Chapter 9

"What was the matter with me?" he asked himself. "I never acted in that way before." And then he saw that his brusqueness had been the cover for fear of of her--fear of the allure of her luxury and her beauty. In love with her? He knew that he was not. No, his feeling toward her was merely the crudest form of the tribute of man to woman--though apparently woman as a rule preferred this form to any other.

"I owe her an apology," he said to himself. And so it came to pass that at three the following afternoon he was once more facing her in that creeper-walled seclusion whose soft lights were almost equal to light of gloaming or moon or stars in romantic charm.

Said he--always direct and simple, whether dealing with man or woman, with devious person or straight:

"I've come to beg your pardon for what I said yesterday."

"You certainly were wild and strange," laughed she.

"I was supercilious," said he. "And worse than that there is not. However, as I have apologized, and you have accepted my apology, we need waste no more time about that. You wished to persuade your father to----"

"Just a moment!" interrupted she. "I've a question to ask. WHY did you treat me--why have you been treating me so--so harshly?"

"Because I was afraid of you," replied he. "I did not realize it, but that was the reason."

"Afraid of ME," said she. "That's very flattering."

"No," said he, coloring. "In some mysterious way I had been betrayed into thinking of you as no man ought to think of a woman unless he is in love with her and she with him. I am ashamed of myself. But I shall conquer that feeling--or keep away from you.... Do you understand what the street car situation is?"

But she was not to be deflected from the main question, now that it had been brought to the front so unexpectedly and in exactly the way most favorable to her purposes. "You've made me uneasy," said she. "I don't in the least understand what you mean. I have wanted, and I still want, to be friends with you--good friends--just as you and Selma Gordon are--though of course I couldn't hope to be as close a friend as she is. I'm too ignorant--too useless."

He shook his head--with him, a gesture that conveyed the full strength of negation. "We are on opposite sides of a line across which friendship is impossible. I could not be your friend without being false to myself. You couldn't be mine unless you were by some accident flung into the working class and forced to adopt it as your own. Even then you'd probably remain what you are. Only a small part of the working class as yet is at heart of the working class. Most of us secretly--almost openly--despise the life of work, and dream and hope a time of fortune that will put us up among the masters and the idlers." His expressive eyes became eloquent. "The false and shallow ideas that have been educated into us for ages can't be uprooted in a few brief years."

She felt the admiration she did not try to conceal. She saw the proud and splendid conception of the dignity of labor--of labor as a blessing, not a curse, as a badge of aristocracy and not of slavery and shame. "You really believe that, don't you?" she said. "I know it's true. I say I believe it--who doesn't SAY so? But I don't FEEL it."

"That's honest," said he heartily. "That's some thing to build on."

"And I'm going to build!" cried she. "You'll help me--won't you? I know, it's a great deal to ask. Why should you take the time and the trouble to bother with one single unimportant person."

"That's the way I spend my life--in adding one man or one woman to our party--one at a time. It's slow building, but it's the only kind that endures. There are twelve hundred of us now--twelve hundred voters, I mean. Ten years ago there were only three hundred. We'd expand much more rapidly if it weren't for the constant shifts of population. Our men are forced to go elsewhere as the pressure of capitalism gets too strong. And in place of them come raw emigrants, ignorant, full of dreams of becoming capitalists and exploiters of their fellow men and idlers. Ambition they call it. Ambition!" He laughed. "What a vulgar, what a cruel notion of rising in the world! To cease to be useful, to become a burden to others! ... Did you ever think how many poor creatures have to toil longer hours, how many children have to go to the factory instead of to school, in order that there may be two hundred and seven automobiles privately kept in this town and seventy-four chauffeurs doing nothing but wait upon their masters? Money doesn't grow on bushes, you know. Every cent of it has to be earned by somebody--and earned by MANUAL labor."

"I must think about that," she said--for the first time as much interested in what he was saying as in the man himself. No small triumph for Victor over the mind of a woman dominated, as was Jane Hastings, by the sex instinct that determines the thoughts and actions of practically the entire female sex.

"Yes--think about it," he urged. "You will never see it--or anything--until you see it for yourself."

"That's the way your party is built--isn't it?" inquired she. "Of those who see it for themselves."

"Only those," replied he. "We want no others."

"Not even their votes?" said she shrewdly.

"Not even their votes," he answered. "We've no desire to get the offices until we get them to keep. And when we shall have conquered the city, we'll move on to the conquest of the county--then of the district--then of the state. Our kind of movement is building in every city now, and in most of the towns and many of the villages. The old parties are falling to pieces because they stand for the old politics of the two factions of the upper class quarreling over which of them should superintend the exploiting of the people. Very few of us realize what is going on before our very eyes--that we're seeing the death agonies of one form of civilization and the birth-throes of a newer form."

"And what will it be?" asked the girl.

She had been waiting for some sign of the "crank," the impractical dreamer. She was confident that this question would reveal the man she had been warned against--that in answering it he would betray his true self. But he disappointed and surprised her.

"How can I tell what it will be?" said he. "I'm not a prophet. All I can say is I am sure it will be human, full of imperfections, full of opportunities for improvements--and that I hope it will be better than what we have now. Probably not much better, but a little--and that little, however small it may be, will be a gain. Doesn't history show a slow but steady advance of the idea that the world is for the people who live in it, a slow retreat of the idea that the world and the people and all its and their resources are for a favored few of some kind of an upper class? Yes--I think it is reasonable to hope that out of the throes will come a freer and a happier and a more intelligent race."

Suddenly she burst out, apparently irrelevantly: "But I can't--I really can't agree with you that everyone ought to do physical labor. That would drag the world down--yes, I'm sure it would."

"I guess you haven't thought about that," said he. "Painters do physical labor--and sculptors--and writers--and all the scientific men--and the inventors--and--" He laughed at her--"Who doesn't do physical labor that does anything really useful? Why, you yourself--at tennis and riding and such things--do heavy physical labor. I've only to look at your body to see that. But it's of a foolish kind--foolish and narrowly selfish."

"I see I'd better not try to argue with you," said she.

"No--don't argue--with me or with anybody," rejoined he. "Sit down quietly and think about life--about your life. Think how it is best to live so that you may get the most out of life--the most substantial happiness. Don't go on doing the silly customary things simply because a silly customary world says they are amusing and worth while. Think--and do--for yourself, Jane Hastings."

She nodded slowly and thoughtfully. "I'll try to," she said. She looked at him with the expression of the mind aroused. It was an expression that often rewarded him after a long straight talk with a fellow being. She went on: "I probably shan't do what you'd approve. You see, I've got to be myself--got to live to a certain extent the kind of a life fate has made for me."

"You couldn't successfully live any other," said he.

"But, while it won't be at all what you'd regard as a model life--or even perhaps useful--it'll be very different--very much better--than it would have been, if I hadn't met you--Victor Dorn."

"Oh, I've done nothing," said he. "All I try to do is to encourage my fellow beings to be themselves. So--live your own life--the life you can live best--just as you wear the clothes that fit and become you.... And now--about the street car question. What do you want of me?"

"Tell me what to say to father."

He shook his head. "Can't do it," said he. "There's a good place for you to make a beginning. Put on an old dress and go down town and get acquainted with the family life of the street-car men. Talk to their wives and their children. Look into the whole business yourself."

"But I'm not--not competent to judge," objected she.

"Well, make yourself competent," advised he.

"I might get Miss Gordon to go with me," suggested she.

"You'll learn more thoroughly if you go alone," declared he.

She hesitated--ventured with a winning smile: "You won't go with me--just to get me started right?"

"No," said he. "You've got to learn for yourself--or not at all. If I go with you, you'll get my point of view, and it will take you so much the longer to get your own."

"Perhaps you'd prefer I didn't go."

"It's not a matter of much importance, one way or the other--except perhaps to yourself," replied he.

"Any one individual can do the human race little good by learning the truth about life. The only benefit is to himself. Don't forget that in your sweet enthusiasm for doing something noble and generous and helpful. Don't become a Davy Hull. You know, Davy is on earth for the benefit of the human race. Ever since he was born he has been taken care of--supplied with food, clothing, shelter, everything. Yet he imagines that he is somehow a God-appointed guardian of the people who have gathered and cooked his food, made his clothing, served him in every way. It's very funny, that attitude of your class toward mine."

"They look up to us," said Jane. "You can't blame us for allowing it--for becoming pleased with ourselves."

"That's the worst of it--we do look up to you," admitted he. "But--we're learning better."

"YOU'VE already learned better--you personally, I mean. I think that when you compare me, for instance, with a girl like Selma Gordon, you look down on me."

"Don't you, yourself, feel that any woman who is self-supporting and free is your superior?"

"In some moods, I do," replied Jane. "In other moods, I feel as I was brought up to feel."

They talked on and on, she detaining him without seeming to do so. She felt proud of her adroitness. But the truth was that his stopping on for nearly two hours was almost altogether a tribute to her physical charm--though Victor was unconscious of it. When the afternoon was drawing on toward the time for her father to come, she reluctantly let him go. She said:

"But you'll come again?"

"I can't do that," replied he regretfully. "I could not come to your father's house and continue free. I must be able to say what I honestly think, without any restraint."

"I understand," said she. "And I want you to say and to write what you believe to be true and right. But--we'll see each other again. I'm sure we are going to be friends."

His expression as he bade her good-by told her that she had won his respect and his liking. She had a suspicion that she did not deserve either; but she was full of good resolutions, and assured herself she soon would be what she had pretended--that her pretenses were not exactly false, only somewhat premature.

At dinner that evening she said to her father:

"I think I ought to do something beside enjoy myself. I've decided to go down among the poor people and see whether I can't help them in some way."

"You'd better keep away from that part of town," advised her father. "They live awful dirty, and you might catch some disease. If you want to do anything for the poor, send a check to our minister or to the charity society. There's two kinds of poor--those that are working hard and saving their money and getting up out of the dirt, and those that haven't got no spunk or get-up. The first kind don't need help, and the second don't deserve it."

"But there are the children, popsy," urged Jane. "The children of the no-account poor ought to have a chance."

"I don't reckon there ever was a more shiftless, do-easy pair than my father and mother," rejoined Martin Hastings. "They were what set me to jumping."

She saw that his view was hopelessly narrow--that, while he regarded himself justly as an extraordinary man, he also, for purposes of prejudice and selfishness, regarded his own achievements in overcoming what would have been hopeless handicaps to any but a giant in character and in physical endurance as an instance of what any one could do if he would but work. She never argued with him when she wished to carry her point. She now said:

"It seems to me that, in our own interest, we ought to do what we can to make the poor live better. As you say, it's positively dangerous to go about in the tenement part of town--and those people are always coming among us. For instance, our servants have relatives living in Cooper Street, where there's a pest of consumption."

Old Hastings nodded. "That's part of Davy Hull's reform programme," said he. "And I'm in favor of it. The city government ought to make them people clean up."

"Victor Dorn wants that done, too--doesn't he?" said Jane.

"No," replied the old man sourly. "He says it's no use to clean up the slums unless you raise wages--and that then the slum people'd clean themselves up. The idea of giving those worthless trash more money to spend for beer and whisky and finery for their fool daughters. Why, they don't earn what we give 'em now."

Jane couldn't resist the temptation to say, "I guess the laziest of them earn more than Davy Hull or I."

"Because some gets more than they earn ain't a reason why others should." He grinned. "Maybe you and Davy ought to have less, but Victor Dorn and his riff-raff oughtn't to be pampered.... Do you want me to cut your allowance down?"

She was ready for him. "If you can get as satisfactory a housekeeper for less, you're a fool to overpay the one you have."

The old man was delighted. "I've been cheating you," said he. "I'll double your pay."

"You're doing it just in time to stop a strike," laughed the girl.

After a not unknown fashion she was most obedient to her father when his commands happened to coincide with her own inclinations.

Her ardor for an excursion into the slums and the tenements died almost with Victor Dorn's departure. Her father's reasons for forbidding her to go did not impress her as convincing, but she felt that she owed it to him to respect his wishes. Anyhow, what could she find out that she did not know already? Yes, Dorn and her father were right in the conclusion each reached by a different road. She would do well not to meddle where she could not possibly accomplish any good. She could question the servants and could get from them all the facts she needed for urging her father at least to cut down the hours of labor.

The more she thought about Victor Dorn the more uneasy she became. She had made more progress with him than she had hoped to make in so short a time. But she had made it at an unexpected cost. If she had softened him, he had established a disquieting influence over her. She was not sure, but she was afraid, that he was stronger than she--that, if she persisted in her whim, she would soon be liking him entirely too well for her own comfort. Except as a pastime, Victor Dorn did not fit into her scheme of life. If she continued to see him, to yield to the delight of his magnetic voice, of his fresh and original mind, of his energetic and dominating personality, might he not become aroused--begin to assert power over her, compel her to--to--she could not imagine what; only, it was foolish to deny that he was a dangerous man. "If I've got good sense," decided she, "I'll let him alone. I've nothing to gain and everything to lose."

Her motor--the one her father had ordered as a birthday present--came the next day; and on the following day two girl friends from Cincinnati arrived for a long visit. So, Jane Hastings had the help she felt she perhaps needed in resisting the temptings of her whim.

To aid her in giving her friends a good time she impressed Davy Hull, in spite of his protests that his political work made social fooling about impossible. The truth was that the reform movement, of which he was one of the figureheads, was being organized by far more skillful and expert hands than his--and for purposes of which he had no notion. So, he really had all the time in the world to look after Ellen Clearwater and Josie Arthur, and to pose as a serious man bent upon doing his duty as an upper class person of leisure. All that the reform machine wished of him was to talk and to pose--and to ride on the show seat of the pretty, new political wagon.

The new movement had not yet been "sprung" upon the public. It was still an open secret among the young men of the "better element" in the Lincoln, the Jefferson and the University clubs.

Money was being subscribed liberally by persons of good family who hoped for political preferment and could not get it from the old parties, and by corporations tired of being "blackmailed" by Kelly and House, and desirous of getting into office men who would give them what they wanted because it was for the public good that they should not be hampered in any way. With plenty of money an excellent machine could be built and set to running. Also, there was talk of a fusion with the Democratic machine, House to order the wholesale indorsement of the reform ticket in exchange for a few minor places.

When the excitement among the young gentlemen over the approaching moral regeneration of Remsen City politics was at the boiling point Victor Dorn sent for David Hull--asked him to come to the Baker Avenue cafe', which was the social headquarters of Dorn's Workingmen's League. As Hull was rather counting on Dorn's support, or at least neutrality, in the approaching contest, he accepted promptly. As he entered the cafe' he saw Dorn seated at a table in a far corner listening calmly to a man who was obviously angrily in earnest. At second glance he recognized Tony Rivers, one of Dick Kelly's shrewdest lieutenants and a labor leader of great influence in the unions of factory workers. Among those in "the know" it was understood that Rivers could come nearer to delivering the labor vote than any man in Remsen City. He knew whom to corrupt with bribes and whom to entrap by subtle appeals to ignorant prejudice. As a large part of his herd was intensely Catholic, Rivers was a devout Catholic. To quote his own phrase, used in a company on whose discretion he could count, "Many's the pair of pants I've worn out doing the stations of the Cross." In fact, Rivers had been brought up a Presbyterian, and under the name of Blake--his correct name--had "done a stretch" in Joliet for picking pockets.

Dorn caught sight of Davy Hull, hanging uncertainly in the offing. He rose at once, said a few words in a quiet, emphatic way to Rivers--words of conclusion and dismissal--and advanced to meet Hull.

"I don't want to interrupt. I can wait," said Hull, who saw Rivers' angry scowl at him. He did not wish to offend the great labor leader.

"That fellow pushed himself on me," said Dorn. "I've nothing to say to him."

"Tony Rivers--wasn't it?" said Davy as they seated themselves at another table.

"I'm going to expose him in next week's New Day," replied Victor. "When I sent him a copy of the article for his corrections, if he could make any, he came threatening."

"I've heard he's a dangerous man," said Davy.

"He'll not be so dangerous after Saturday," replied Victor. "One by one I'm putting the labor agents of your friends out of business. The best ones--the chaps like Rivers--are hard to catch. And if I should attack one of them before I had him dead to rights, I'd only strengthen him."

"You think you can destroy Rivers' influence?" said Davy incredulously.

"If I were not sure of it I'd not publish a line," said Victor.

"But to get to the subject I wish to talk to you about. You are to be the reform candidate for Mayor in the fall?"

Davy looked important and self-conscious. "There has been some talk of----" he began.

"I've sent for you to ask you to withdraw from the movement, Hull," interrupted Victor.

Hull smiled. "And I've come to ask you to support it," said Hull. "We'll win, anyhow. But I'd like to see all the forces against corruption united in this campaign. I am even urging my people to put one or two of your men on the ticket."

"None of us would accept," said Victor. "That isn't our kind of politics. We'll take nothing until we get everything.... What do you know about this movement you're lending your name to?"

"I organized it," said Hull proudly.

"Pardon me--Dick Kelly organized it," replied Victor. "They're simply using you, Davy, to play their rotten game. Kelly knew he was certain to be beaten this fall. He doesn't care especially for that, because House and his gang are just as much Kelly as Kelly himself. But he's alarmed about the judgeship."

Davy Hull reddened, though he tried hard to look indifferent.

"He's given up hope of pulling through the scoundrel who's on the bench now. He knows that our man would be elected, though his tool had the support of the Republicans, the Democrats and the new reform crowd."

Dorn had been watching Hull's embarrassed face keenly. He now said: "You understand, I see, why Judge Freilig changed his mind and decided that he must stop devoting himself to the public and think of the welfare of his family and resume the practice of the law?"

"Judge Freilig is an honorable gentleman," said Davy with much dignity. "I'm sorry, Dorn, that you listen to the lies of demagogues."

"If Freilig had persisted in running," said Victor, "I should have published the list of stocks and bonds of corporations benefiting by his decisions that his brother and his father have come into possession of during his two terms on the bench. Many of our judges are simply mentally crooked. But Freilig is a bribe taker. He probably believes his decisions are just. All you fellows believe that upper-class rule is really best for the people----"

"And so it is," said Davy. "And you, an educated man, know it."

"I'll not argue that now," said Victor. "As I was saying, while Freilig decides for what he honestly thinks is right, he also feels he is entitled to a share of the substantial benefits. Most of the judges, after serving the upper class faithfully for years, retire to an old age of comparative poverty. Freilig thinks that is foolish."

"I suppose you agree with him," said Hull sarcastically.

"I sympathize with him," said Victor. "He retires with reputation unstained and with plenty of money. If I should publish the truth about him, would he lose a single one of his friends? You know he wouldn't. That isn't the way the world is run at present."

"No doubt it would be run much better if your crowd were in charge," sneered Hull.