharisee,
+afraid to look at the truth. In those early days, when they had been
+friends, with the possibility of being a good deal more, there had been
+an impetuous touch of ardor she could no longer find. Her cool glance
+ran down his figure. The man was taking on flesh, the plump well-fed
+look of one who has escaped moral conduct by giving up the fight. Fat
+cushioned the square jaw and detracted from its strength. For the first
+time she observed a hardening of the eye. The visible deterioration of
+an inner collapse was being writ on him.
+
+Alice sighed. After all she might have spared herself the trouble. He
+had chosen his path and he must follow it.
+
+At the corner of Powers Avenue and Van Ault Street James left them. It
+was natural that the talk should revert to Marchant.
+
+"Oscar finds your visits a very great pleasure," Jeff told her.
+
+"The dear madman!" Her eyes were shining softly. "Isn't he brave and
+optimistic?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Both of them were thinking how soon the arm of that unseen God of love
+and law he worshipped would enfold him.
+
+Alice smiled tenderly, and for the moment the street in front of her
+danced in a mist. "And his perfect state! Shall we ever realize it?"
+
+"We must hope so. Perhaps not in the form he sees it, but in the way
+we work it out through a species of evolution. Think of the progress
+we have made in the last five years. How many dark corners in the long
+disused houses of our minds have been flooded with light!"
+
+"Yes. Why have we made more progress in the past few years?"
+
+Jeff's eyes held a gleam of humor. "This is a big country with enormous
+resources. There used to be room for all the most active plunderers to
+grab something. But lately the grabbing hasn't been so good. We have
+discovered that the most powerful robbers are doing their snatching from
+us. So we've suffered a moral awakening."
+
+"You don't believe that," she said quickly.
+
+"There's a good deal in the bread and butter interpretation of history.
+The push of life, its pressure, drives us to think. Out of thought grow
+new hopes and a broader vision."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Pretty soon the thought will flood the world that we make our own
+poverty, that God and nature have nothing to do with it. After that
+we'll proceed to eliminate it."
+
+"By means of Mr. Marchant's perfect state?"
+
+"Not by any revolution of an hour probably. Society cannot change its
+nature in a day. We'll pass gradually from our present state to a better
+one, the new growing out of the old by generations of progress. But I
+think we will pass into a form of socialism. It will be necessary to
+repress the predatory instinct in us that has grown strong under the
+present system. I don't much care whether you call it democracy or
+socialism. We must recognize how interdependent we are and work together
+for the common good."
+
+They had come to the car line that would take her home. Up the hill a
+trolley car was coming.
+
+"May I not see you home?" Jeff dared to ask.
+
+"You may."
+
+They left the car at Lakeview Park and crossed it to The Brakes. Every
+step of that walk led Jeff deeper into an excursion of endearment. It
+was amazingly true that he trod beside her an acknowledged friend, a
+secret lover. The turn of her head, the shadowy smile bubbling into
+laughter, the gracious undulations of the body, indeed the whole dear
+delight of her presence, belonged for that hour to him alone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 21
+
+     Many a man has kept his self-respect through a long lifetime
+     of decalog breaking, only to go to smash like a crushed
+     eggshell when he commits the crime of being found out.
+     --From the Note Book of a Dreamer.
+
+
+THE HERO IS PAINED TO FIND THAT EVEN IN A WELL-REGULATED WORLD THE GODS
+ARE JUST, AND OF OUR PLEASANT VICES MAKE INSTRUMENTS TO PLAGUE US
+
+
+Going back across the park Jeff trod the hilltops. He was not thinking
+about society, except that small unit of it represented by a slender,
+golden girl who had just bidden him good-bye. And because his heart sang
+within him his footsteps turned toward the office of his cousin. There
+had been between them of late an estrangement. Since the lawyer had been
+appointed general attorney for the Transcontinental and had formed a
+partnership with Scott, thus bringing to the firm the business of the
+public utility corporations, James had not found much time for Jeff. He
+was a member of the most important law firm on the Pacific Coast,
+judged by the business it was doing, and he had definitely cut loose
+politically from his former associates. His cousin blamed himself for
+the change in their personal relations, and he meant to bring things
+back to the old basis if he could.
+
+It was past office hours, but a light in the window of the junior
+member's private office gave promise that James might be in. Leaving
+the elevator at the fourth floor, he walked down the corridor toward the
+suite occupied by the firm.
+
+Before he reached the door Jeff stopped. Something unusual was happening
+within. There came to him the sounds of shuffling feet, of furniture
+being smashed, of an angry oath. Almost at once there was a thud, as
+if something heavy had fallen. The listener judged that a live body was
+thrashing around actively. The impact of blows, a heavy grunt, a second
+stifled curse, decided Farnum. Pushing through the outer office, he
+entered the one usually occupied by James.
+
+Two men were on the floor, one astride of the other. The man on top was
+driving home heavy jarring blows against his opponent's face and head.
+Jeff ran forward and dragged him away.
+
+"Good heavens, Sam! What's the matter?" his friend demanded in surprise.
+
+Miller waited panting, his fists still doubled, the lust of battle in
+his eyes.
+
+"The damned cad! The damned cad!" was all he could get out.
+
+From the floor James Farnum was rising. His forehead, his cheek, and his
+lips were bleeding from cuts. One of his eyes was closing rapidly. There
+was a dogged look of fear in the battered face.
+
+"I tripped over a chair, he explained, glaring at his foe.
+
+"Damn you then, stand up and fight!"
+
+Disgust and annoyance were pictured on the damaged countenance of the
+lawyer. "I don't fight with riff raff from the streets."
+
+With a lurch Miller was free from Jeff and at him again. James lashed
+straight out and cut open his lip without stopping him. Jeff wrenched
+the furious man back again. A moment later he made a discovery. The fear
+of his cousin was not physical.
+
+"Here! Stop it, man! What's the row about?" Jeff hung on with a strangle
+hold while he fired his questions.
+
+Sam turned a distorted face toward him. "Nellie."
+
+The truth crashed home like a bolt of lightning. James was the man who
+had betrayed Nellie Anderson. The thing was incredible, but Jeff knew
+instantly it was so.
+
+Except where the blood streamed down it the face of the lawyer was
+colorless. His lips twitched.
+
+"Is this true, James?"
+
+The sullen eyes of the detected man fell. "It will ruin me. It will ruin
+my career. And all because in a moment of fearful temptation I yielded,
+God help me."
+
+"God help you!" The angry scorn in Miller's voice burned like vitriol.
+"God help you! you selfish villain and coward! You pursued her! You
+hounded her. You made your own temptation--and hers. And afterward you
+left her to bear a lifetime of shame--to kill herself if she couldn't
+stand it. When I think of you, smug liar and hell hound, I know that
+killing isn't good enough for you."
+
+"Steady, old man," counseled Jeff.
+
+Miller began to tremble violently. Tears gathered in his eyes and
+coursed down his fat cheeks. "And I can't stamp him out. I can't expose
+him without hurting her worse. I've got to stand it without touching
+him."
+
+Faintly Jeff smiled. James did not look quite untouched. He was a much
+battered statue of virtue, his large dignity for once torn to shreds.
+
+Miller flung himself down heavily in a chair and buried his face in his
+hands. James began to talk, and as he talked his fluency came back to
+him.
+
+"It's the only stain on my life record... the only one. My life has been
+an open book but for that. I was only a boy--and I made a slip. Ought
+that to spoil my whole life, a splendid career of usefulness for the
+city and the state? Ought I to be branded for that one error?"
+
+Miller looked up whitely. "Shut up, you liar! If it had been a slip you
+would have stood by her, you would have married the girl you had ruined.
+But you left her--to death or worse. She was loyal to you. She kept your
+secret, you damned villain. I wrung it out of her to-day when I went
+home only by pretending that I knew.... And you let Jeff bear the blame
+of it without saying a word. I know now why her name wasn't unearthed
+by the reporters. You killed the story because you were afraid the truth
+would leak out. You haven't a straight hair in your head. You sold out
+Jeff's bill. You're for yourself first and last, no matter who pays the
+price."
+
+"That's your interpretation of my career. But what does Verden think of
+me? No man stands higher among the best people of the community."
+
+"To hell with you and your best people. I say you're nothing but a
+whited sepulchre," snarled Miller.
+
+Suddenly he reached for his hat and left the office. He was stifling.
+
+He knew that if he stayed he could not keep his hands from his enemy's
+throat.
+
+James wrung his hands. "My God, Jeff, it's awful! To think that a little
+fault should come out now to ruin me. After I've gone so far and am on
+the way to bigger things. It's ghastly luck. Can't you do something?
+Can't you keep the fellow quiet? I'll pay anything in reason."
+
+Jeff looked at him steadily. "I wouldn't say that to him if I were you."
+
+"Oh, I don't know what I'm saying." He mopped the blood from his face
+with a handkerchief. "I'm half crazy. Did he mark me up badly?" James
+examined himself anxiously in the glass. "He's just chopped my face to
+pieces. I'll have to get out of the city to-night and stay away till the
+marks are gone. But the main point is to keep him from talking. Can you
+do it?"
+
+For once Jeff's toleration failed him. "He's right. You are a selfish
+beggar. Don't you ever think of anyone except yourself?"
+
+"I'm not thinking of myself at all, but of--of someone else. You're
+wronging me, Jeff. This is not the time to go back on me, now that I'm
+in trouble. You've got to help me out. You've got to keep Miller quiet.
+If he talks I'm done for."
+
+His cousin looked at him with contemptuous eyes. "Can't you see--haven't
+you fineness enough to see that Sam Miller would cut an arm off before
+he would expose his wife to more talk? Your precious secret's safe."
+
+"It's all very well for you to talk that way," James complained. "I
+don't suppose you ever were put into temptation by a woman. You're not a
+lady's man. I'm the kind they take a shine to for some reason. Now this
+Anderson woman--"
+
+Sharply Jeff cut in. "That's enough. When you speak of her it won't be
+in that tone of voice. You'll speak respectfully of her. She's the wife
+of my friend; and before she met you was innocent as a child."
+
+"What do you know of her? I tell you, Jeff, there's a type of woman
+that's always smiling round the corner at you. I don't say I did right
+to yield to her. Of course I didn't. But, hang it, I'm not a block of
+wood. I've got red blood in my veins. The whip of youth drove me on.
+You've probably never noticed it, but she was a devilish pretty girl."
+
+He was swimming into his phrases so fluently that Jeff knew he would
+soon persuade himself that he had been the victim of her wiles. So, no
+doubt, in one sense, he had. She had laid her innocent bait to win his
+friendship, with never a thought of what was to come of it.
+
+"It happened of course while you were rooming there," the editor shot at
+him.
+
+James nodded sullenly.
+
+His cousin knew now that more than once he had put away doubts of James.
+When Sam Miller told him of her disappearance he had thought of the
+lawyer and had dismissed his suspicions as unworthy. He had always
+believed James to be a more moral man than himself, and he had turned
+his own back on the temptation lest it might prove too great for him. It
+would have been better for Nellie if he had stayed and fought it out to
+a finish.
+
+James began further explanations. "Look at it the way it is. She put
+herself in my way."
+
+Two steps carried Jeff to him. Without touching James he stood close to
+him, arms rigid and eyes blazing. "Don't say that again, you liar. You
+ruined her life. You let her suffer. She might have died for all of you.
+She nursed your child and never whispered the name of its father. Sam
+Miller is charging himself with the keep of your daughter. Do you think
+she hasn't paid a hundred times for her mistake? Now, by God, keep your
+mouth shut! Be decent enough not to fling mud at her, you of all men."
+
+James shrugged his shoulders and turned away in petulant disgust. "I
+see. You've heard her side of it and you've made up your mind. All
+right. I've nothing more to say."
+
+"I've never heard her side of it. Her own mother doesn't know the truth.
+Sam didn't know not till to-day. But I know her--and now I know you."
+
+"That's no way to talk, Jeff. I admit I did wrong. Can a man say more
+than that? Do you want me to crawl on my hands and knees?"
+
+"It's easy for you to forgive yourself."
+
+"Maybe you think I haven't suffered too. I've lain awake nights worrying
+over this."
+
+"Yes. For fear you might be found out."
+
+"I intended to look out for the girl, but she disappeared without
+letting me know where she was going. What could I do?" The lawyer was
+studying his face very carefully in the glass. "My face is a sight. It
+will be weeks before that eye is fit to be seen."
+
+Jeff turned away and left him. He walked to his rooms and found his
+uncle waiting for him. Robert Farnum had sold out his interests in
+Arkansas and returned to Verden with the intention of buying a small
+mill in the vicinity. Meanwhile he had the apartment next to the one
+used by his nephew.
+
+"Seen anything of James lately?" he inquired as they started down the
+street to dinner.
+
+"Yes. I saw him to-day. He's leaving town for a week or so."
+
+"On business, I suppose. He didn't mention it when I saw him Wednesday."
+
+"It's a matter that came up suddenly, I understand."
+
+The father agreed proudly. There were moments when he had doubts of
+James, but he always stifled them by remembering what a splendid success
+he was. "Probably something nobody else could attend to but him."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"It's amazing how that boy gets along. His firm has the cream of the
+corporation business of Verden. I never saw anything like it."
+
+The younger man assented, rather wearily. Somehow to-night he did not
+feel like sounding the praises of James.
+
+His uncle's kindly gaze rested on him. "Tired, boy?"
+
+"I think I am a little. I'll be all right after we've had something to
+eat."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 22
+
+     But when your arms are full of girl and fluff
+     You hide your nerve behind a yard of grin;
+     You'd spit into a bulldog's face, or bluff
+     A flock of dragons with a safety pin.
+     Life's a slow skate, but love's the dopey glim
+     That puts a brewery horse in racing trim.
+     --Wallace Irwin.
+
+
+CANARIES SING FOR THE HERO
+
+
+Part 1
+
+James Farnum had been back in Verden twenty-four hours. A few little
+scars still decorated his handsome visage, but he explained them away
+with the story of a motor car accident. Just now he was walking to the
+bank, and he had spoken his piece five times in a distance of three
+blocks. From experience he was getting letter perfect as to the details.
+Even the idiotic joke about the clutch seemed now a necessary part of
+the recital.
+
+It was just as he was crossing Powers that a motor car whirled around
+the corner and down upon a man descending from a street car. The
+chauffeur honked wildly and rammed the brakes home. Simultaneously James
+leaped, flinging his weight upon the man standing dazed in the path of
+the automobile. The two went down together, and for a moment Farnum knew
+only a crash of the senses.
+
+He was helped to his feet. Voices, distant and detached, asked whether
+he was hurt. Blood trickled into his eyes from a cut in the head. It
+came to him oddly enough that his story about the motor car accident
+would now be true.
+
+A slender figure in gray slipped swiftly past him and knelt beside the
+still shape lying on the asphalt.
+
+"Bring water, Roberts!"
+
+James knew that clear, sweet voice. It could belong only to Alice Frome.
+
+"Are you much hurt, Mr. Farnum?"
+
+"No, I think not--a cut over my eye and a few bruises."
+
+"I'm so glad. But this poor old man--I'm afraid he's badly hurt."
+
+"Was he run over?"
+
+"No. You saved him from that. You don't know him, do you?"
+
+The lawyer looked at the unconscious man and could not repress a start.
+It was his father. For just an eyebeat he hesitated before he said,
+"I've seen him before somewhere."
+
+"We must take him to the hospital. Isn't there a doctor here? Someone
+run for a doctor." The young woman's glance swept the crowd in appeal.
+
+"I'll take care of him. Better get away before the crowd is too large,
+Miss Frome."
+
+"No. It was our machine did it. Oh, here's a doctor."
+
+A pair of lean, muscular shoulders pushed through the press after the
+doctor. "Much hurt, James?" inquired their owner.
+
+"No. For heaven's sake, get Miss Frome away, Jeff," implored his cousin.
+
+"Miss Frome!" Jeff stepped forward with an exclamation.
+
+The young woman looked up. She was kneeling in the street and supporting
+the head of the wounded man. Her face was almost as bloodless as his.
+
+"We almost ran him down. Your cousin jumped to save him. He isn't dead,
+doctor, is he?"
+
+Jeff turned swiftly to his cousin and spoke in a low voice. "It's your
+father."
+
+The lawyer pushed forward with a manner of authority.
+
+"This won't do, doctor. The crowd's growing and we're delaying the
+traffic. Let us lift him into the machine and take him to the hospital."
+
+"Very good, Mr. Farnum."
+
+"Doctor, will you go with him to the hospital? And Jeff... you, too, if
+you please."
+
+A minute later the car pushed its way slowly through the crush of people
+and disappeared. James was left standing on the curb with Alice.
+
+He spoke brusquely. "Someone call a cab, please....I'll send you home,
+Miss Frome."
+
+"No, to the hospital," she corrected. "I couldn't go home now without
+knowing how he is."
+
+"Very well. Anything to get away from here."
+
+"And you can have your cut attended to there."
+
+"Oh, that's nothing. A basin of cold water is all I need. Here's the
+cab, thank heaven."
+
+The girl's gaze followed the automobile up the hill as she waited for
+the taxicab to stop. "I do hope he isn't hurt badly," she murmured
+piteously.
+
+"Probably he isn't. Just stunned, the doctor seemed to think. Anyhow it
+was an unavoidable accident."
+
+The eyes of the young woman kindled. "I'll never forget the way you
+jumped to save him. It was splendid."
+
+James flushed with pleasure. "Nonsense. I merely pushed him aside."
+
+"You merely risked your life for his. A bagatelle--don't mention it,"
+the girl mocked.
+
+Farnum nodded, the old warmth for her in his eyes. "All right, I'll take
+all the praise you want to give me. It's been a good while since you
+have thought I deserved any."
+
+Alice looked out of the window in a silence that appeared to accuse him.
+
+"Yet once"--She felt in his fine voice the vibration of feeling--"once
+we were friends. We met on the common ground of--of the spirit," he
+risked.
+
+Her eyes came round to meet his. "Is it my fault that we are not still
+friends?"
+
+"I don't know. Something has come between us. What is it?"
+
+"If you don't know I can't tell you."
+
+"I think I know." He folded his handkerchief again to find a spot
+unstained. "You wanted me to fit into some ideal of me you had
+formed. Am I to blame because I can't do it? Isn't the fault with your
+austerity? I've got to follow my own convictions--not Jeff's, not even
+yours. Life's a fight, and it's every man for himself. He has to work
+out his own salvation in his own way. Nobody can do it for him. The
+final test is his success or failure. I'm going to succeed."
+
+"Are you?" The compassion of her look he could not understand. "But how
+shall we define success?"
+
+"It's getting power and wielding it."
+
+"But doesn't it depend on how one wields it?"
+
+"Yes. It must be made to produce big results. Now my idea of a
+successful man is your uncle, Joe Powers."
+
+"And my idea of one is your cousin, Jefferson Farnum."
+
+The young man sat up. "You're not seriously telling me that you think
+Jeff is successful as compared with Joe Powers?"
+
+"Yes. In my opinion he is the most successful man I ever met."
+
+James was annoyed. "I expect you have a monopoly in that opinion, Miss
+Frome--unless Jeff shares it."
+
+"He doesn't."
+
+The lawyer laughed irritably. "No, I shouldn't think he would." He added
+a moment later: "I don't suppose Jeff is worth a hundred dollars."
+
+"Probably not."
+
+"And Joe Powers is worth a hundred millions."
+
+"That settles it. I must have been wrong." Alice looked at him with a
+flash of demure daring. "Valencia said something to me the other day I
+didn't quite understand. Ought I to congratulate you?"
+
+"What did she say?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Oh, I'll not tell you what she said. My question was in first."
+
+"You may as well, though it's still a secret. Nobody knows it but you
+and me."
+
+"And Valencia."
+
+"I didn't know she knew it yet."
+
+Alice stared. "Not know that she is going to marry you? Then it isn't
+really arranged?"
+
+"It is and it isn't."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"I know it and she suspects it."
+
+"Is this a riddle?"
+
+"Riddle is a good word when we speak of your cousin," he admitted
+judicially.
+
+"Perhaps I asked a question I ought not to have."
+
+"Not at all. I'm trying to answer you as well as I can. Last time I
+mentioned the subject she laughed at me."
+
+"So you've asked her?"
+
+"No, I told her."
+
+"And she said?"
+
+"Regretted that other plans would not permit her to fall in with mine."
+
+"Then I don't quite see how you are so sure."
+
+"That's just what she says, but I've a notion she is planning the
+trousseau."
+
+Alice flashed a sidelong look at him. Was he playing with her? Or did he
+mean it?
+
+"You'll let me know when I may safely congratulate you," she retorted
+ironically.
+
+"Now is the best time. I may not see you this evening."
+
+"Oh, it's to be this evening, is it?"
+
+"To the best of my belief and hope."
+
+His complacency struck a spark from her. "You needn't be so cock sure. I
+daresay she won't have you."
+
+His smile took her into his confidence. "That's what I'm afraid of
+myself, but I daren't let her see it."
+
+"That sounds better."
+
+"I think she wants to eat her cake and have it, too."
+
+"Meaning, please?"
+
+"That she likes me, but would rather hold me off a while."
+
+Alice nodded. "Yes, that would be like Val."
+
+"Meanwhile I don't know whether I'm to be a happy man or not."
+
+Her fine eyes looked in their direct fashion right into his. "I must say
+you appear greatly worried."
+
+"Yes," he smiled.
+
+"You must be tremendously in love with her."
+
+"Ye-es, thank you."
+
+"Why are you going to marry her then--if she'll let you?"
+
+"Now I'm having Joe Powers' railroads and his steamboats and his mines
+thrown at me, am I not?" he asked lightly.
+
+"No, I don't think that meanly of you. I know you're a victim of
+ambition, but I don't suppose it would take you that far."
+
+He gave her an ironical bow. "Thanks for this testimonial of respect.
+You're right. It wouldn't. I'm going to marry Joe Power's daughter, _Deo
+volente_ because she is the most interesting woman I know and the most
+beautiful one."
+
+"Oh! That's the reason."
+
+"These, plus a sentimental one which I can't uncover to the cynical eyes
+of my young cousin that is to be, are my motives; though, mind you, I'm
+not fool enough to be impervious to the railroads and the ocean liners
+and the mines you didn't mention. I hope my reasons satisfy you," he
+added coolly.
+
+"If they satisfy Val they do me, but very likely you'll find they
+won't."
+
+"The doubt adds a fillip to the situation."
+
+Her eyes had gone from time to time out of the window. Now she gave a
+sigh of relief. "Here we are at the hospital. Oh, I do hope that poor
+man is all right!"
+
+"I'm sure he is. He was recovering consciousness when they left.
+James helped her out of the cab and they went together up the steps. In
+the hall they met Jeff. He had just come down stairs.
+
+"Everything's all right. His head must have struck the asphalt, but
+there seems to be no danger."
+
+Alice noticed that the newspaper man spoke to his cousin and not to her.
+
+
+Part 2
+
+Though Valencia Van Tyle had not made up her mind to get married, James
+hit the mark when he guessed that she was interesting herself in the
+accessories that would go with such an event. The position she took in
+the matter was characteristic. She had gone the length of taking expert
+counsel with her New York modiste concerning gowns for the occasion,
+without having at all decided that she would exchange her present
+independence for another venture into stormy matrimonial seas.
+
+"Perhaps I shatn't have to make up my mind at all," she found amusement
+in chuckling to herself. "What a saving of trouble it would be if he
+would abduct me in his car. I could always blame him then if it did not
+turn out well."
+
+Something of this she expressed to James the evening of the day of the
+accident, watching him through half-shuttered eyes to see how he would
+take her first concession that she was considering him.
+
+He took without external disturbance her gay, embarrassed suggestion,
+the manner of which might mean either shyness or the highest expression
+of her art.
+
+"I'd kidnap you fast enough except that I don't want to rob you of the
+fun of getting ready. How long will it take you? Would my birthday be
+too soon? It's on the fourth of June."
+
+"Too soon for what?" she asked innocently.
+
+"For my birthday present--Valencia Powers."
+
+She liked it that he used her maiden surname instead of her married one.
+It seemed to imply that he loved her in the swift, ardent way of youth.
+
+"Are you sure you want it?"
+
+The lawyer appreciated her soft, warm allurement, the appeal of sex with
+which she was so prodigally endowed. His breath came a little faster.
+
+"He won't be happy till he gets it."
+
+Her faint laughter rippled out. "That's just the point, my friend. Will
+he be happy then? And, which is more important to her, will she?"
+
+"That's what I'm here to see. I'm going to make you happy."
+
+She laced her fingers behind her tawny head, not quite unaware perhaps
+that the attitude set off the perfect modeling of her soft, supple body.
+
+"I don't doubt your good intentions, but it takes more than that to make
+marriage happy when the contracting parties are not Heaven-sent."
+
+"But we are--we are."
+
+Valencia shook her head. "Oh, no! There will be no rapturous song of
+birds for us, none of that fine wantonness that doesn't stop to count
+the cost. If we marry no doubt we'll have good reasons, but not the very
+best one--that we can't help it."
+
+He would not consent to that. "You're not speaking for me. The birds
+sing, Valencia."
+
+"Canaries in a cage," she mocked.
+
+"You've forgotten two things."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"That you are the most beautiful woman on earth, and that I'm a man,
+with red blood in my veins."
+
+Under lowered lids she studied him. This very confident, alert American,
+modern from head to heel, attracted her more than any other man. There
+was a dynamic quality in him that stirred her blood. He was efficient,
+selfish enough to win, and yet considerate in the small things that go
+to make up the sum of existence. Why not then? She must marry some time
+and she was as nearly in love as she would ever be.
+
+"What ARE your reasons for wanting me?"
+
+"We smoke the same Egyptians," he mocked.
+
+"That's a good reason, so far as it goes."
+
+"And you're such a charming puzzle that I would like to domesticate it
+and study the eternal mystery at my leisure."
+
+"Then it's as a diversion that you want me."
+
+"A thing of beauty and a joy forever, the poet puts it. But diversion
+if you like. What greater test of charming versatility for a woman
+than that she remain a diversion to her husband, unstaled by custom and
+undulled by familiarity?"
+
+After all her father would be pleased to have her marry an American
+business man. The Powers' millions could easily buy for her a fine old
+dukedom if she wanted one. At present there was more than one available
+title-holder on her horizon. But Valencia did not care to take up the
+responsibilities that go with such a position. She was too indolent
+to adapt her life to the standards of others--and perhaps too proud.
+Moreover, it happened that she had had enough of the club man type in
+the late lamented Van Tyle. This man was a worker. He would not annoy
+her or interfere with her careless pleasures. Again she asked herself,
+Why not?
+
+"I suppose you really do like me." Her face was tilted in gay little
+appeal.
+
+"I'm not going to tell you how much. It wouldn't be good for discipline
+in the house."
+
+Her soft little laugh bubbled over. "We seem to have quite settled it.
+And I hadn't the slightest notion of agreeing to anything so ridiculous
+when I ventured that indiscreet remark about an abduction." She looked
+up at him with smiling insolence. "You're only an adventurer, you know.
+I daresay you haven't even paid for the car in which you were going to
+kidnap me."
+
+"No," he admitted cheerfully.
+
+"I wonder what Dad will think of it."
+
+"He'll thank Heaven you didn't present him with a French or Italian
+count to support."
+
+"I believe he will. His objection to Gus was that he looked like a
+foreigner and never had done a day's work in his life. Poor Gus! He
+didn't measure up to Dad's idea of a man. Now I suppose you could earn a
+living for us."
+
+"I'm not expecting you to take in sewing."
+
+"Are you going to do the independent if Dad cuts up rough?" she asked
+saucily.
+
+"Independent is the word." He smiled with a sudden appreciation of the
+situation. "And I take it he means to cut up rough. I wired him to-day I
+was going to ask you to marry me."
+
+"You didn't."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But wasn't that a little premature? Perhaps it wouldn't have been
+necessary. Or did you take me for granted?"
+
+"There was always the car for a kidnapping in case of necessity," he
+joked.
+
+"Why did you do it?"
+
+"I wanted to be above board about it even if I am an adventurer."
+
+"What did he say? How could you put it in a telegram?"
+
+"Red consoles marooned sweet post delayed."
+
+"Dear me! What gibberish is that?"
+
+"It's from our private code. It means, 'Going to marry your daughter if
+she is willing. With your consent, I hope.'"
+
+"And he answered? I'll take the English version, please."
+
+"'Consent refused. No fortune hunters need apply.' That is not a direct
+quotation, but it conveys his meaning accurately enough."
+
+"So I'm to be cut off with a shilling." Her eyes bubbled with delight.
+
+"I reckon so. Of course I had to come back at him."
+
+"How, may I ask?" She was vastly amused at this novel correspondence.
+
+"Oh, I merely said in substance that I was glad to hear it because you
+couldn't think now I wanted to marry you for your money. I added that
+if things came my way we would send him cards later. One doesn't like to
+slang one's wife's father, so I drew it mild."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it. You wouldn't dare."
+
+That she admired and at the same time distrusted was so apparent that he
+drew a yellow envelope from his pocket and handed it to her.
+
+"This is his latest contribution to the literature of frankness. You
+see his feelings overflowed so promptly he had to turn loose in good
+American talk right off the bat. Couldn't wait for the code."
+
+She read aloud. "Your resignation as General Counsel Transcontinental
+will be accepted immediately. Turn over papers to Walker and go to the
+devil." It was signed "Powers."
+
+"That's all, is it? No further exchange of compliments," she wanted to
+know.
+
+"That's all, except that he is reading my resignation by this time. I
+sent it two hours ago. In it I tried to convey to him my sense of regret
+at being obliged to sever business relations owing to the fact that
+I was about to contract family ties with him. I hoped that he would
+command me in any way he saw fit and was sorry we couldn't come to an
+agreement in the present instance."
+
+"I don't believe you're a bit sorry. Don't you realize what an expensive
+luxury you're getting in me and how serious a thing it is to cast off
+heaven knows how many millions?"
+
+"Oh, I realize it!"
+
+"But you expect him to come round when he has had time to think it
+over?"
+
+"It's hard for me to conceive of anybody not wanting me for a
+son-in-law," he admitted cheerfully.
+
+Valencia nodded. "He'll like you all the better for standing up to him.
+He's fond of Alice because she's impudent to him."
+
+"I didn't mean to be impudent, but I couldn't lie down and let him prove
+me what he called me."
+
+"If you're that kind of a man I'm almost glad you're going to make me
+marry you," she confided.
+
+He leaned over her chair, his eyes shining. "I'll make you more than
+almost glad, Valencia. You're going to learn what it is to--oh, damn
+it!"
+
+He was impersonally admiring her Whistler when the maid brushed aside
+the portieres. She had come to bring Mrs. Van Tyle a telegram.
+
+"No answer, Pratt."
+
+After the maid had retired her mistress called James to her side. Over
+her shoulder he read it.
+
+"Glad he is an American and not living on his father. Didn't think you
+had so much sense. Tell that young man I want to see him in New York
+immediately."
+
+The message was signed with the name of her father.
+
+"What do you suppose he wants with you in New York?"
+
+James was radiant. He kissed the perfect lips turned toward him before
+he answered. "Oh, to make me president of the Transcontinental maybe.
+How should I know? It's an olive branch. Isn't that enough?"
+
+"When shall you go?"
+
+He looked at his watch. "The limited leaves at nine-thirty. That gives
+me nearly an hour."
+
+"You're not going to-night?"
+
+"I'm going to-night. I must, dear. Those are the orders and I've got to
+obey them."
+
+"But suppose I give you different orders. Surely I have some rights,
+to-night of all nights. Why, we haven't been engaged ten minutes.
+Business doesn't always come first."
+
+James hesitated. "It's the last thing I want to do, but when Joe Powers
+says 'Come!' I know enough to jump."
+
+"But when I say stay?" she pleaded.
+
+"Then I stop the prettiest mouth in the world with kisses and run away
+before I hear the order." Gaily he suited the action to the word.
+
+But, for once swift, she reached the door before him.
+
+"Wait. Don't go, dear."
+
+The last word came faintly, unexpectedly. The enticement of the appeal
+went to his head. He had shaken her out of the indifference that was her
+pride. One arm slipped round her waist. His other hand tilted back her
+head until he could look into the eyes in which a new fire had been
+kindled.
+
+"What about that almost glad? If I stay will you forget all qualifying
+words and be just glad?"
+
+She nodded quickly, laughing ever so softly. "Yes, I'll help you listen
+to the birds sing. Do you know I can almost hear them?"
+
+James drew a deep breath and caught her swiftly to him. "New York will
+have to wait till to-morrow. The birds will sing to-night and we will
+not count the cost."
+
+"Yes, my lord," she answered demurely.
+
+For to-night she wanted to forget that their birds were only caged
+canaries.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 23
+
+     "And what are the names of the Fortunate Isles,
+       Lo! duty and love and a large content;
+     And these are the Isles of the watery miles
+       That God let down from the firmament.
+
+     Lo! duty and love and a true man's trust,
+       Your forehead to God and your feet in the dust:
+     Lo! duty and love and a sweet babe's smiles,
+       And these, O friends, are the Fortunate Isles."
+
+
+AND LARKS FOR THE REBEL
+
+
+Beneath a sky faintly pink with the warning of the coming sunrise Jeff
+walked an old logging trail that would take him back to camp from his
+morning dip. Ferns and blackberry bushes, heavy with dew, reached across
+the road and grappled with each other. At every step, as he pushed
+through the tangle, a shower of drops went flying.
+
+His was the incomparable buoyant humor of a lover treading a newborn
+world. A smile was in his eyes, tender, luminous, cheerful. He thought
+of the woman whom he had not seen for many months, and he was buoyed up
+by the fine spiritual edge which does not know defeat. Win or lose, it
+was clear gain to have loved her.
+
+With him he carried a vision of her, young, ardent, all fire and flame.
+One spoke of things beautiful and her face lit from within. Her words,
+motions, came from the depths, half revealed and half concealed dear
+hidden secrets. He recalled the grace of the delicate throat curve,
+little tricks of expression, the sweetness of her energy.
+
+The forest broke, opening into a clearing. He stood to drink in its
+beauty, for the sun, peeping over a saddle in the hills, had painted the
+place a valley of gold and russet. And while he waited there came out of
+the woods beyond, into that splendid setting, the vision that was in his
+mind.
+
+He was not surprised that his eyes were playing him tricks. This was
+after all the proper frame for the picture of his golden sweetheart.
+Lance-straight and slender, his wood nymph waded knee deep through the
+ferns. Straight toward him she came, and his temples began to throb. A
+sylph of the woods should be diaphanous. The one he saw was a creature
+of color and warmth and definiteness. Life, sweet and mocking, flowed
+through her radiantly. His heart sang within him, for the woman he loved
+out of a world of beautiful women was coming to him, light-footed as
+Daphne, the rhythm of the morning in her step.
+
+She spoke, commonplace words enough. "Last night I heard you were here."
+
+"And I didn't know you were within a thousand miles."
+
+"We came back to Verden Thursday and are up over Sunday," she explained.
+
+He was lost in the witchery of the spell she cast over him. Not the
+drooping maidenhair ferns through which she trailed were more
+delicate or graceful than she. But some instinct in him played surface
+commonplaces against the insurgent emotion of his heart.
+
+"You like Washington?"
+
+"I like home better."
+
+"But you were popular at the capital. I read a great deal in the papers
+about your triumphs."
+
+The dye in her cheeks ran a little stronger. There had been much gossip
+about a certain Italian nobleman who had wooed her openly and madly.
+"They told a lot of nonsense."
+
+"And some that wasn't nonsense."
+
+"Not much." She changed the subject lightly. "You read all about the
+wedding, of course."
+
+He quoted. "Miss Alice Frome as maid of honor preceded the bride,
+appearing in a handsome gown of very delicate old rose satin with an
+overdress of--"
+
+"Very good. You may go to the head of the class, sir. Valencia was
+beautiful and your cousin never looked more handsome."
+
+"Which is saying a good deal."
+
+"And we're all hoping they will live happy ever after."
+
+"You know he is being talked of for United States Senator already."
+
+"You will oppose him?" she asked quickly.
+
+"I shall have to."
+
+"Still an irreconcilable." Her smile could be vivid, and just now it
+was.
+
+"Still a demagogue and a trouble maker," he admitted.
+
+"You've won the recall and the direct primary since I left."
+
+"Yes. We've been busy."
+
+"And our friends--how are they?"
+
+"You should see Jefferson Davis Farnum Miller. He's two months old and
+as fat as a dumpling."
+
+"I've seen him. He's a credit to his godfather."
+
+"Isn't he? That's one happy family."
+
+"I wonder who's to blame for that," she said, the star flash in her
+eyes.
+
+"Nellie told you?"
+
+"She told me."
+
+"They exaggerate. Nobody could have done less than I."
+
+"Or more." She did not dwell upon the subject. "Tell me about Mr.
+Marchant."
+
+He went over for her the story of the little poet's gentle death. She
+listened till he made an end.
+
+"Then it was not hard for him?"
+
+"No. He had one of his good, eager days, then guietly fell asleep."
+
+"And passed to where, beyond these voices, there is rest and peace," she
+quoted, ever so softly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Perhaps he knows now all about his Perfect State." Her wistful smile
+was very tender.
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+They walked together slowly across the valley.
+
+"It is nearly six months since I have seen you."
+
+"Five months and twenty-seven days." The words had slipped out almost
+without her volition. She hurried on, ashamed, the color flying in her
+cheeks, "I remember because it was the day we ran down your cousin and
+that old gentleman. It has always been a great comfort to me to know
+that he was not seriously injured."
+
+"No. It was only the shock of his fall."
+
+"What was his name? I don't think I heard it."
+
+There was just an instant's silence before he pronounced, "Farnum--Mr.
+Robert Farnum."
+
+"A relative of yours?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Across her brain there flashed a fugitive memory of three words Jeff had
+spoken to his cousin the day of the accident. "It's your father."
+
+But how could that be? She had always understood that both the parents
+of James were dead. The lawyer had denied knowing the man whose life
+he had saved. And yet she had been sure of the words and of a furtive,
+frightened look on the face of James. According to the story of the
+_Herald_ the father of Jefferson, a former convict, was named Robert.
+But once, when she had made some allusion to it Captain Chunn had
+exploded into vigorous denial. It was a puzzle the meaning of which she
+could not guess.
+
+"He has several times mentioned his wish to thank you for your
+kindness," Jeff mentioned.
+
+"I'll be glad to meet him." Swiftly she flashed a question at him. "Is
+he James Farnum's father?"
+
+"Haven't you read the papers? He is said to be mine."
+
+"But he isn't. He isn't. I see it now. James was ashamed to acknowledge
+a father who had been in prison. Your enemies made a mistake and you let
+it go."
+
+"It's all long since past. I wouldn't say anything about it to anybody."
+
+"Of course you wouldn't," she scoffed. Her eyes were very bright. She
+wanted to laugh and to weep at her discovery.
+
+"You see it didn't matter with my friends. And my reputation was beyond
+hope anyhow. It was different with James."
+
+She nodded. "Yes. It wouldn't have improved his chances with Valencia,"
+her cousin admitted.
+
+Jeff permitted himself a smile. "My impression was that he did not have
+Mrs. Van Tyle in mind at the time."
+
+They had waded through the wet ferns to the edge of the woods. As her
+eyes swept the russet valley through which they had passed Alice drew a
+deep breath of pleasure. How good it was to be alive in such a world
+of beauty! A meadow lark throbbed its three notes at her joyfully to
+emphasize their kinship. An English pheasant strutted across the path
+and disappeared into the ferns. Neither the man nor the woman spoke. All
+the glad day called them to the emotional climax toward which they were
+racing.
+
+Womanlike, Alice attempted to evade what she most desired. He was to be
+her mate. She knew it now. But the fear of him was in her heart.
+
+"Were you so fond of him? Is that why you did it for him?" she asked.
+
+"I didn't do it for him."
+
+"For whom then?"
+
+He did not answer. Nor did his eyes meet hers. They were fixed on the
+moving ferns where the pheasant had disappeared.
+
+Alice guessed. He had done it for the girl because he thought her in
+love with his cousin. A warm glow suffused her. No man made such a
+sacrifice for a woman unless he cared for her.
+
+The meadow lark flung out another carefree ecstasy. The theme of it was
+the triumphant certainty that love is the greatest thing in the world.
+Jeff felt that it was now or never.
+
+"I love you. It's been hidden in my heart more than eight years, but
+I find I must tell you. All the arguments against it I've rehearsed a
+thousand times. The world is at your feet. You could never love a man
+like me. To your friends I'm a bad lot. They never would consider me a
+moment."
+
+Gently she interrupted. "Is it my friends you want to marry?"
+
+The surprise of it took him by the throat. His astonished eyes
+questioned for a denial. In that moment a wonderful secret was born into
+the world. She held out both hands with a divine frankness, a sweetness
+of surrender beyond words.
+
+"But your father--your people!"
+
+"'Where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people."' She
+murmured it with a broken little laugh that was a sob.
+
+Even then he did not take her in his arms. The habit of reverence for
+her was of many years' growth and not to be broken in an instant.
+
+"You are sure, dear--quite sure?"
+
+"I've been sure ever since the day of our first talk on the
+_Bellingham._"
+
+Still he fought the joy that flooded him. "I must tell you the truth so
+that you won't idealize me... and the situation. I am enlisted in this
+fight for life. Where it will lead me I don't know. But I must follow
+the road I see. You will lose your friends. They will think me a crank,
+an enemy to society; and they will think you demented. But even for you
+I can't turn back."
+
+A tender glow was in her deep eyes. "If I did not know that do you think
+I would marry you?"
+
+"But you've always had the best things. You've never known what it is to
+be poor."
+
+"No, I've never had the best things, never till I knew you, dear. I've
+starved for them and did not know how to escape the prison I was in.
+Then you came... and you showed me. The world is at my feet now. Not the
+world you meant, of idleness and luxury and ennui... but that better one
+of the spirit where you and I shall walk together as comrades of all who
+work and laugh and weep."
+
+"If I could be sure!"
+
+"Of me, Jeff?"
+
+"That I can make you happy. After all it's a chance."
+
+"We all live on a chance. I'll take mine beside the man I love. There is
+one way under heaven by which men may be saved. I'm going to walk that
+way with you, dear."
+
+Jeff threw away the reins of a worldly wise prudence.
+
+"For ever and ever, Alice," he cried softly, shaken to his soul.
+
+As their lips met the lark throbbed a betrothal song.
+
+...............
+
+They went slowly through the wet ferns, hand in hand. It was amazingly
+true that he had won her, but Jeff could scarce believe the miracle.
+More than once he recurred to it.
+
+"You saw what no other young woman of your set in Verden did, the human
+in me through my vagabondage. But why? There's nothing in my appearance
+to attract."
+
+"Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck," she laughed. "And I won't
+have you questioning my taste, sir. I've always thought you very
+good-looking, if you must have it."
+
+"If you're as far gone as that!" His low laughter rang out to meet hers,
+for no reason except the best of reasons--that they walked alone with
+love through a world wonderful.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Vision Spendid, by William MacLeod Raine
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