Chapter 3

"Hugo is the finest flower of American gentleman. That is, he's the quintessence of everything that's nice--and 'nasty.' I wish I were married to him for a week. I love Hugo, but he gives me the creeps." She rose and tramped restlessly about the room. "You both give me the creeps. Everything conventional gives me the creeps. If I'm not careful I'll dress myself in a long shirt, let down my hair and run wild."

"What nonsense you do talk," said Martha composedly.

Jane sat down abruptly. "So I do!" she said. "I'm as poor a creature as you at bottom. I simply like to beat against the bars of my cage to make myself think I'm a wild, free bird by nature. If you opened the door, I'd not fly out, but would hop meekly back to my perch and fall to smoothing my feathers.... Tell me some more about Victor Dorn."

"I told you he isn't fit to talk about," said Martha. "Do you know, they say now that he is carrying on with that shameless, brazen thing who writes for his paper, that Selma Gordon?"

"Selma Gordon," echoed Jane. Her brows came down in a gesture reminiscent of her father, and there was a disagreeable expression about her mouth and in her light brown eyes. "Who's Selma Gordon?"

"She makes speeches--and writes articles against rich people--and--oh, she's horrid."

"Pretty?"

"No--a scrawny, black thing. The men--some of them--say she's got a kind of uncanny fascination. Some even insist that she's beautiful." Martha laughed. "Beautiful! How could a woman with black hair and a dark skin and no flesh on her bones be beautiful?"

"It has been known to happen," said Jane curtly. "Is she one of THE Gordons?"

"Mercy, no!" cried Martha Galland. "She simply took the name of Gordon--that is, her father did. He was a Russian peasant--a Jew. And he fell in love with a girl who was of noble family--a princess, I think."

"Princess doesn't mean much in Russia," said Jane sourly.

"Anyhow, they ran away to this country. And he worked in the rolling mill here--and they both died--and Selma became a factory girl--and then took to writing for the New Day--that's Victor Dorn's paper, you know."

"How romantic," said Jane sarcastically. "And now Victor Dorn's in love with her?"

"I didn't say that," replied Martha, with a scandal-smile.

Jane Hastings went to the window and gazed out into the garden. Martha resumed her habitual warm day existence--sat rocking gently and fanning herself and looking leisurely about the room. Presently she said:

"Jane, why don't you marry Davy Hull?"

No answer.

"He's got an independent income--so there's no question of his marrying for money. And there isn't any family anywhere that's better than his--mighty few as good. And he's DEAD in love with you, Jen."

With her back still turned Jane snapped, "I'd rather marry Victor Dorn."

"What OUTRAGEOUS things you do say!" cried Martha.

"I envy that black Jewess--that--what's her name?--that Selma Gordon."

"You don't even know them," said Martha.

Jane wheeled round with a strange laugh. "Don't I?" cried she.

"I don't know anyone else."

She strode to her sister and tapped her lightly on the shoulder with the riding stick.

"Be careful," cautioned Martha. "You know how easily my flesh mars--and I'm going to wear my low neck to-night."

Jane did not heed. "David Hull is a bore--and a fraud," she said. "I tell you I'd rather marry Victor Dorn."

"Do be careful about my skin, dear," pleaded Martha. "Hugo'll be SO put out if there's a mark on it. He's very proud of my skin."

Jane looked at her quizzically. "What a dear, fat old rotter of a respectability it is, to be sure," said she--and strode from the room, and from the house.

Her mood of perversity and defiance did not yield to a ten mile gallop over the gentle hills of that lovely part of Indiana, but held on through the afternoon and controlled her toilet for the ball. She knew that every girl in town would appear at that most fashionable party of the summer season in the best clothing she could get together. As she had several dresses from Paris which she not without reason regarded as notable works of art, the opportunity to outshine was hers--the sort of opportunity she took pleasure in using to the uttermost, as a rule. But to be the best dressed woman at Mrs. Bertram's party was too easy and too commonplace. To be the worst dressed would call for courage--of just the sort she prided herself on having. Also, it would look original, would cause talk--would give her the coveted sense of achievement.

When she descended to show herself to her father and say good night to him, she was certainly dressed by the same pattern that caused him to be talked about throughout that region. Her gown was mussed, had been mended obviously in several places, had not been in its best day becoming. But this was not all. Her hair looked stringy and dishevelled. She was delighted with herself. Except during an illness two years before never had she come so near to being downright homely. "Martha will die of shame," said she to herself. "And Mrs. Bertram will spend the evening explaining me to everybody." She did not definitely formulate the thought, "And I shall be the most talked about person of the evening"; but it was in her mind none the less.

Her father always smoked his after-dinner cigar in a little room just off the library. It was filled up with the plain cheap furniture and the chromos and mottoes which he and his wife had bought when they first went to housekeeping--in their early days of poverty and struggle. On the south wall was a crude and cheap, but startlingly large enlargement of an old daguerreotype of Letitia Hastings at twenty-four--the year after her marriage and the year before the birth of the oldest child, Robert, called Dock, now piling up a fortune as an insider in the Chicago "brave" game of wheat and pork, which it is absurd to call gambling because gambling involves chance. To smoke the one cigar the doctor allowed him, old Martin Hastings always seated himself before this picture. He found it and his thoughts the best company in the world, just as he had found her silent self and her thoughts the best company in their twenty-one years of married life. As he sat there, sometimes he thought of her--of what they had been through together, of the various advances in his fortune--how this one had been made near such and such anniversary, and that one between two other anniversaries--and what he had said to her and what she had said to him. Again--perhaps oftener--he did not think of her directly, any more than he had thought of her when they sat together evening after evening, year in and year out, through those twenty-one years of contented and prosperous life.

As Jane entered he, seated back to the door, said:

"About that there Dorn damage suit----"

Jane started, caught her breath. Really, it was uncanny, this continual thrusting of Victor Dorn at her.

"It wasn't so bad as it looked," continued her father. He was speaking in the quiet voice--quiet and old and sad--he always used when seated before the picture.

"You see, Jenny, in them days"--also, in presence of the picture he lapsed completely into the dialect of his youth--"in them days the railroad was teetering and I couldn't tell which way things'd jump. Every cent counted."

"I understand perfectly, father," said Jane, her hands on his shoulders from behind. She felt immensely relieved. She did not realize that every doer of a mean act always has an excellent excuse for it.

"Then afterwards," the old man went on, "the family was getting along so well--the boy was working steady and making good money and pushing ahead--and I was afeared I'd do harm instead of good. It's mighty dangerous, Jen, to give money sudden to folks that ain't used to it. I've seen many a smash-up come that way. And your ma--she thought so, too--kind of."

The "kind of" was advanced hesitatingly, with an apologetic side glance at the big crayon portrait. But Jane was entirely convinced. She was average human; therefore, she believed what she wished to believe.

"You were quite right, father," said she. "I knew you couldn't do a bad thing--wouldn't deliberately strike at weak, helpless people. And now, it can be straightened out and the Dorns will be all the better for not having been tempted in the days when it might have ruined them."

She had walked round where her father could see her, as she delivered herself of this speech so redolent of the fumes of collegiate smugness. He proceeded to examine her--with an expression of growing dissatisfaction. Said he fretfully:

"You don't calculate to go out, looking like that?"

"Out to the swellest blow-out of the year, popsy," said she.

The big heavy looking head wobbled about uneasily. "You look too much like your old pappy's daughter," said he.

"I can afford to," replied she.

The head shook positively. "You ma wouldn't 'a liked it. She was mighty partic'lar how she dressed."

Jane laughed gayly. "Why, when did you become a critic of women's dress?" cried she.

"I always used to buy yer ma dresses and hats when I went to the city," said he. "And she looked as good as the best--not for these days, but for them times." He looked critically at the portrait. "I bought them clothes and awful dear they seemed to me." His glance returned to his daughter. "Go get yourself up proper," said he, between request and command. "SHE wouldn't 'a liked it."

Jane gazed at the common old crayon, suddenly flung her arms round the old man's neck. "Yes--father," she murmured. "To please HER."

She fled; the old man wiped his eyes, blew his nose and resumed the careful smoking of the cheap, smelly cigar. He said he preferred that brand of his days of poverty; and it was probably true, as he would refuse better cigars offered him by fastidious men who hoped to save themselves from the horrors of his. He waited restlessly, though it was long past his bedtime; he yawned and pretended to listen while Davy Hull, who had called for Jane in the Hull brougham, tried to make a favorable impression upon him. At last Jane reappeared--and certainly Letitia Hastings would have been more than satisfied.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," said she to Hull, who was speechless and tremulous before her voluptuous radiance. "But father didn't like the way I was rigged out. Maybe I'll have to change again."

"Take her along, Davy," said Hastings, his big head wagging with delight. "She's a caution--SHE is!"

Hull could not control himself to speak. As they sat in the carriage, she finishing the pulling on of her gloves, he stared out into the heavy rain that was deluging the earth and bending low the boughs. Said she, half way down the hill:

"Well--can't you talk about anything but Victor Dorn?"

"I saw him this afternoon," said Hull, glad that the tension of the silence was broken.

"Then you've got something to talk about."

"The big street car strike is on."

"So father said at dinner. I suppose Victor Dorn caused it."

"No--he's opposed to it. He's queer. I don't exactly understand his ideas. He says strikes are ridiculous--that it's like trying to cure smallpox by healing up one single sore."

Jane gave a shiver of lady-like disgust. "How--nasty," said she.

"I'm telling you what he said. But he says that the only way human beings learn how to do things right is by doing them wrong--so while he's opposed to strikes he's also in favor of them."

"Even _I_ understand that," said Jane. "I don't think it's difficult."

"Doesn't it strike you as--as inconsistent?"

"Oh--bother consistency!" scoffed the girl. "That's another middle class virtue that sensible people loathe as a vice. Anyhow, he's helping the strikers all he can--and fighting US. You know, your father and my father's estate are the two biggest owners of the street railways."

"I must get his paper," said Jane. "I'll have a lot of fun reading the truth about us."

But David wasn't listening. He was deep in thought. After a while he said: "It's amazing--and splendid--and terrible, what power he's getting in our town. Victor Dorn, I mean."

"Always Victor Dorn," mocked Jane.

"When he started--twelve years ago as a boy of twenty, just out of college and working as a carpenter--when he started, he was alone and poor, and without friends or anything. He built up little by little, winning one man at a time--the fellow working next him on his right, then the chap working on his left--in the shop--and so on, one man after another. And whenever he got a man he held him--made him as devoted--as--as fanatical as he is himself. Now he's got a band of nearly a thousand. There are ten thousand voters in this town. So, he's got only one in ten. But what a thousand!"

Jane was gazing out into the rain, her eyes bright, her lips parted.

"Are you listening?" asked Hull. "Or, am I boring you?"

"Go on," said she.

"They're a thousand missionaries--apostles--yes, apostle is the name for them. They live and breathe and think and talk only the ideas Victor Dorn believes and fights for. And whenever he wants anything done--anything for the cause--why, there are a thousand men ready to do it."

"Why?" said Jane.

"Victor Dorn," said Hull. "Do you wonder that he interests me? For instance, to-night: you see how it's raining. Well, Victor Dorn had them print to-day fifty thousand leaflets about this strike--what it means to his cause. And he has asked five hundred of his men to stand on the corners and patrol the streets and distribute those dodgers. I'll bet not a man will be missing."

"But why?" repeated Jane. "What for?"

"He wants to conquer this town. He says the world has to be conquered--and that the way to begin is to begin--and that he has begun."

"Conquer it for what?"

"For himself, I guess," said Hull. "Of course, he professes that it's for the public good. They all do. But what's the truth?"

"If I saw him I could tell you," said Jane in the full pride of her belief in her woman's power of divination in character.

"However, he can't succeed," observed Hull.

"Oh, yes, he can," replied Jane. "And will. Even if every idea he had were foolish and wrong. And it isn't--is it?"

David laughed peculiarly. "He's infernally uncomfortably right in most of the things he charges and proposes. I don't like to think about it." He shut his teeth together. "I WON'T think about it," he muttered.

"No--you'd better stick to your own road, Davy," said Jane with irritating mockery. "You were born to be thoroughly conventional and respectable. As a reformer you're ideal. As a--an imitator of Victor Dorn, you'd be a joke."

"There's one of his men now," exclaimed Hull, leaning forward excitedly.

Jane looked. A working man, a commonplace enough object, was standing under the corner street lamp, the water running off his hat, his shoulders, his coat tail. His package of dodgers was carefully shielded by an oilcloth from the wet which had full swing at the man. To every passer-by he presented a dodger, accompanying the polite gesture with some phrase which seemed to move the man or woman to take what was offered and to put it away instead of dropping it.

Jane sank back in the carriage, disappointed. "Is that all?" said she disdainfully.

"ALL?" cried Hull. "Use your imagination, Jen. But I forgot--you're a woman. They see only surfaces."

"And are snared into marrying by complexions and pretty features and dresses and silly flirting tricks," retorted the girl sarcastically.

Hull laughed. "I spoke too quick that time," said he. "I suppose you expected to see something out of a fifteenth century Italian old master! Well--it was there, all right."

Jane shrugged her shoulders. "And your Victor Dorn," said she, "no doubt he's seated in some dry, comfortable place enjoying the thought of his men making fools of themselves for him."

They were drawing up to the curb before the Opera House where were the assembly rooms. "There he is now," cried Hull.

Jane, startled, leaned eagerly forward. In the rain beyond the edge of the awning stood a dripping figure not unlike that other which had so disappointed her. Underneath the brim of the hat she could see a smooth-shaven youngish face--almost boyish. But the rain streaming from the brim made satisfactory scrutiny impossible.

Jane again sank back. "How many carriages before us?" she said.

"You're disappointed in him, too, I suppose," said Hull. "I knew you would be."

"I thought he was tall," said Jane.

"Only middling," replied Hull, curiously delighted.

"I thought he was serious," said Jane.

"On the contrary, he's always laughing. He's the best natured man I know."

As they descended and started along the carpet under the middle of the awning, Jane halted. She glanced toward the dripping figure whom the police would not permit under the shelter. Said she: "I want one of those papers."

Davy moved toward the drenched distributor of strike literature. "Give me one, Dorn," he said in his most elegant manner.

"Sure, Davy," said Dorn in a tone that was a subtle commentary on Hull's aristocratic tone and manner. As he spoke he glanced at Jane; she was looking at him. Both smiled--at Davy's expense.

Davy and Jane passed on in, Jane folding the dodger to tuck it away for future reading. She said to him: "But you didn't tell me about his eyes."

"What's the matter with them?"

"Everything," replied she--and said no more.

II

The dance was even more tiresome than Jane had anticipated. There had been little pleasure in outshining the easily outshone belles of Remsen City. She had felt humiliated by having to divide the honors with a brilliantly beautiful and scandalously audacious Chicago girl, a Yvonne Hereford--whose style, in looks, in dress and in wit, was more comfortable to the standard of the best young men of Remsen City--a standard which Miss Hastings, cultivated by foreign travel and social adventure, regarded as distinctly poor, not to say low. Miss Hereford's audacities were especially offensive to Jane. Jane was audacious herself, but she flattered herself that she had a delicate sense of that baffling distinction between the audacity that is the hall mark of the lady and the audacity that proclaims the not-lady. For example, in such apparently trifling matters as the way of smoking a cigarette, the way of crossing the legs or putting the elbows on the table or using slang, Jane found a difference, abysmal though narrow, between herself and Yvonne Hereford. "But then, her very name gives her away," reflected Jane. "There'd surely be a frightfully cheap streak in a mother who in this country would name her daughter Yvonne--or in a girl who would name herself that."

However, Jane Hastings was not deeply annoyed either by the shortcomings of Remsen City young men or by the rivalry of Miss Hereford. Her dissatisfaction was personal--the feeling of futility, of cheapness, in having dressed herself in her best and spent a whole evening at such unworthy business. "Whatever I am or am not fit for," said she to herself, "I'm not for society--any kind of society. At least I'm too much grown-up mentally for that." Her disdainful thoughts about others were, on this occasion as almost always, merely a mode of expressing her self-scorn.

As she was undressing she found in her party bag the dodger Hull had got for her from Victor Dorn. She, sitting at her dressing table, started to read it at once. But her attention soon wandered. "I'm not in the mood," she said. "To-morrow." And she tossed it into the top drawer. The fact was, the subject of politics interested her only when some man in whom she was interested was talking it to her. In a general way she understood things political, but like almost all women and all but a few men she could fasten her attention only on things directly and clearly and nearly related to her own interests. Politics seemed to her to be not at all related to her--or, indeed, to anybody but the men running for office. This dodger was politics, pure and simple. A plea to workingmen to awaken to the fact that their STRIKES were stupid and wasteful, that the way to get better pay and decent hours of labor was by uniting, taking possession of the power that was rightfully theirs and regulating their own affairs.

She resumed fixing her hair for the night. Her glance bent steadily downward at one stage of this performance, rested unseeingly upon the handbill folded printed side out and on top of the contents of the open drawer. She happened to see two capital letters--S.G.--in a line by themselves at the end of the print. She repeated them mechanically several times--"S.G.--S.G.--S.G."--then her hands fell from her hair upon the handbill. She settled herself to read in earnest.

"Selma Gordon," she said. "That's different."

She would have had some difficulty in explaining to herself why it was "different." She read closely, concentratedly now. She tried to read in an attitude of unfriendly criticism, but she could not. A dozen lines, and the clear, earnest, honest sentences had taken hold of her. How sensible the statements were, and how obviously true. Why, it wasn't the writing of an "anarchistic crank" at all--on the contrary, the writer was if anything more excusing toward the men who were giving the drivers and motormen a dollar and ten cents a day for fourteen hours' work--"fourteen hours!" cried Jane, her cheeks burning--yes, Selma Gordon was more tolerant of the owners of the street car line than Jane herself would have been.

When Jane had read, she gazed at the print with sad envy in her eyes. "Selma Gordon can think--and she can write, too," said she half aloud. "I want to know her--too."

That "too" was the first admission to herself of a curiously intense desire to meet Victor Dorn.

"Oh, to be in earnest about something! To have a real interest! To find something to do besides the nursery games disguised under new forms for the grown-up yet never to be grown-up infants of the world. And THAT kind of politics doesn't sound shallow and dull. There's heart in it--and brains--real brains--not merely nasty little self-seeking cunning." She took up the handbill again and read a paragraph set in bolder type:

"The reason we of the working class are slaves is because we haven't intelligence enough to be our own masters, let alone masters of anybody else. The talk of equality, workingmen, is nonsense to flatter your silly, ignorant vanity. We are not the equals of our masters. They know more than we do, and naturally they use that knowledge to make us work for them. So, even if you win in this strike or in all your strikes, you will not much better yourselves. Because you are ignorant and foolish, your masters will scheme around and take from you in some other way what you have wrenched from them in the strike.

"Organize! Think! Learn! Then you will rise out of the dirt where you wallow with your wives and your children. Don't blame your masters; they don't enslave you. They don't keep you in slavery. Your chains are of your own forging and only you can strike them off!"