CHAPTER VIII

John Vassar’s sleep had been fitful and unsatisfying. Through hours of half-conscious brooding and dreaming he had seen the face of Virginia Holland. He had thus far found no time for social frivolities. The air of America was just the tonic needed to transform the tragic inheritance of the Old World into a passion for work that had practically ruled women out of the scheme of things.

He had dreamed of a home of his own in the dim future--yes--when the work of his career, the work he had planned for his country should have been done. This had been his life, the breath he breathed, his inspiration and religion--to lead an American renaissance of patriotism. America had never had a national spirit. His ambition was to fire the soul of thoughtless millions into a conscious love of country which would insure her glorious destiny.

A woman’s smile had upset this dream. Through the night he had tried in vain to throw off the obsession. At daylight he had fallen into a sleep of sheer exhaustion. It was nine o’clock before he was roused by a gentle knock on his door.

Marya’s voice was calling somewhere out of space.

“Uncle John--breakfast is waiting--may I come in?”

“All right--dearie--break right in!” he groaned.

“And I’ve a letter for you--a special letter--”

The sleeper was awake now, alert, eager--

“A special letter?”

“A big black man brought it just now. He’s waiting in the hall--says Miss Holland would like an answer.”

Vassar seized the letter and read with a broad grin. The handwriting was absurdly delicate. The idea that a suffragette could have written it was ridiculous!

MY DEAR MR. VASSAR:

I’m heartily ashamed of myself for losing my temper last night. Please call for me at ten o’clock. I wish a little heart-to-heart talk before we go to your Flag Festival. Please answer by the bearer.

VIRGINIA HOLLAND.

Vassar drew Marya into his arms and kissed her rapturously.

“You’re an angel--you’ve brought me a message from the skies. Run now and tell the big black man--Miss Holland’s butler--to thank her for me and say that I’ll be there promptly at ten. Run, darling! Run!”

The child refused to stir without another kiss which she repeated on both his cheeks. She stopped at the door and waved another.

“Hurry, Uncle John--please--we’re all starved.”

“Down in five minutes!” he cried.

The weariness of the night’s fitful sleep was gone. The world was suddenly filled with light and music.

“What the devil’s come over me!” he muttered, astonished at the persistent grin his mirror reflected. “At this rate I can see my finish--I’ll be the secretary of the Suffragette Campaign Committee before the week’s over--bah!”

* * * * *

Old Peter, the black butler, ushered him into the parlor with a stately bow.

“Miss Virginia be right down, sah. She say she des finishin’ her breakfus’--yassah!”

Vassar seated himself with a sense of triumph. She must have written that note in bed. He flattered himself someone else had not slept well. He hoped not.

Her greeting was gracious, but strictly business-like--he thought a little too business-like to be entirely convincing.

She motioned him to resume his seat and drew one for herself close beside. She sat down in a quiet determined manner that forbade sentimental reflections and began without preliminaries.

“We lost track of our subject last night, Mr. Vassar, in an absurd personal discussion. I’ve asked you to come back this morning to make a determined effort to win you for our cause--”

She paused, leaned forward and smiled persuasively.

“We need you. Your influence over the foreign-born population in New York would be enormous. I see by this morning’s paper an enthusiastic account of your work among the children. You are leading a renaissance of American patriotism. Good! So am I--a renaissance of the principles of the Declaration of Independence. ‘_We hold these truths to be self-evident_: that all men are created equal! that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure those rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.’ Come now, I appeal to your sense of justice. What right have you to govern me without my consent? Am I not created your equal?”

Her eloquence was all but resistless. The word of surrender was on his lips, when the voice of an honest manhood spoke within.

“You’re not convinced. The magnetism of a woman’s sex is calling. You’re a poltroon to surrender your principles to such a force. In her soul a true woman would despise you for it.”

She saw his hesitation and leaned closer, holding him with her luminous eyes.

“Come now, in your heart of hearts you know that I am your equal?”

Something in the tones of her voice broke the spell--just a trace of the platform intonation and the faintest suggestion of the politician. The voice within again spoke. There was another reason why he should be true to his sense of right. He owed it to this woman who had moved him so profoundly. He must be true to the noblest and best that was in him.

He met her gaze in silence for a moment and spoke with quiet emphasis.

“If I followed my personal inclinations, Miss Holland, I would agree to anything you ask. You’re too downright, too honest and earnest to wish or value such a shallow victory--am I not right?”

The faintest tinge of red colored Virginia’s cheeks.

“Of course,” she answered slowly, “I wish the help of the best that’s in you or nothing--”

“Good! I felt that instinctively. I could fence and hedge and trim with the ordinary politician. With all respect to your pretensions, you’re not a politician at all. You’re just a charming, beautiful woman entering a field for which God never endowed you either physically, temperamentally or morally--”

Virginia frowned and lifted her head with a little gesture of contempt.

“I must be honest. I must play the game squarely with you! I’m sorely tempted to cheat. But there’s too much at stake. You ask if you are not my equal? I answer promptly and honestly. I know that you are more--you are my superior. For this reason I would save you from the ballot. It is not a question of right, it is a question of hard and difficult duty. The ballot is not a right or a privilege. It is a solemn and dangerous duty. The ballot is force--physical force. It is a modern substitute for the bayonet--a device which has been used to prevent much civil strife. And yet man never votes away his right to a revolution. The Declaration of Independence embodies this fact--‘_Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it_--’ There you have the principle in full. Back of every ballot is a bayonet and the red blood of the man who wields it--”

“But we will substitute reason for force!”

“How, dear lady? _Government is force_--never was anything else--never can be until man is redeemed and this world is peopled by angels. Man is in the zoological period of his development. Scratch the most cultured man beneath the skin and you find the savage. Scratch the proudest nation of Europe beneath the skin and you find the elemental brute. I do not believe in forcing our mothers, our sisters, our wives and sweethearts into the blood-soaked mud of battle trenches. That work is the dangerous and difficult duty of man. So the ballot, on which peace or war depends, is his duty--not his right or privilege--”

“Give us the ballot and we will make war impossible,” Virginia broke in.

“How? If women vote with their men, their voting will mean nothing. We merely multiply the total by two. We do not change results. If women vote against the men on an issue of war or peace, will men submit to such a feminine decision? Certainly not. Force and force alone can decide the issue of force. Back of every ballot is a bayonet or there’s nothing back of it. The breath of revolution will drive such meaningless ballots as chaff before a whirlwind--”

“We’ll stop your blood-stained revolutions!” Virginia cried.

“All right. Do so and you stop the progress of humanity. The American Revolution was blood-stained. It gave us freedom. The Civil War was blood-stained. It freed this nation of the curse of slavery and sealed the Union for all time. There are good wars and bad wars. True war is the inevitable conflict between two irreconcilable moral principles. One is right--the other wrong. One must live--the other die. Wrong may triumph for a day. Right must win in the end or else the universe is ruled by the Devil, not by God. You cannot abolish war until the Devil is annihilated and God rules in the souls and lives of men and in their governments as well.”

For the moment the woman was swept from the moorings of her pet arguments. She quickly recovered.

“We are going to make America the moral and spiritual leader of mankind!” she cried with elation.

“Yes, I know. In the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World--your poet’s dream as far removed from the beastly realities of life today as Heaven is from Hell--”

“We are going to make this dream a living fact in the world--and free America shall lead the way--”

“And how will you begin?”

“By setting the proud example of building our national life on spiritual realities first, not on guns and forts. We will begin the disarmament of the world--”

“And end your movement by surrender to the armed bullies of Europe!”

“At least my dream is a dream,” Virginia laughed, “yours a silly nightmare. But I give you up for the present. I see that Ephraim is joined to his idols. My mission is a failure. At least I thank you for your candor. I shall have to turn you over now to the tender mercies of Mr. Waldron and the Executive Committee. Come, we’ll see your flags and the children. The sight will be restful after our battle.”

She rose quickly, led the way to the hall, adjusted the little turban on the mass of auburn blond hair and opened the door.

Vassar passed out with a queer sense of defeat. He had vanquished her in the argument. But the trouble was she had not argued. She had merely demanded his submission without argument.