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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13146-0.txt b/13146-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c1e1ef --- /dev/null +++ b/13146-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2579 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13146 *** + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration: “I Beg Your Pardon. Is This a Private Raft?”] + + + + +The Beauty and the Bolshevist + +By ALICE DUER MILLER + + +_Author of_ “_The Charm School_” “_Ladies must Live_” “_Come out of the +Kitchen_” _etc_. + + + + +Illustrated + + +Harper & Brothers Publishers +New York and London + + +Printed in the United States of America +Published October, 1920 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +“I beg your pardon. Is this a private raft?” +“Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty” +“I’ll be there in five minutes, in a little blue car” +“Suppose you find you do hate being poor?” + + + + +CONTENTS + + Chapter I + Chapter II + Chapter III + + + + +Chapter I + + +The editor of that much-abused New York daily, _Liberty_, pushed back +his editorial typewriter and opened one letter in the pile which the +office-boy—no respecter of persons—had just laid upon the desk while +whistling a piercing tune between his teeth. + +The letter said: + + +DEAR BEN,—I hate to think what your feelings will be on learning that I +am engaged to be married to a daughter of the capitalistic class. Try +to overcome your prejudices, however, and judge Eugenia as an +individual and not as a member of a class. She has very liberal ideas, +reads your paper, and is content to go with me to Monroe College and +lead the life of an instructor’s wife. You will be glad to know that +Mr. Cord disapproves as much as you do, and will not give his daughter +a cent, so that our life will be as hard on the physical side as you in +your most affectionate moments could desire. Mr. Cord is under the +impression that lack of an income will cool my ardor. You see he could +not think worse of me if he were my own brother. + +Yours, + +DAVID. + + +The fine face of the editor darkened. It was the face of an +idealist—the deep-set, slowly changing eyes, the high cheek bones, but +the mouth closed firmly, almost obstinately, and contradicted the rest +of the face with a touch of aggressiveness, just as in Lincoln’s face +the dreamer was contradicted by the shrewd, practical mouth. He crossed +his arms above the elbow so that one long hand dangled on one side of +his knees and one on the other—a favorite pose of his—and sat thinking. + +The editor was often called a Bolshevist—as who is not in these days? +For language is given us not only to conceal thought, but often to +prevent it, and every now and then when the problems of the world +become too complex and too vital, some one stops all thought on a +subject by inventing a tag, like “witch” in the seventeenth century, or +“Bolshevist” in the twentieth. + +Ben Moreton was not a Bolshevist; indeed, he had written several +editorials to show that, in his opinion, their doctrines were not +sound, but of course the people who denounced him never thought of +reading his paper. He was a socialist, a believer in government +ownership, and, however equably he attempted to examine any dispute +between capital and labor, he always found for labor. He was much +denounced by ultraconservatives, and perhaps their instinct was sound, +for he was educated, determined, and possessed of a personality that +attached people warmly, so that he was more dangerous than those whose +doctrines were more militant. He was not wholly trusted by the extreme +radicals. His views were not consistently agreeable to either group. +For instance, he believed that the conscientious objectors were really +conscientious, a creed for which many people thought he ought to be +deported. On the other hand, he doubted that Wall Street had started +the war for its own purposes, a skepticism which made some of his +friends think him just fit for a bomb. + +The great problem of his life was how to hold together a body of +liberals so that they could be effective. This problem was going to be +immensely complicated by the marriage of his brother with the daughter +of a conspicuous capitalist like William Cord. + +He pushed the buzzer on his desk and wrote out the following telegram: + + +David Moreton, Care William Cord, Newport, R.I. + +Am taking boat Newport to-night. Meet me. + +Ben. + + +No one answered his buzzer, but presently a boy came in collecting +copy, and Moreton said to him: + +“Here, get this sent, and ask Klein to come here. He’s in the composing +room.” + +And presently Mr. Klein entered, in the characteristic dress of the +newspaper man—namely, shirt sleeves and a green shade over his eyes. + +“Look here, Ben!” he exclaimed in some excitement. “Here’s a +thousand-dollar check just come in for the strike fund. How’s that for +the second day?” + +“Good enough,” said Ben, who would ordinarily have put in a good hour +rejoicing over such unexpected good fortune, but whose mind was now on +other things. “I have to go out of town to-night. You’ll be here, won’t +you, to lock the presses? And, see here, Leo, what is the matter with +our book page?” + +“Pretty rotten page,” replied Klein. + +“I should say it was—all about taxes and strikes and economic crises. I +told Green never to touch those things in the book reviews. Our readers +get all they want of that from us in the news and the +editorials—hotter, better stuff, too. I’ve told him not to touch ’em in +the book page, and he runs nothing else. He ought to be beautiful—ought +to talk about fairies, and poetry, and twelfth-century art. What’s the +matter with him?” + +“He doesn’t know anything,” said Klein. “That’s his trouble. He’s +clever, but he doesn’t know much. I guess he only began to read books a +couple years ago. They excite him too much. He wouldn’t read a fairy +story. He’d think he was wasting time.” + +“Get some one to help him out.” + +“Who’d I get?” + +“Look about. I’ve got to go home and pack a bag. Ask Miss Cox what time +that Newport boat leaves.” + +“Newport! Great heavens, Ben! What is this? A little week-end?” + +“A little weak brother, Leo.” + +“David in trouble again?” + +Moreton nodded. “He thinks he’s going to marry William Cord’s +daughter.” + +Klein, who was Ben’s friend as well as his assistant, blanched at the +name. + +“Cord’s daughter!” he exclaimed, and if he had said Jack-the-ripper’s, +he could not have expressed more horror. “Now isn’t it queer,” he went +on, musingly, “that David, brought up as he has been, can see anything +to attract him in a girl like that?” + +Ben was tidying his desk preparatory to departure—that is to say, he +was pushing all the papers far enough back to enable him to close the +roller top, and he answered, absently: + +“Oh, I suppose they’re all pretty much the same—girls.” + +“Why, what do you mean?” said Leo, reproachfully. “How can a girl who’s +been brought up to be a parasite—to display the wealth of her father +and husband, and has never done a useful thing since she was born—Why, +a woman was telling me the other day—I got caught in a block in the +subway and she was next me—awfully interesting, she was. She sewed in +one of these fashionable dressmaking establishments—and the things she +told me about what those women spend on their clothes—underclothes and +furs and everything. Now there must be something wrong with a woman who +can spend money on those things when she knows the agony of poverty +right around her. You can’t compare that sort of woman with a +self-respecting, self-supporting girl—” + +At this moment the door opened and Miss Cox entered. She wore a +short-sleeved, low-neck, pink-satin blouse, a white-satin skirt, +open-work stockings, and slippers so high in the heels that her ankles +turned inward. Her hair was treated with henna and piled untidily on +the top of her head. She was exactly what Klein had described—a +self-respecting, self-supporting girl, but, on a superficial +acquaintance, men of Cord’s group would have thought quite as badly of +her as Klein did of fashionable women. They would have been mistaken. +Miss Cox supported her mother, and, though only seventeen, denied +herself all forms of enjoyment except dress and an occasional movie. +She was conscientious, hard-working, accurate, and virtuous. She loved +Ben, whom she regarded as wise, beautiful, and generous, but she would +have died rather than have him or anyone know it. + +She undulated into the room, dropped one hip lower than the other, +placed her hand upon it and said, with a good deal of enunciation: + +“Oh, Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty.” + +“Thank you very much, Miss Cox,” said Ben, gravely, and she went out +again. + +“It would be a terrible thing for Dave to make a marriage like that,” +Klein went on as soon as she had gone, “getting mixed up with those +fellows. And it would be bad for you, Ben—” + +“I don’t mean to get mixed up with them,” said Ben. + +“No, I mean having Dave do it. It would kill the paper; it would +endanger your whole position; and as for leadership, you could never +hope—” + + +[Illustration: “Mr. Moreton, the Newport Boat Leaves at Five-thirty”] + + +“Now, look here, Leo. You don’t think I can stop my brother’s marrying +because it might be a poor connection for me? The point is that it +wouldn’t be good for Dave—to be a poorly tolerated hanger-on. That’s +why I’m going hot-foot to Newport. And while I’m away do try to do +something about the book page. Get me a culture-hound—get one of these +Pater specialists from Harvard. Or,” he added, with sudden inspiration +when his hand was already on the door, “get a woman—she’d have a sense +of beauty and would know how to jolly Green into agreeing with her.” +And with this the editor was gone. + +It was the end of one of those burning weeks in August that New York +often knows. The sun went down as red as blood every evening behind the +Palisades, and before the streets and roofs had ceased to radiate heat +the sun was up again above Long Island Sound, as hot and red as ever. +As Ben went uptown in the Sixth Avenue Elevated he could see pale +children hanging over the railings of fire escapes, and behind them +catch glimpses of dark, crowded rooms which had all the disadvantages +of caves without the coolness. But to-day he was too concentrated on +his own problem to notice. + +Since Ben’s sixteenth year his brother David had been dependent on him. +Their father had been professor of economics in a college in that part +of the United States which Easterners describe as the “Middle West.” In +the gay days when muck-raking was at its height Professor Moreton had +lost his chair because he had denounced in his lecture room financial +operations which to-day would be against the law. At that time they +were well thought of, and even practiced by the eminent philanthropist +who had endowed the very chair which Moreton occupied. The trustees +felt that it was unkind and unnecessary to complicate their already +difficult duties by such tactlessness, and their hearts began to turn +against Moreton, as most of our hearts turn against those who make life +too hard for us. Before long they asked him to resign on account of his +age—he was just sixty and extremely vigorous; but immediately +afterward, having been deeply surprised and hurt, he did what Goldsmith +recommends to lovely woman under not dissimilar circumstances—he died. +He left his two young sons—he had married late in life—absolutely +unprovided for. Ben, the elder of the two, was sixteen, and just ready +for college; but he could not give four precious years to an academic +degree. He went to work. With the background of an educated environment +and a very sound knowledge of economic questions, breathed in from his +earliest days, he found a place at once on a new paper—or, rather, on +an old paper just being converted into a new organ of +liberalism—_Liberty_. It was independent in politics, and was supposed +to be independent in economic questions, but by the time Ben worked up +to the editorship it was well recognized to be an anticapitalist sheet. +The salary of its editor, though not large, was sufficient to enable +him to send his younger brother through college, with the result that +David, a little weak, a little self-indulgent, a little—partly through +physical causes—disinclined to effort, was now a poet, a classicist and +an instructor in a fresh-water college. Ben made him an allowance to +enable him to live—the college not thinking this necessary for its +instructors. But during the war Ben had not been able to manage the +allowance, because, to the surprise of many of his friends, Ben had +volunteered early. + +Although the reasons for doing this seemed absurdly simple to him, the +decision had been a difficult one. He was a pacifist—saw no virtue in +war whatsoever. He wished to convert others to his opinion—unlike many +reformers who prefer to discuss questions only with those who already +agree with them. He argued that the speeches of a man who had been +through war, or, better still, the posthumous writings of one who has +been killed in war, would have more weight with the public than the +best logic of one who had held aloof. But his radical friends felt that +he was using this argument merely as an excuse for choosing the easy +path of conformity, while the few ultraconservatives who mentioned the +matter at all assumed that he had been drafted against his will. +Afterward, when the war was over and his terrible book, _War_, +appeared, no one was pleased, for the excellent reason that it was +published at a moment when the whole world wanted to forget war +entirely. The pay of a private, however, had not allowed him to +continue David’s allowance, and so David, displaying unusual energy, +had found a job for himself as tutor for the summer to William Cord’s +son. Ben had not quite approved of a life that seemed to him slightly +parasitical, but it was healthy and quiet and, above everything, David +had found it for himself, and initiative was so rare in the younger man +that Ben could not bear to crush it with disapproval. + +Increasingly, during the two years he was in France, Ben was displeased +by David’s letters. The Cords were described as kindly, well-educated +people, fond one of another, considerate of the tutor, with +old-fashioned traditions of American liberties. Ben asked himself if he +would have been better pleased if David’s employers had been cruel, +vulgar, and blatant, and found the answer was in the affirmative. It +would, he thought, have been a good deal safer for David’s integrity if +he had not been so comfortable. + +For two summers Ben had made no protest, but the third summer, when the +war was over and the allowance again possible, he urged David not to go +back to Newport. David flatly refused to yield. He said he saw no +reason why he should go on taking Ben’s money when this simple way of +earning a full living was open to him. Wasn’t Ben’s whole theory that +everyone should be self-supporting? Why not be consistent? + +Ignorant people might imagine that two affectionate brothers could not +quarrel over an issue purely affectionate. But the Moretons did +quarrel—more bitterly than ever before, and that is saying a great +deal. With the extraordinary tenacity of memory that develops under +strong emotion, they each contrived to recall and to mention everything +which the other had done that was wrong, ridiculous, or humiliating +since their earliest days. They parted with the impression on David’s +part that Ben thought him a self-indulgent grafter, and on Ben’s side +that David thought him a bully solely interested in imposing his will +on those unfortunate enough to be dependent on him. + +It was after half past four when, having walked up five flights of +stairs, he let himself into his modest flat on the top floor of an +old-fashioned brownstone house. As he opened the door, he called, + +“Nora!” + +No beautiful partner of a free-love affair appeared, but an elderly +woman in spectacles who had once been Professor Moreton’s cook, and +now, doing all the housework for Ben, contrived to make him so +comfortable that the editor of a more radical paper than his own had +described the flat as “a bourgeois interior.” + +“Nora,” said Ben, “put something in my bag for the night—I’m going to +Newport in a few minutes.” + +He had expected a flood of questions, for Nora was no looker-on at +life, and he was surprised by her merely observing that she was glad he +was getting away from the heat. The truth was that she knew far more +about David than he did. She had consistently coddled David since his +infancy, and he told her a great deal. Besides, she took care of his +things when he was at Ben’s. She had known of sachets, photographs, and +an engraved locket that he wore on his watch-chain. She was no radical. +She had seen disaster come upon the old professor and attributed it, +not to the narrowness of the trustees, but to the folly of the +professor. She disapproved of most of Ben’s friends, and would have +despised his paper if she ever read it. The only good thing about it in +her estimation was, he seemed to be able “to knock a living out of +it”—a process which Nora regarded with a sort of gay casualness. She +did not blame him for making so little money and thus keeping her +housekeeping cramped, but she never in her own mind doubted that it +would be far better if he had more. The idea that David was about to +marry money seemed to her simply the reward of virtue—her own virtue in +bringing David up so well. She knew that Mr. Cord opposed the marriage, +but she supposed that Ben would arrange all that. She had great +confidence in Ben. Still he was very young, very young, so she gave him +a word of advice as she put his bag into his hand. + +“Don’t take any nonsense. Remember you’re every bit as good as they. +Only don’t, for goodness’ sake, Mr. Ben, talk any of your ideas to +them. A rich man like Mr. Cord wouldn’t like that.” + +Ben laughed. “How would you like me to bring you home a lovely heiress +of my own?” he said. + +She took a thread off his coat. “Only don’t let her come interfering in +my kitchen,” she said, and hurried him away. He had a good deal of +courage, but he had not enough to tell Nora he was going to Newport to +stop her darling’s marriage. + +The Newport boat gets to Newport about two o’clock in the morning, and +experienced travelers, if any such choose this method of approach, go +on to Fall River and take a train back to Newport, arriving in time for +a comfortable nine-o’clock breakfast. But Ben was not experienced, and +he supposed that when you took a boat for Newport and reached Newport +the thing to do was to get off the boat. + +It had been a wonderful night on the Sound, and Ben had not been to +bed, partly because, applying late on a Friday evening, he had not been +able to get a room, but partly because the moon and the southerly +breeze and the silver shores of Long Island and the red and white +lighthouses had been too beautiful to leave. Besides, he had wanted to +think out carefully what he was going to say to his brother. + +To separate a man from the woman he loves, however unwisely, has some +of the same disadvantages as offering a bribe—one respects the other +person less in proportion as one succeeds. What, Ben said to himself, +could he urge against a girl he did not know? Yet, on the other hand, +if he had known her, his objections would have seemed regrettably +personal. Either way, it was difficult to know what to say. He wondered +what Cord had said, and smiled to think that here was one object for +which he and Cord were co-operating—only Cord would never believe it. +That was one trouble with capitalists—they always thought themselves so +damned desirable. And Ben did not stop to inquire how it was that +capitalists had gained this impression. + +On the pier he looked about for David, but there was no David. Of +course the boy had overslept, or hadn’t received his telegram—Ben said +this to himself, but somehow the vision of David comfortably asleep in +a luxurious bed in the Cords’s house irritated him. + +His meditations were broken in upon by a negro boy with an open hack, +who volunteered to “take him up for fifty cents.” It sounded +reasonable. Ben got in and they moved slowly down the narrow pier, the +horses’ hoofs clumping lazily on the wooden pavement. Turning past the +alley of Thames Street, still alight at three o’clock in the morning, +Ben stopped at the suggestion of his driver and left his bag at a +hotel, and then they went on up the hill, past the tower of the +Skeleton in Armor, past old houses with tall, pillared porticoes, +reminiscent of the days when the South patronized Newport, and turned +into Bellevue Avenue—past shops with names familiar to Fifth Avenue, +past a villa with bright-eyed owls on the gateposts, past many large, +silent houses and walled gardens. + +The air was very cool, and now and then the scent of some flowering +bush trailed like a visible cloud across their path. Then suddenly the +whole avenue was full of little red lights, like the garden in “Faust” +when Mephistopheles performs his magic on it. Here and there the huge +headlights of a car shone on the roadway, magnifying every rut in the +asphalt, and bringing out strange, vivid shades in the grass and the +hydrangea bushes. They were passing a frowning palace set on a piece of +velvet turf as small as a pocket handkerchief—so small that the lighted +windows were plainly visible from the road. + +“Stop,” said Ben to his driver. He had suddenly realized how long it +must be before he could rouse the Cord household. + +He paid his driver, got out, and made his way up the driveway toward +the house. Groups of chauffeurs were standing about their +cars—vigorous, smartly dressed men, young for the most part. Ben +wondered if it were possible that they were content with the present +arrangement, and whether their wives and children were not stifling in +the city at that very moment. He caught a sentence here and there as he +passed. “And, believe me,” one was saying, “as soon as he got into the +box he did not do a thing to that fellar from Tiverton—” Ben’s +footsteps lagged a little. He was a baseball fan. He almost forgave the +chauffeurs for being content. They seemed to him human beings, after +all. + +He approached the house, and, walking past a narrow, unroofed piazza, +he found himself opposite a long window. He looked straight into the +ballroom. The ball was a fancy ball—the best of the season. It was +called a Balkan Ball, which gave all the guests the opportunity of +dressing pretty much as they pleased. The wood of the long paneled room +was golden, and softened the light from the crystal appliques along the +wall, and set off the bright dresses of the dancers as a gold bowl sets +off the colors of fruit. + +Every now and then people stepped out on the piazza, and as they did +they became audible to Ben for a few seconds. First, two middle-aged +men, solid, bronzed, laughing rather wickedly together. Ben drew back, +afraid of what he might overhear, but it turned out to be no very +guilty secret. “My dear fellow,” one was saying, “I gave him a stroke a +hole, and he’s twenty years younger than I am—well, fifteen anyhow. The +trouble with these young men is that they lack—” + +Ben never heard what it was that young men lacked. + +Next came a boy and a girl, talking eagerly, the girl’s hand +gesticulating at her round, red lips. Ben had no scruples in +overhearing them—theirs appeared to be the universal secret. But here +again he was wrong. She was saying: “Round and round—not up and down. +My dentist says that if you always brush them round and round—” + +Then two young men—boys, with cigarettes drooping from their lips; they +were saying, “I haven’t pitched a game since before the war, but he +said to go in and get that Tiverton fellow, and so—” Ben saw that he +was in the presence of the hero of the late game. He forgave him, too. + +As a matter of fact, he had never given the fashionable world enough +attention to hate it. He knew that Leo Klein derived a very revivifying +antagonism from reading about it, and often bought himself an entrance +to the opera partly because he loved music, but partly, Ben always +thought, because he liked to look up at the boxes and hate the +occupants for their jewels and inattention. But Ben watched the +spectacle with as much detachment as he would have watched a spring +dance among the Indians. + +And then suddenly his detachment melted away, for a lovely girl came +through the window—lovely with that particular and specific kind of +loveliness which Ben thought of when he used the word—_his_ kind. He +used to wonder afterward how he had known it at that first glimpse, +for, in the dim light of the piazza, he could not see some of her +greatest beauties—the whiteness of her skin, white as milk where her +close, fine, brown hair began, or the blue of the eyes set at an angle +which might have seemed Oriental in eyes less enchanting turquoise in +color. But he could see her slenderness and grace. She was dressed in +clinging blues and greens and she wore a silver turban. She leaned her +hands on the railings—she turned them out along the railings; they were +slender and full of character—not soft. Ben looked at the one nearest +him. With hardly more than a turn of his head he could have kissed it. +The idea appealed to him strongly; he played with it, just as when he +was a child in a college town he had played with the idea of getting up +in church and walking about on the backs of the pews. This would be +pleasanter, and the subsequent getaway even easier. He glanced at the +dark lawn behind him; there appeared to be no obstacle to escape. + +Perhaps, under the spell of her attraction for him, and the knowledge +that he would never see her again, he might actually have done it, but +she broke the trance by speaking to a tall, stolid young man who was +with her. + +“No, Eddie,” she said, as if answering something he had said some time +ago, “I really was at home, at just the time I said, only this new +butler does hate you so—” + +“You might speak to him about it—you might even get rid of him,” +replied the young man, in the tone of one deeply imposed upon. + +“Good butlers are so rare nowadays.” + +“And are devoted friends so easy to find?” + +“No, but a good deal easier than butlers, Eddie dear.” + +The young man gave an exclamation of annoyance. “Let us find some place +out of the way. I want to speak to you seriously—” he began, and they +moved out of earshot—presumably to a secluded spot of Eddie’s choosing. + +When they had gone Ben felt distinctly lonely, and, what was more +absurd, slighted, as if Eddie had deliberately taken the girl away from +him—out of reach. How silly, he thought, for Eddie to want to talk to +her, when it was so clear the fellow did not know how to talk to her. +How silly to say, in the sulky tone, “Are devoted friends so easy to +find?” Of course they were—for a girl like that—devoted friends, +passionate lovers, and sentimental idiots undoubtedly blocked her path. + +It might have been some comfort to him to know that in the remote spot +of his own choosing, a stone bench under a purple beech, Eddie was +simply going from bad to worse. + +“Dear Crystal,” he began, with that irritating reasonableness of manner +which implies that the speaker is going to be reasonable for two, “I’ve +been thinking over the situation. I know that you don’t love me, but +then I don’t believe you will ever be deeply in love with any one. I +don’t think you are that kind of woman.” + +“Oh, Eddie, how dreadful!” + +“I don’t see that at all. Just as well, perhaps. You don’t want to get +yourself into such a position as poor Eugenia.” + +“I do, I would. I’d give anything to be as much in love as Eugenia.” + +“What? With a fellow like that! A complete outsider.” + +“Outside of what? The human race?” + +“Well, no,” said Eddie, as if he were yielding a good deal, “but +outside of your traditions and your set.” + +“My set! Good for him to be outside of it, I say. What have they ever +done to make anyone want to be inside of it? Why, David is an educated +gentleman. To hear him quote Horace—” + +“Horace who?” + +“Really, Eddie.” + +“Oh, I see. You mean the poet. That’s nothing to laugh at, Crystal. It +was a natural mistake. I thought, of course, you meant some of those +anarchists who want to upset the world.” + +Crystal looked at him more honestly and seriously than she had yet +done. + +“Well, don’t you think there _is_ something wrong with the present +arrangement of things, Eddie?” + +“No, I don’t, and I hate to hear you talk like a socialist.” + +“I am a socialist.” + +“You’re nothing of the kind.” + +“I suppose I know what I am.” + +“Not at all—not at all.” + +“I certainly think the rich are too rich, while the poor are so +horridly poor.” + +“_You’d_ get on well without your maid and your car and your father’s +charge accounts at all the shops, wouldn’t you?” + +Though agreeable to talk seriously if you agree, it is correspondingly +dangerous if you disagree. Crystal stood up, trembling with an emotion +which Eddie, although he was rather angry himself, considered utterly +unaccountable. + +“Yes,” she said, almost proudly, “I _am_ luxurious, I _am_ dependent on +those things. But whose fault is that? It’s the way I was brought +up—it’s all wrong. But, even though I am dependent on them, I believe I +could exist without them. I’d feel like killing myself if I didn’t +think so. Sometimes I want to go away and find out if I couldn’t live +and be myself without all this background of luxury. But at the +worst—I’m just one girl—suppose I were weak and couldn’t get on without +them? That wouldn’t prove that they are right. I’m not so blinded that +I can’t see that a system by which I profit may still be absolutely +wrong. But you always seem to think, Eddie, that it’s part of the +Constitution of the United States that you should have everything +you’ve always had.” + +Eddie rose, too, with the manner of a man who has allowed things to go +far enough. “Look here, my dear girl,” he said, “I am a man and I’m +older than you, and have seen more of the world. I know you don’t mean +any harm, but I must tell you that this is very wicked, dangerous +talk.” + +“Dangerous, perhaps, Eddie, but I can’t see how it can be wicked to +want to give up your special privileges.” + +“Where in the world do you pick up ideas like this?” + +“I inherited them from an English ancestor of mine, who gave up all +that he had when he enlisted in Washington’s army.” + +“You got that stuff,” said Eddie, brushing this aside, “from David +Moreton, and that infernal seditious paper his brother edits—and that +white-livered book which I haven’t read against war. I’d like to put +them all in jail.” + +“It’s a pity,” said Crystal, “that your side can’t think of a better +argument than putting everyone who disagrees with you in jail.” + +With this she turned and left him, and, entering the ballroom, flung +herself into the arms of the first partner she met. It was a timid boy, +who, startled by the eagerness with which she chose him, with her +bright eyes and quickly drawn breath, was just coming to the conclusion +that a lovely, rich, and admired lady, had fallen passionately in love +with him, when with equal suddenness she stepped out of his arms and +was presently driving her small, open car down the avenue. + +Under the purple beech Eddie, left alone, sank back on the stone bench +and considered, somewhat as the persecutors of Socrates may have done, +suitable punishments for those who put vile, revolutionary ideas into +the heads of young and lovely women. + +In the meantime Ben, who had enjoyed the party more than most of the +invited guests, and far more than the disconsolate Eddie, had left his +vantage point at the window. He had suddenly become aware of a strange +light stealing under the trees, and, looking up, he saw with surprise +that the stars were growing small and the heavens turning +steel-color—in fact, that it was dawn. + +Convinced that sunrise was a finer sight than the end of the grandest +ball that ever was given, he made his way down a shabby back lane, and +before long came out on the edge of the cliffs, with the whole panorama +of sunrise over the Atlantic spread out before him. + +He stood there a moment, somebody’s close, well-kept lawn under his +feet, and a pale-pink sea sucking in and out on the rocks a hundred +feet below. The same hot, red sun was coming up; there wasn’t a steady +breeze, but cool salt puffs came to him now and then with a breaking +wave. It was going to be a hot day, and Ben liked swimming better than +most things in life. He hesitated. + +If he had turned to the left, he would have come presently to a public +beach and would have had his swim conventionally and in due time. But +some impulse told him to turn to the right, and he began to wander +westward along the edge of the cliffs—always on his left hand, space +and the sea, and on his right, lawns or gardens or parapets crowned by +cactus plants in urns, and behind these a great variety of +houses—French chateaux and marble palaces and nice little white +cottages, and, finally, a frowning Gothic castle. All alike seemed +asleep, with empty piazzas and closed shutters, and the only sign of +life he saw in any of them was one pale housemaid shaking a duster out +of a window in an upper gable. + +At last he came to a break in the cliffs—a cove, with a beach in it, a +group of buildings obviously bathing-houses. The sacredness of this +pavilion did not occur to Ben; indeed, there was nothing to suggest it. +He entered it light-heartedly and was discouraged to find the door of +every cabin securely locked. The place was utterly deserted. But Ben +was persistent, and presently he detected a bit of a garment hanging +over a door, and, pulling it out, he found himself in possession of a +man’s bathing suit. A little farther on he discovered a telephone room +unlocked. Here he undressed and a minute later was swimming straight +out to sea. + +The level rays of the sun were doing to the water just what the +headlights of the motors had done to the road; they were enlarging +every ripple and edging the deep purple-blue with yellow light. Except +for a fishing dory chunking out to its day’s work, Ben had the sea and +land to himself. He felt as if they were all his own, and, for a +socialist, was guilty of the sin of pride of possession. He was +enjoying himself so much that it was a long time before he turned to +swim back. + +He was swimming with his head under water most of the time so that he +did not at once notice that a raft he had passed on his way out was now +occupied. As soon as he did see it his head came up. It was a female +figure, and even from a distance he could see that she was unconscious +of his presence and felt quite as sure of having the world to herself +as he was. She was sitting on the edge of the raft, kicking a pair of +the prettiest legs in the world in and out of the water. They were clad +in the thinnest of blue-silk stockings, the same in which a few minutes +before she had been dancing, but not being able to find any others in +her bathhouse, she had just kept them on, recklessly ignoring the +inevitable problem of what she should wear home. She was leaning back +on her straightened arms, with her head back, looking up into the sky +and softly whistling to herself. Ben saw in a second that she was the +girl of the silver turban. + +He stole nearer and nearer, cutting silently through the water, and +then, when he had looked his fill, he put his head down again, splashed +a little, and did not look up until his hand was on the raft, when he +allowed an expression of calm surprise to appear on his face. + +“I beg your pardon,” he said. “Is this a private raft?” + +The young lady, who had had plenty of time since the splash to arrange +her countenance, looked at him with a blank coldness, and then suddenly +smiled. + +“I thought it was a private world,” she replied. + +“It’s certainly a very agreeable one,” said Ben, climbing on the raft. +“And what I like particularly about it is the fact that no one is alive +but you and me. Newport appears to be a city of the dead.” + +“It always was,” she answered, contemptuously. + +“Oh, come. Not an hour ago you were dancing in blue and green and a +silver turban at a party over there,” and he waved his hand in the +direction from which he had come. + +“Did you think it was a good ball?” + +“I enjoyed it,” he answered, truthfully. + +Her face fell. “How very disappointing,” she said. “I didn’t see you +there.” + +“Disappointing that you did not see me there?” + +“No,” she replied, and then, less positively; “No; I meant it was +disappointing that you were the kind of man who went to parties—and +enjoyed them.” + +“It would be silly to go if you didn’t enjoy them,” he returned, +lightly. + +She turned to him very seriously. “You’re right,” she said; “it is +silly—very silly, and it’s just what I do. I consider parties like that +the lowest, emptiest form of human entertainment. They’re dull; they’re +expensive; they keep you from doing intelligent things, like studying; +they keep you from doing simple, healthy things, like sleeping and +exercising; they make you artificial; they make you civil to people you +despise—they make women, at least, for we must have partners—” + +“But why do you go, then?” + +She was silent, and they looked straight and long at each other. Then +she said, gravely: + +“The answer’s very humiliating. I go because I haven’t anything else to +do.” + +He did not reassure her. “Yes, that’s bad,” he said, after a second. +“But of course you could not expect to have anything else to do when +all your time is taken up like that. ‘When the half gods go,’ you know, +‘the gods arrive.’” + +The quotation was not new to Crystal; in fact, she had quoted it to +Eddie not very long before, apropos of another girl to whom he had +shown a mild attention, but it seemed to her as if she took in for the +first time its real meaning. Whether it was the dawn, exhaustion, a +stimulating personality, love, or mere accident, the words now came to +her with all the beauty and truth of a religious conviction. They +seemed to shake her and make her over. She felt as if she could never +be sufficiently grateful to the person who had thus made all life fresh +and new to her. + +“Ah,” she said, very gently, “that’s it. I see. You won’t believe me, +but I assure you from now on I mean to be entirely different.” + +“Please, not too different.” + +“Oh yes, yes, as different as possible. I’ve been so unhappy, and +unhappy about nothing definite—that’s the worst kind, only that I have +not liked the life I was leading.” + +She glanced at him appealingly. She had tried to tell this simple story +to so many people, for she had many friends, and yet no one had ever +really understood. Some had told her she was spoiled, more, that there +was no use in trying to change her life because she would soon marry; +most of them had advised her to marry and find out what real trouble +was. Now, as she spoke she saw that this strange young man from the sea +not only understood her discontent, but thought it natural, almost +commonplace. + +She poured it all out. “Only the worst thing,” she ended, “is that I’m +not really any good. There isn’t anything else that I know how to do.” + +“I doubt that,” he answered, and she began to doubt it, too. “I’m sure +there are lots of things you could do if you put your mind on it. Did +you ever try to write?” + +Now, indeed, she felt sure that he was gifted with powers more than +mortal—to have guessed this secret which no one else had ever +suspected. She colored deeply. + +“Why, yes,” she answered, “I think I can—a little, only I’ve so little +education.” + +“So little education?” + +“Yes, I belong to the cultivated classes—three languages and nothing +solid.” + +“Well, you know, three languages seem pretty solid to me,” said Ben, +who had wrestled very unsuccessfully with the French tongue. “You speak +three languages, and let me see, you know a good deal about painting +and poetry and jade and Chinese porcelains?” + +She shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. “Oh, of course everyone +knows about those things, but what good are they?” + +They were a good deal of good to Ben. He pressed on toward his final +goal. “What is your attitude toward fairies?” he asked, and Miss Cox +would have heard in his tone a faint memory of his voice when he +engaged a new office-boy. + +Her attitude toward fairies was perfectly satisfactory, and he showed +so much appreciation that she went on and told him her great secret in +full. She had once had something published and been paid money for +it—fifteen dollars—and probably never in her life had she spoken of any +sum with so much respect. It had been, well, a sort of a review of a +new illustrated edition of Hans Andersen’s Tales, treating them as if +they were modern stories, commenting on them from the point of view of +morals and probability—making fun of people who couldn’t give +themselves up to the charm of a story unless it tallied with their own +horrid little experiences of life. She told it, she said, very badly, +but perhaps he could get the idea. + +He got it perfectly. “Good,” he said. “I’ll give you a job. I’m a +newspaper editor.” + +“Oh,” she exclaimed, “you’re not Mr. Munsey, are you, or Mr. Reid, or +Mr. Ochs?” + +Her knowledge of newspaper owners seemed to come to a sudden end. + +“No,” he answered, smiling, “nor even Mr. Hearst. I did not say I owned +a newspaper. I edit it. I need some one just like you for my book page, +only you’d have to come to New York and work hard, and there wouldn’t +be very much salary. Can you work?” + +“Anyone can.” + +“Well, will you?” + +“Indeed I will.” (It was a vow.) “And now I must go. I have to drive +myself home in an open car, and the tourists do stare at one so—in +fancy dress.” + +“Yes, but when am I to see you again? I leave Newport to-night.” + +“Telephone me—2079—and we’ll arrange to do something this afternoon.” + +“And whom shall I ask for?” + +“Telephone at two-fifteen to the minute, and I’ll answer the telephone +myself.” + +She evidently rather enjoyed the mystery of their not knowing each +other’s names. But a black idea occurred to Ben. She had slid off the +raft and swum a few strokes before he shouted to her: + +“Look here. Your name isn’t Eugenia, is it?” + +She waved her hand. “No, I’m Crystal,” she called back. + +“Good-by, Crystal.” + +This time she did not wave, but, swimming on her side with long, easy +strokes, she gave him a sweet, reassuring look. + +After she had gone he lay down on the raft with his face buried in his +arms. A few moments before he had thought he could never see enough of +the sunrise and the sea, but now he wanted to shut it out in favor of a +much finer spectacle within him. So this was love. Strange that no one +had ever been able to prepare you for it. Strange that poets had never +been able to give you a hint of its stupendous inevitability. He +wondered if all miracles were like that—so simple—so— + +Suddenly he heard her voice near him. He lifted his head from his arms. +She was there in the water below him, clinging to the raft with one +hand. + +“I just came back to tell you something,” she said. “I thought you +ought to know it before things went any farther.” + +He thought, “Good God! she’s in love with some one else!” and the +horror of the idea made him look at her severely. + +“I’m not perhaps just as I seem—I mean my views are rather liberal. In +fact”—she brought it out with an effort—“I’m almost a socialist.” + +The relief was so great that Ben couldn’t speak. He bent his head and +kissed the hand that had tempted him a few hours before. + +She did not resent his action. Her special technique in such matters +was to pretend that such little incidents hardly came into the realm of +her consciousness. She said, “At two-fifteen, then,” and swam away for +good. + +Later in the day a gentleman who owned both a bathing house and a +bathing suit on Bailey’s beach was showing the latter possession to a +group of friends. + +“No one can tell me that Newport isn’t damp,” he said. “I haven’t been +in bathing for twenty-four hours, and yet I can actually wring the +water out of my suit.” + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +That same morning, about ten o’clock, Mr. William Cord was shut up in +the study of his house—shut up, that is, as far as entrance from the +rest of the house was concerned, but very open as to windows looking +out across the grass to the sea. It was a small room, and the leather +chairs which made up most of its furnishings were worn, and the +bookshelves were filled with volumes like railroad reports and _Poor’s +Manual_, but somehow the total effect of the room was so agreeable that +the family used it more than Mr. Cord liked. + +He was an impressive figure, tall, erect, and with that suggestion of +unbroken health which had had something to do with his success in life. +His hair must have been of a sandy brown, for it had turned, not gray +nor white, but that queer no-color that sandy hair does turn, melting +into all pale surroundings. His long face was not vividly colored, +either, but was stamped with the immobility of expression that +sensitive people in contact with violent life almost always acquire. +The result was that there seemed to be something dead about his face +until you saw his eyes, dark and fierce, as if all the fire and energy +of the man were concentrated in them. + +He was dressed in gray golfing-clothes that smelled more of peat than +peat does, and, though officially supposed to be wrestling with the +more secret part of correspondence which even his own secretary was not +allowed to see, he was actually wiggling a new golf-club over the rug, +and toying with the romantic idea that it would enable him to drive +farther than he had ever driven before. + +There was a knock at the door. Mr. Cord leaned the driver in a corner, +clasped his hands behind his back, straddled his legs a trifle, so that +they seemed to grow out of the rug as the eternal oak grows out of the +sod, and said, “Come in,” in the tone of a man who, considering the +importance of his occupation, bears interruption exceedingly well. + +Tomes, the butler, entered. “Mr. Verriman, sir, to see you.” + +“To see _me_?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +Cord just nodded at this, which evidently meant that the visitor was to +be admitted, for Tomes never made a mistake and Verriman presently +entered. Mr. Cord had seen Eddie Verriman the night before at the ball, +and had thought him a very fine figure of a man, so now, putting two +and two together, he said to himself, “Is he here to ask my blessing?” + +Aloud he said nothing, but just nodded; it was a belief that had +translated itself into a habit—to let the other man explain first. + +“I know I’m interrupting you, Mr. Cord,” Verriman began. Mr. Cord made +a lateral gesture with his hand, as if all he had were at the disposal +of his friends, even his most precious asset—time. + +“It’s something very important,” Eddie went on. “I’m worried. I haven’t +slept. Mr. Cord, have you checked up Crystal’s economic beliefs +lately?” + +“Lately?” said Mr. Cord. “I don’t know that I ever have. Have a cigar?” + +Eddie waved the cigar aside as if his host had offered it to him in the +midst of a funeral service. + +“Well, I have,” he said, as if some one had to do a parent’s duty, “and +I’ve been very much distressed—shocked. I had a long talk with her +about it at the dance last night.” + +“About economics?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Why, Eddie, don’t I seem to remember your telling me you were in love +with Crystal?” + +“Yes, Mr. Cord, I am.” + +“Then what do you want to talk economics for? Or is it done like that +nowadays?” + +“I don’t want to,” answered Eddie, almost in a wail. “_She_ does. She +gets me going and then we quarrel because she has terrible opinions. +She talks wildly. I have to point out to her that she’s wrong. And last +night she told me”—Eddie glanced about to be sure he was not +overheard—“she told me that she was a socialist.” + +Mr. Cord had just lit the very cigar which Eddie had waved away, and he +took the first critical puffs at it before he answered: + +“Did you ask her what that was?” + +“No—no—I didn’t.” + +“Missed a trick there, Eddie.” + +It was impossible to accuse so masklike a magnate of frivolity, but +Eddie was often dissatisfied with Mr. Cord’s reactions to the serious +problems of life. + +“But don’t you think it’s terrible,” he went on, eagerly, “for Crystal +to be a socialist? In this age of the world—civilization trembling on +the brink—chaos”—Eddie made a gesture toward the perfectly ordered +shelves containing _Poor’s Manual_—“staring us in the face? You say +that the half-baked opinions of an immature girl make no difference?” + +“No, I shouldn’t say that—at least not to Crystal,” murmured her +father. + +“But the mere fact that she picks up such ideas proves that they are in +the air about us and that terrifies me—terrifies me,” ended Eddie, his +voice rising as he saw that his host intended to remain perfectly calm. + +“Which terrifies you, Eddie—Crystal or the revolution?” + +“The general discontent—the fact that civilization is tr—” + +“Oh yes, that,” said Mr. Cord, hastily. “Well, I wouldn’t allow that to +terrify me, Eddie. I should have more sympathy with ou if it had been +Crystal. Crystal is a good deal of a proposition, I grant you. The +revolution seems to me simpler. If a majority of our fellow countrymen +really want it, they are going to get it in spite of you and me; and if +they don’t want it, they won’t have it no matter how Crystal talks to +you at parties. So cheer up, Eddie, and have a cigar.” + +“They can, they will,” said Eddie, not even troubling to wave away the +cigar this time. “You don’t appreciate what an organized minority of +foreign agitators can do in this country. Why, they can—” + +“Well, if a minority of foreigners can put over a revolution against +the will of the American people, we ought to shut up shop, Eddie.” + +“You’re not afraid?” + +“No.” + +“You mean you wouldn’t fight it?” + +“You bet your life I’d fight it,” said Mr. Cord, gayly, “but I fight +lots of things without being afraid of them. What’s the use of being +afraid? Here I am sixty-five, conservative and trained to only one +game, and yet I feel as if _I_ could manage to make my own way even +under soviet rule. Anyway, I don’t want to die or emigrate just because +my country changes its form of government. Only it would have to be the +wish of the majority, and I don’t believe it ever will be. In the +meantime there is just one thing I _am_ afraid of—and that’s the thing +that you and most of my friends want to do first—suppressing free +speech; if you suppress it, we won’t know who wants what. Then you +really do get an explosion.” + +Eddie had got Mr. Cord to be serious now, with the unfortunate result +that the older man was more shocking than ever. + +“Free speech doesn’t mean treason and sedition,” Eddie began. + +“It means the other man’s opinion.” + +There was a pause during which Eddie became more perturbed and Mr. Cord +settled back to his habitual calm. + +“Wouldn’t you suppress _anything_?” Verriman asked at length, willing +to know the worst. “Not even such a vile sheet as _Liberty_?” + +“Do you ever see it, Eddie?” + +“Read a rotten paper like that? Certainly not. Do you?” + +“I subscribe to it.” And, bending down, Mr. Cord unlocked a drawer in +his desk and produced the issue of the preceding day. + +“I notice you keep it locked up,” said Eddie, and felt that he had +scored. + +“I have to,” replied Mr. Cord, “or else Crystal gets hold of it and +cuts it all up into extracts—she must have sent you some—before I get a +chance to read it. Besides, it shocks Tomes. You ought to talk to +Tomes, Eddie. He thinks about as you do—” + +At this moment the door opened and Tomes himself entered. + +“Mr. Moreton would like to see you, sir.” + +Even Cord’s calm was a little disturbed by this unexpected news. + +“Mr. Moreton!” he exclaimed. “Not—not—not—not?” + +“No, sir,” said Tomes, always in possession of accurate information. +“His brother, I believe.” + +“Show him in here,” said Cord, and added to Eddie, as Tomes left the +room: “Well, here he is—the editor himself, Eddie. You can say it all +to him.” + +“I don’t want to see such fellows,” Verriman began. + +“Stay and protect me, Eddie. He may have a bomb in his pocket.” + +“You don’t really believe that he’s come to—” + +“No, Eddie, I don’t. I think he’s come like young Lochinvar—to dance a +little late at the wedding. To try to persuade me to accept that lazy, +good-looking brother of his as a son-in-law. He’ll have quite a job +over that.” Then, as the door opened, Mr. Cord’s eyes concentrated on +it and his manner became a shade sharper. “Ah, Mr. Moreton, good +morning. Mr. Verriman—Mr. Moreton.” + +Ben was a good-looking young man, but it was his expression—at once +illuminated and determined—that made him unusual. And the effect of his +night and morning had been to intensify this, so that now, as he stood +a moment in the doorway, he was a very attractive and compelling +figure. + +“I came to see my brother, Mr. Cord,” he said, simply, “but I hear he’s +not here any more. If I could speak to you alone for a few minutes—” He +glanced at Eddie, whom he instantly recognized as the man who had not +known how to talk to the woman in the world best worth talking to. + +“Oh, you may speak before Mr. Verriman,” said Cord. “He knows the +situation—knows your brother—knows my children—knows about you. In +fact, we were just speaking about your paper when you came in. However, +I must tell you that Mr. Verriman doesn’t approve of _Liberty_. At +least, I believe I understood you right, Eddie.” And Mr. Cord, having +thus assured himself a few minutes to regain his poise, leaned back +comfortably in his chair. + +“What’s wrong with the paper, Mr. Verriman?” said Ben, pleasantly. + +Eddie did not love the adventure of mental combat, but he was no +coward. “It seems to me,” he said, “that it preaches such radical +changes in our government that it is seditious. To be frank, Mr. +Moreton, I think the government ought to suppress it.” + +“But we don’t break the law. The government can’t suppress us.” + +“Then the laws ought to be changed so that it can.” + +“That’s all we advocate, Mr. Verriman, the changing of the law. It +isn’t any more seditious for me to say it than for you to, is it?” + +Of course in Eddie’s opinion it was—much, much more seditious. Only +somehow it was a difficult point to make clear, if a person was so +wrongheaded he couldn’t see it for himself. The point was that he, +Eddie, was right in wanting the laws changed and Moreton was wrong. +Anyone, it seemed to Eddie, would agree to that, unless he happened to +agree with Moreton beforehand, and those were just the people who ought +to be deported, imprisoned, or even perhaps in rare instances, as +examples, strung up to lamp-posts. Only each time he tried to put these +very natural opinions in words, they kept sounding wrong and tyrannical +and narrow—qualities which Eddie knew he was entirely without. In order +to counteract this effect, he tried at first to speak very temperately +and calmly, but, unhappily, this only had the effect of making him +sound patronizing to Ben’s ears. + +In short, it was hardly to be expected that the discussion would be +amicable, and it was not. Each man began to be angry in his own way. +Eddie shouted a little, and Ben expressed himself with turns of phrase +quite needlessly insulting. Ben found Verriman’s assumption that the +profits of capital were bound up with patriotism, family life, and the +Christian religion almost as irritating as Verriman found Ben’s +assumption that the government of labor as a class would be entirely +without the faults that have always marked every form of class +government. + +“And suppose you got socialism,” said Eddie, at last, “suppose you did +divide everything up equally, don’t you suppose that in a few years the +clever, strong, industrious men would have it all in their own hands?” + +“Very likely,” said Ben, “but that would be quite a change from the +present arrangement, wouldn’t it?” + +Mr. Cord had a narrow escape from laughing out loud, which would have +cost him the friendship of the man with whom on the whole he really +agreed. He thought it was time to interfere. + +“This is very interesting, Mr. Moreton,” he said, “but I fancy it +wasn’t about the general radical propaganda that you came to see me.” + +“No,” said Ben, turning slowly. He felt as a dog feels who is dragged +out of the fight just as it begins to get exciting. “No, I came to see +you about this unfortunate engagement of my brother’s.” + +“Unfortunate?” asked Mr. Cord, without criticism. + +“I should consider it so, and I understand you do, too.” + +Cord did not move an eyelash; this was an absolutely new form of +attack. It had certainly never crossed his mind that any objection +could come from the Moreton family. + +“You consider it unfortunate?” said Eddie, as if it would be mere +insolence on Ben’s part to object to his brother’s marrying anyone. + +“Will you give me your reasons for objecting?” said Cord. + +Ben smiled. “You ought to understand them,” he said, “for I imagine +they’re pretty much the same as your own. I mean they are both founded +on class consciousness. I feel that it will be destructive to the +things I value most in David to be dependent on, or associated with, +the capitalistic group. Just as you feel it will be destructive to your +daughter to be married to a tutor—a fellow with radical views and a +seditious brother—” + +“One moment, one moment,” said Cord; “you’ve got this all wrong so far +as I’m concerned. I do most emphatically disagree with the radical +propaganda. I think the radical is usually just a man who hasn’t got +something he wants.” + +“And the conservative is a man who wants to keep something he’s got,” +said Ben, less hostilely than he had spoken to Eddie. + +“Exactly, exactly,” said Cord. “In ideality there isn’t much to choose +between them, but, generally speaking, I have more respect for the man +who has succeeded in getting something to preserve than for the man who +hasn’t got anything to lose.” + +“If their opportunities were equal.” + +“I say in general. There is not much to choose between the two types; +but there is in my opinion a shade in favor of the conservative on the +score of efficiency, and I am old-fashioned perhaps, but I like +efficiency. If it came to a fight, I should fight on the conservative +side. But this is all beside the point. My objections to your brother, +Mr. Moreton, are not objections to his group or class. They are +personal to him. Damned personal.” + +“You don’t like David?” + +“Why, he’s an attractive young fellow, but, if you’ll forgive my saying +so, Mr. Moreton, I don’t think he’s any good. He’s weak, he’s idle, he +entirely lacks that aggressive will that—whether we have your +revolution or not—is the only bulwark a woman has in this world. Why, +Mr. Moreton, you are evidently a very much more advanced and dangerous +radical than your brother, but I should not have half the objection to +you that I have to him. There is only one thing that makes a difference +in this world—character. Your brother hasn’t got it.” + +For an instant the perfect accuracy of Cord’s statements about David +left Ben silent. Then he pulled himself together and said, with a +firmness he did not wholly feel: + +“You hardly do David justice. He may not have great force, but he has +talent, great sweetness, no vices—” + +“Oh, quite, quite, quite, quite,” said Cord, with a gesture of his long +hand that should somehow have recalled to Ben the motion of a hand he +had recently kissed. + +“However,” said Ben, “there is no use in arguing about our differences. +The point is we are agreed that this marriage ought not to be. Let us +co-operate on that. Where could I find David? I believe if I could see +him I’d have some effect on him.” + +“You mean you could talk him out of marrying the girl he loves?” + +“I might make him see the folly of it.” + +“Well, I haven’t said anything as bad about your brother as that, Mr. +Moreton. But you do him injustice. You couldn’t talk him out of it, and +if you could, she’d talk him right back into it again. But there is one +thing to consider. I understand you make him an allowance. How about +stopping that?” + +“I wouldn’t consider that for a moment,” said Ben, with more temper +than he had so far shown. “I don’t make him that allowance so that I +can force him to do what I think best. I give it to him because he +needs it. I don’t believe in force, Mr. Cord.” + +“Oh yes, you do, Mr. Moreton.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“You were proposing to use a much more pernicious kind of force when +you proposed talking the boy out of his first love. However, to be +candid with you, I must tell you that the issue is dead. They ran off +yesterday and were married in Boston.” + +There was a short silence and then Ben moved toward the door. + +“Won’t you stay to lunch?” said Mr. Cord, politely. + +“Thank you, no,” said Ben. He wanted to be alone. Like all dominating +people who don’t get their own way in an altruistic issue, his feelings +were deeply wounded. He took his hat from the disapproving Tomes, and +went out to the sea to think. He supposed he was going to think about +David’s future and the terrible blow his paper had just received. + +As the door closed behind him, Eddie turned to Mr. Cord with a world of +reproach in his eyes. + +“Well,” he said, “I must say, sir, I think you were unnecessarily +gentle with that fellow.” + +“Seemed to me a fine young fellow,” said Mr. Cord. + +“Asking him to lunch,” said Eddie. + +“I did that for Crystal,” replied Cord, getting up and slapping his +pockets—a gesture which in some subconscious way he hoped would make +Eddie go home. “She’s always so keen to meet new people. If she heard +that the editor of _Liberty_ had been here while she was asleep and +that I had not tried to keep him for her to see—whew!—she would make a +scene.” + +“But she oughtn’t to see people like that,” protested Eddie, as if he +were trying to talk sense in a madhouse. “That was what I was just +explaining to you, Mr. Cord, when—” + +“So you were, Eddie, so you were,” said Mr. Cord. “Stay to lunch and +tell Crystal. Or, rather,” he added, hastily glancing at the clock, +“come back to lunch in an hour. I have to go now and see—” Mr. Cord +hesitated for the fraction of a second—“the gardener. If you don’t see +gardeners now and then and let them scold you about the weather and the +Lord’s arrangement of the seasons, they go mad and beat their wives. +See you later, Eddie,” and Mr. Cord stepped out through the French +window. It was only great crises like these that led him to offer +himself up to the attacks of his employees. + +A severe elderly man with a long, flat upper lip and side whiskers +immediately sprang apparently from the earth and approached him. He had +exactly the manner of resolute gloom that a small boy has when +something has gone wrong at school and he wants his mother to drag it +out of him. + +“Good morning, sir,” he said. + +“Morning, McKellar,” said Cord, gayly. “Everything’s all right, I +suppose.” + +McKellar shook his head. Everything was about as far from all right as +it well could be. The cook was a violent maniac who required peas to be +picked so young that they weren’t worth the picking. Tomes and his +footman were a band of malicious pirates who took pleasure in cutting +for the table the very buds which McKellar was cherishing for the +horticultural show. And as for the season—McKellar could not remember +such a devastatingly dry August since he was a lad at home. + +“Why, McKellar, we had rain two days ago.” + +“You wouldn’t call that little mist rain, sir.” + +“And last week a perfect downpour.” + +“Ah, that’s the kind doesn’t sink into the soil.” Looking up critically +at the heavens, McKellar expressed his settled conviction that in two +weeks’ time hardly a blade or a shrub would be alive in the island at +Newport. + +“Well, that will save us all a lot of trouble, McKellar,” said Mr. +Cord, and presently left his gloomy gardener. He had attained his +object. When he went back into the house, Eddie had gone, and he could +go back to his new driver in peace. + +He was not interrupted until ten minutes past one, when Crystal came +into the room, her eyes shining with exactly the same color that, +beyond the lawn, the sea was displaying. Unlike Eddie, she looked +better than in her fancy dress. She had on flat tennis shoes, a cotton +blouse and a duck skirt, and a russet-colored sweater. Miss Cox would +have rejected every item of her costume except the row of pearls, which +just showed at her throat. + +She kissed her father rapidly, and said: + +“Good morning, dear. Are you ready for breakfast—lunch I mean?” + +She was a little bit flustered for the reason that it seemed to her as +if any one would be able to see that she was an entirely different +Crystal from the one of the evening before, and she was not quite sure +what she was going to answer when her father said, as she felt certain +he must say at any moment, “My dear child, what has come over you?” + +He did not say this, however. He held out his golf-club and said, “Got +a new driver.” + +“Yes, yes, dear, very nice,” said Crystal. “But I want to have lunch +punctually, to-day.” + +Mr. Cord sighed. Crystal wasn’t always very sympathetic. “I’m ready,” +he said, “only Eddie’s coming.” + +“_Eddie!_” exclaimed Crystal, drawing her shoulders up, as if at the +sight of a cobra in her path. “Why is Eddie coming to lunch? I did not +ask him.” + +“No, my dear, I took that liberty,” replied her father. “It seemed the +only way of getting rid of him.” + +“Well, I sha’n’t wait for him,” said Crystal, ringing the bell. “I have +an engagement at a quarter past two.” + +“At the golf club?” asked her father, his eye lighting a little. “You +might drive me out, you know.” + +“No, dear; quite in the other direction—with a man who was at the party +last night.” + +“You enjoyed the party?” + +“No, not a bit.” + +“But you stayed till morning.” + +“I stopped and took a swim.” + +“You enjoyed that, I suppose?” + +His daughter glanced at him and turned crimson; but she did not have to +answer, for at that moment Tomes came, in response to her ring, and she +said: + +“We won’t wait lunch for Mr. Verriman, Tomes.” Then, as he went away, +she asked, “And what was Eddie doing here this morning, anyhow?” + +“He was scolding me,” replied Mr. Cord. “Have you noticed, Crystal, +what a lot of scolding is going on in the world at present? I believe +that that is why no one is getting any work done—everyone is so busy +scolding everybody else. The politicians are scolding, and the +newspapers are scolding, and most of the fellows I know are scolding. I +believe I’ve got hold of a great truth—” + +“And may I ask what Eddie was scolding about?” asked Crystal, no more +interested in great truths than most of us. + +“About you.” + +Crystal moved her head about as if things had now reached a point where +it wasn’t even worth while to be angry. “About me?” + +“It seems you’re a socialist, my dear. Eddie asked me how long it was +since I had taken an inventory of your economic beliefs. I could not +remember that I ever had, but perhaps you will tell them to me now. +That is,” Mr. Cord added, “if you can do it without scolding +me—probably an impossible condition to impose nowadays.” + +“It’s a pity about Eddie,” said Crystal, fiercely. “If only stupid +people would be content to be stupid, instead of trying to run the +world—” + +“Ah, my dear, it’s only stupid people who are under the impression that +they can. Good morning again, Eddie, we were just speaking of you.” + +Mr. Cord added the last sentence without the slightest change of tone +or expression as his guest was ushered in by Tomes, who, catching +Crystal’s eyes for a more important fact than Eddie’s arrival, murmured +that luncheon was served. + +“Well, Eddie,” said Crystal, and there was a sort of gay vibration in +her whole figure, and her tone was like a bright banner of war, “and so +you came round to complain to my father, did you?” + +Mr. Cord laid his hand on her shoulder. “Do you think you could +demolish Eddie just as well at table, my dear?” he said. “If so, +there’s no use in letting the food get cold.” + +“Oh, she can do it anywhere,” replied Eddie, bitterly, and then, +striking his habitual note of warning, he went on, “but, honestly, +Crystal, if you had heard what your father and I heard this morning—” + +“I had a visit from David’s brother this morning,” put in Mr. Cord, +“the editor of your favorite morning paper.” + +“Ben Moreton, here! Oh, _father_, why didn’t you call me? Yes, I know,” +she added, as her father opened his mouth to say that she had left most +particular instructions that she was to be allowed to sleep as late as +she could, “I know, but you must have known I should have wanted to +look David’s brother over. Has he long hair? Does he wear a soft tie? +Did you hate him?” + +“Eddie didn’t take much of a fancy to him.” + +“I should say not. A damned, hollow-eyed fanatic.” + +“Is he as good-looking as David, father? What does he look like?” + +Mr. Cord hesitated. “Well, a little like my engraving of Thomas +Jefferson as a young man.” + +“He looks as if he might have a bomb in his pocket.” + +“Oh, Eddie, do keep quiet, there’s a dear, and let father give me one +of his long, wonderful accounts. Go ahead, father.” + +“Well,” said Mr. Cord, helping himself from a dish that Tomes was +presenting to him, “as I told you, Eddie had dropped in very kindly to +scold me about you, when Tomes announced Mr. Moreton. Tomes thought he +ought to be put straight out of the house. Didn’t you, Tomes?” + +“No, sir,” said Tomes, who was getting used to his employer, although +he did not encourage this sort of thing, particularly before the +footmen. + +“Well, Moreton came in and said, very simply—” + +“Has he good manners, father?” + +“He has no manners at all,” roared Eddie. + +“Oh, how nice,” said Crystal, of whom it might be asserted without +flattery that she now understood in perfection the art of irritating +Eddie. + +“He is very direct and natural,” her father continued. “He has a lot +more punch than your brother-in-law, my dear. In fact, I was rather +impressed with the young fellow until he and Eddie fell to quarreling. +Things did not go so well, then.” + +“You mean,” said Crystal, the gossip rather getting the best of the +reformer in her, “that he lost his temper horribly?” + +“I should say he did,” said Eddie. + +“Well, Eddie, you know you were not perfectly calm,” answered Cord. +“Let us say that they both lost their tempers, which is strange, for as +far as I could see they were agreed on many essentials. They both +believe that one class in the community ought to govern the other. They +both believe the world is in a very bad way; only, according to Eddie, +we are going to have chaos if capital loses its control of the +situation; and according to Moreton we are going to have chaos if labor +doesn’t get control. So, as one or the other seems bound to happen, we +ought to be able to adjust ourselves to chaos. In fact, Crystal, I have +been interviewing McKellar about having a chaos cellar built in the +garden.” + +Eddie pushed back his plate; it was empty, but the gesture suggested +that he could not go on choking down the food of a man who joked about +such serious matters. + +“I must say, Mr. Cord,” he began, “I really must say—” He paused, +surprised to find that he really hadn’t anything that he must say, and +Crystal turned to her father: + +“But you haven’t told me why he came. To see Eugenia, I suppose?” + +“No; he hadn’t heard of the marriage. He came to talk to his brother.” + +“For you must know,” put in Eddie, hastily, “that Mr. Ben Moreton does +not approve of the marriage—oh, dear, no. He would consider such a +connection quite beneath his family. He disapproves of Eugenia as a +sister-in-law.” + +“How could any one disapprove of her?” asked her sister, hotly. + +“Jevver hear such nerve?” said Eddie. + +“It’s not Eugenia; it’s capital Moreton disapproves of,” Mr. Cord went +on, patiently explaining. “You see it never crossed our minds that the +Moretons might object, but of course they do. They regard us as a very +degrading connection. Doubtless it will hurt Ben Moreton with his +readers to be connected with a financial pirate like myself, quite as +much as it will hurt me in the eyes of most of my fellow board members +when it becomes known that my son-in-law’s brother is the editor of +_Liberty_.” + +“The Moretons disapprove,” repeated Crystal, to whom the idea was not +at all agreeable. + +“Disapprove, nonsense!” said Eddie. “I believe he came to blackmail +you. To see what he could get out of you if he offered to stop the +marriage. Well, why not? If these fellows believe all the money ought +to be taken away from the capitalists, why should they care how it’s +done? I can’t see much difference between robbing a man, and +legislating his fortune out of—” + +“Well, I must tell you, father dear,” said Crystal, exactly as if Eddie +had not been speaking, “that I think it was horrid of you not to have +me called when you must have known—” + +“Crystal, you’re scolding me,” wailed her father. “And most unjustly. I +did ask him to lunch just for your sake, although I saw Eddie was +shocked, and I was afraid Tomes would give warning. But I did ask him, +only he wouldn’t stay.” + +Crystal rose from the table with her eye on the clock, and they began +to make their way back to Mr. Cord’s study, as she asked: + +“Why wouldn’t he stay?” + +“I gathered because he didn’t want to. Perhaps he was afraid he’d have +to argue with Eddie about capital and labor all through lunch. And of +course he did not know that I had another beautiful daughter sleeping +off the effects of a late party, or very likely he would have +accepted.” + +Very likely he would. + +Just as they entered the study, the telephone rang. Crystal sprang to +the instrument, brushing away her father’s hand, which had moved toward +it. + +“It’s for me, dear,” she said, and continued, speaking into the +mouthpiece: “Yes, it’s I.” (A pause.) “Where are you?... Oh, yes, I +know the place. I’ll be there in five minutes, in a little blue car.” +She hung up the receiver, sprang up, and looked very much surprised to +see Eddie and her father still there just as before. “Good-by, Eddie,” +she said, “I’m sorry, but I have an engagement. Good-by, father.” + +“You don’t want to run me out to the golf club first?” + +“Not possible, dear. The chauffeur can take you in the big car.” + +“Yes, but he’ll scold me all the way about there not being room enough +in the garage.” + +Crystal was firm. “I’m sorry, but I can’t, dear. This is important. I +may take a job. I’ll tell you all about it this evening.” And she left +the room, with a smile that kept getting entirely beyond her control. + +“What’s this? What’s this?” cried Eddie as the door shut. “A job. You +wouldn’t let Crystal take a job, would you, Mr. Cord?” + +“I haven’t been consulted,” said Mr. Cord, taking out his new driver +again. + +“But didn’t you notice how excited she was. I’m sure it’s decided.” + +“Yes, I noticed, Eddie; but it looked to me more like a man than a job. +How do you think we’d come out if I gave you a stroke and a half a +hole?” + +Eddie was too perturbed even to answer. + +In the meantime, Crystal was spinning along Bellevue Avenue, forgetting +to bow to her friends, and wondering why the car was going so badly +until, her eye falling on the speedometer, she noticed that she was +doing a mild thirty-five miles an hour. Sooner, therefore, than the law +allowed, she reached a small park that surrounds a statue of Perry, and +there she picked up a passenger. + +Ben got in and shut the little door almost before she brought the car +to a standstill. + +“When you were little,” he said, “did you ever imagine something +wonderful that might happen—like the door’s opening and a delegation +coming to elect you captain of the baseball team, or whatever is a +little girl’s equivalent of that—and keep on imagining it and imagining +it, until it seemed as if it really were going to happen? Well, I have +been standing here saying to myself, Wouldn’t it be wonderful if +Crystal should come in a little blue car and take me to drive? And, by +Heaven! you’ll never believe me, but she actually did.” + + +[Illustration: “I’ll Be There in Five Minutes, In a Little Blue Car”] + + +“Tell me everything you’ve done since I saw you,” she answered. + +“I haven’t done anything but think about you. Oh yes, I have, too. I’ve +reappraised the universe. You see, you’ve just made me a present of a +brand-new world, and I’ve been pretty busy, I can tell you, untying the +string and unwrapping the paper, and bless me, Crystal, it looks like a +mighty fine present so far.” + +“Oh,” she said, “I think you talk charmingly.” She had started to say, +“you make love charmingly,” but on second thoughts decided that the +overt statement had better come from him. “Dear me,” she went on, “we +have so much to talk about. There’s my job. Can’t we talk a little +about that?” + +They could and did. Their talk consisted largely in his telling her how +much richer a service she could render his paper through having been +unconsciously steeped in beauty than if she had been merely +intellectually instructed—than if, as she more simply put it, she had +known something. And as he talked, her mind began to expand in the warm +atmosphere of his praise and to give off its perfume like a flower. + +But the idea of her working with him day after day, helping the +development of the paper which had grown as dear as a child to him, was +so desirable that he did not dare to contemplate it unless it promised +realization. + +“Oh,” he broke out, “you won’t really do it. Your family will object, +or something. Probably when I go away to-night, I shall never see you +again.” + +“You are still going away to-night?” + +“I must.” + +She looked at him and slowly shook her head, as a mother shakes her +head at the foolish plans of a child. + +“I thought I was going,” he said, weakly. + +“Why?” + +He groaned, but did not answer. + +She thought, “Oh, dear, I wish when men want to be comforted they would +not make a girl spend so much time and energy getting them to say that +they do want it.” Aloud she said: + +“You must tell me what’s the matter.” + +“It’s a long story.” + +“We have all afternoon.” + +“That’s it—we haven’t all eternity.” + +“Oh, eternity,” said Crystal, dismissing it with the Cord wave of the +hand. “Who wants eternity? ‘Since we must die how bright the starry +track,’ you know.” + +“No; what is that?” + +“I don’t remember.” + +“Oh.” + +After this meeting of minds they drove for some time in silence. Ben +was seeing a new aspect of Newport—bare, rugged country, sandy roads, a +sudden high rock jutting out toward the sea, a rock on which tradition +asserts that Bishop Berkeley once sat and considered the illusion of +matter. They stopped at length at the edge of a sandy beach. Crystal +parked her car neatly with a sharp turn of the wheel, and got out. + +“There’s a tea basket,” she called over her shoulder. + +Ben’s heart bounded at the news—not that he was hungry, but as the hour +was now but little past half after two a tea basket indicated a +prolonged interview. He found it tucked away in the back of the car, +and followed her. They sat down at the edge of the foam. He lit a pipe, +clasped his hands about his knees and stared out to sea; she curled her +feet backward, grasped an ankle in her hand, and, looking at him, said: + +“Now what makes you groan so?” + +“I haven’t meant to be dishonest,” he said, “but I have been obtaining +your friendship—trying to—under false pretenses.” + +“Trying to?” said Crystal. “Now isn’t it silly to put that in.” + +He turned and smiled at her. She was really incredibly sweet. “But, all +the same,” he went on, “there is a barrier, a real, tangible barrier +between us.” + +Crystal’s heart suffered a chill convulsion at these words. “Good +gracious!” she thought. “He’s entangled with another woman—oh +dear!—_marriage_”—But she did not interrupt him, and he continued: + +“I let you think that I was one of the men you might have known—that I +was asked to your party last night, whereas, as a matter of fact, I +only watched you—” + +Crystal’s mind, working with its normal rapidity, invented, faced, and +passed over the fact that he must have been one of the musicians. She +said aloud: + +“I think I ought to tell you that I’m not much of a believer in +barriers—between sensible people who want friendship.” + +“Friendship!” exclaimed Ben, as if that were the last thing he had come +out on a lovely summer afternoon to discuss. + +“There aren’t any real barriers any more,” Crystal continued. +“Differences of position, and religion, and all those things don’t seem +to matter now. Romeo and Juliet wouldn’t have paid any attention to the +little family disagreement if they had lived to-day.” + +“In the case of Romeo and Juliet, if I remember correctly,” said Ben, +“it was not exactly a question of friendship.” + +She colored deeply, but he refused to modify his statement, for, after +all, it was correct. “But difference of opinion _is_ an obstacle,” he +went on. “I have seen husbands and wives parted by differences of +opinion in the late war. And as far as I’m concerned there’s a war on +now—a different war, and I came here to try to prevent my brother +marrying into an enemy influence—” + +“Good Heavens!” cried Crystal. “You are Ben Moreton! Why didn’t I see +it sooner? I’m Crystal Cord,” and, lifting up her chin, she laughed. + +That she could laugh as the gulf opened between them seemed to him +terrible. He turned his head away. + +She stopped laughing. “You don’t think it’s amusing?” (He shook his +head.) “That we’re relations-in-law, when we thought it was all so +unknown and romantic? No wonder I felt at home with you, when I’ve read +so many of your letters to David—such nice letters, too—and I subscribe +to your paper, and read every word of the editorials. And to think that +you would not lunch with me to-day, when my father asked you.” + +“To think that it was you I was being asked to lunch with, and didn’t +know it!” + +“Well, you dine with us to-morrow,” she answered, stating a simple +fact. + +“Crystal,” he said, and put his hand on hers as if this would help him +through his long explanation; but the continuity of his thought was +destroyed and his spirit wounded by her immediately withdrawing it; and +then—so exactly does the spring of love resemble the uncertain glory of +an April day—he was rendered perfectly happy again by perceiving that +her action was due to the publicity of their position and not to +repugnance to the caress. + +Fortunately he was a man not without invention, and so when a few +minutes later she suggested opening the tea basket, he insisted on +moving to a more retired spot on the plea that the teakettle would burn +better out of the wind; and Crystal, who must have known that Tomes +never gave her a teakettle, but made the tea at home and put it in a +thermos bottle, at once agreed to the suggestion. + +They moved back across the road, where irregular rocks sheltered small +plots of grass and wild flowers, and here, instead of an Arcadian duet, +they had, most unsuitably, their first quarrel. + +It began as quarrels are so apt to do, by a complete agreement. Of +course he would stay over the next day, which was Sunday, and not very +busy in the office of _Liberty_. In return he expected her undivided +attention. She at once admitted that this was part of the plan—only +there would have to be one little exception; she was dining out this +evening. Oh, well, that could be broken, couldn’t it? She would like to +break it, but it happened to be one of those engagements that had to be +kept. Ben could not understand that. + +At first she tried to explain it to him: She had chosen her own evening +several weeks ago with these people, who wanted her to meet a friend of +theirs who was motoring down specially from Boston. She felt she must +keep her word. + +“I assure you I don’t want to, but you understand, don’t you?” + +If she had looked at his face she would not have asked the last +question. He did not understand; indeed, he had resolved not to. + +“No,” he said, “I must own, I don’t. If you told me that you _wanted_ +to go, that would be one thing. I shouldn’t have a word to say then.” + +“Oh yes, you would, Ben,” said Crystal, but he did not notice her. + +“I can’t understand your allowing yourself to be dragged there against +your will. You say you despise this life, but you seem to take it +pretty seriously if you can’t break any engagement that you may make.” + +“How absurd you are! Of course I often break engagements.” + +“I see. You do when the inducement is sufficient. Well, that makes it +all perfectly clear.” + +She felt both angry and inclined to cry. She knew that to yield to +either impulse would instantly solve the problem and bring a very +unreasonable young man to reason. She ran over both scenes in her +imagination. Registering anger, she would rise and say that, really, +Mr. Moreton, if he would not listen to her explanation there was no use +in prolonging the discussion. That would be the critical moment. He +would take her in his arms then and there, or else he would let her go, +and they would drive in silence, and part at the little park, where of +course she might say, “Aren’t you silly to leave me like this?”—only +her experience was that it was never very practical to make up with an +angry man in public. + +To burst into tears was a safer method, but she had a natural +repugnance to crying, and perhaps she was subconsciously aware that she +might be left, after the quarrel was apparently made up by this method, +with a slight resentment against the man who had forced her to adopt so +illogical a line of conduct. + +A middle course appealed to her. She laid her hand on Ben’s. A few +minutes before it would have seemed unbelievable to Ben that his own +hand would have remained cold and lifeless under that touch, but such +was now the case. + +“Ben,” she said, “if you go on being disagreeable a second longer you +must make up your mind how you will behave when I burst into tears.” + +“How I should behave?” + +She nodded. + +His hands clasped hers. He told her how he should behave. He even +offered to show her, without putting her to the trouble of tears. + +“You mean,” she said, “that you would forgive me? Well, forgive me, +anyhow. I’m doing what I think is right about this old dinner. Perhaps +I’m wrong about it; perhaps you’re mistaken and I’m not absolutely +perfect, but if I were, think what a lot of fun you would miss in +changing me. And you know I never meant to abandon you for the whole +evening. I’ll get away at half past nine and we’ll take a little turn.” + +So that was settled. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +As they drove back she revealed another plan to him—she was taking him +for a moment to see a friend of hers. He protested. He did not want to +see anyone but herself, but Crystal was firm. He must see this woman; +she was their celebrated parlor Bolshevist. Ben hated parlor +Bolshevists. Did he know any? No. Well, then. Anyhow, Sophia would +never forgive her if she did not bring him. Sophia adored celebrities. +Sophia who? Sophia Dawson. The name seemed dimly familiar to Ben, and +then he remembered. It was the name on the thousand-dollar check for +the strike sufferers that had come in the day before. + +They drove up an avenue of little oaks to a formidable palace built of +gray stone, so smoothly faced that there was not a crevice in the +immense pale façade. Two men in knee-breeches opened the double doors +and they went in between golden grilles and rows of tall white lilies. +They were led through a soundless hall, and up stairs so thickly +carpeted that the feet sank in as in new-fallen snow, and finally they +were ushered through a small painted door into a small painted room, +which had been brought all the way from Sienna, and there they found +Mrs. Dawson—a beautiful, worn, world-weary Mrs. Dawson, with one streak +of gray in the front of her dark hair, her tragic eyes, and her long +violet and black draperies—a perfect Sibyl. + +Crystal did not treat her as a Sibyl, however. “Hullo, Sophie!” she +said. “This is my brother-in-law’s brother, Ben Moreton. He’s crazy to +meet you. You’ll like him. I can’t stay because I’m dining somewhere or +other, but he’s not.” + +“Will he dine with me?” said Mrs. Dawson in a wonderful deep, slow +voice—“just stay on and dine with me alone?” + +Ben began to say that he couldn’t, but Crystal said yes, that he would +be delighted to, and that she would stop for him again about half past +nine, and that it was a wonderful plan, and then she went away. + +Mrs. Dawson seemed to take it all as a matter of course. “Sit down, Mr. +Moreton,” she said. “I have a quarrel with you.” + +Ben could not help feeling a little disturbed by the way he had been +injected into Mrs. Dawson’s evening without her volition. He did not +sit down. + +“You know,” he said, “there isn’t any reason why you should have me to +dine just because Crystal says so. I do want to thank you for the check +you sent in to us for the strike fund. It will do a lot of good.” + +“Oh, that,” replied Mrs. Dawson. “They are fighting all our battles for +us.” + +“It cheered us up in the office. I wanted to tell you, and now I think +I’ll go. I dare say you are dining out, anyhow—” + +Her eyes flashed at him. “Dining out!” she exclaimed, as if the +suggestion insulted her. “You evidently don’t know me. I never dine +out. I have nothing in common with these people. I lead a very lonely +life. You do me a favor by staying. You and I could exchange ideas. +There is no one in Newport whom I can talk to—reactionaries.” + +“Miss Cord is not exactly a reactionary,” said Ben, sitting down. + +Mrs. Dawson smiled. “Crystal is not a reactionary; Crystal is a child,” +she replied. “But what can you expect of William Cord’s daughter? He is +a dangerous and disintegrating force—cold—cynical—he feels not the +slightest public responsibility for his possessions.” Mrs. Dawson laid +her hand on her heart as if it were weighted with all her jewels and +footmen and palaces. “Most Bourbons are cynical about human life, but +he goes farther; he is cynical about his own wealth. And that brings me +to my quarrel with you, Mr. Moreton. How could you let your brother +spend his beautiful vigorous youth as a parasite to Cord’s vapid son? +Was that consistent with your beliefs?” + +This attack on his consistency from a lady whose consistency seemed +even more flagrant amused Ben, but as he listened he was obliged to +admit that there was a great deal of good sense in what she had to say +about David, whom she had met once or twice at the Cords’. Ben was too +candid and eager not to ask her before long the question that was in +his mind—how it was possible for a woman holding her views to be +leading a life so opposed to them. + +She was not at all offended, and even less at a loss for an answer. “I +am not a free agent, Mr. Moreton,” she said. “Unhappily, before I began +to think at all, I had undertaken certain obligations. The law allows a +woman to dispose of everything but her property while she is still a +child. I married at eighteen.” + +It was a story not without interest and Mrs. Dawson told it well. There +does not live a man who would not have been interested. + +They dined, not in the great dining room downstairs, nor even in the +painted room from Sienna, but in a sort of loggia that opened from it, +where, beyond the shaded lights, Ben could watch the moon rise out of +the sea. + +It was a perfect little meal, short, delicious, and quickly served by +three servants. He enjoyed it thoroughly, although he found his hostess +a strangely confusing companion. He would make up his mind that she was +a sincere soul captured by her environment, when a freshly discovered +jewel on her long fingers would shake his faith. And he would just +decide that she was a melodramatic fraud, when she would surprise him +by her scholarly knowledge of social problems. She had read deeply, +knew several languages, and had known many of the European leaders. +Such phrases as “Jaurès wrote me ten days before he died—” were +frequent, but not too frequent, on her lips. + +By the time Crystal stopped for him Ben had begun to feel like a child +who has lost his mother in a museum, or as Dante might have felt if he +had missed Virgil from his side. When he bade Mrs. Dawson good night, +she asked him to come back. + +“Come and spend September here,” she said, as if it were a small thing. +“You can work all day if you like. I sha’n’t disturb you, and you need +never see a soul. It will do you good.” + +He was touched by the invitation, but of course he refused it. He tried +to explain tactfully, but clearly, why it was that he couldn’t do that +sort of thing—that the editor of _Liberty_ did not take his holiday at +Newport. + +She understood, and sighed. “Ah, yes,” she said. “I’m like that man in +mythology whom neither the sky nor the earth would receive. I’m very +lonely, Mr. Moreton.” + +He found himself feeling sorry for her, as he followed a footman +downstairs, his feet sinking into the carpets at each step. Crystal in +the blue car was at the door. She was bareheaded and the wind had been +blowing her hair about. + +“Well,” she said, as he got in, “did you have a good time? I’m sure you +had a good dinner.” + +“Excellent, but confusing. I don’t quite get your friend.” + +“You don’t understand Sophia?” Crystal’s tone expressed surprise. “You +mean her jewels and her footmen? Why, Ben, it’s just like the fathers +of this country who talked about all men being equal and yet were +themselves slaveholders. She sincerely believes those things in a way, +and then it’s such a splendid role to play, and she enjoys that; and +then it teases Freddie Dawson. Freddie is rather sweet if he’s +thoroughly unhappy, and this keeps him unhappy almost all the time. Did +she ask you to stay? I meant her to.” + +“Yes, she did; but of course I couldn’t.” + +“Oh, Ben, why not?” + +This brought them once more to the discussion of the barrier. This time +Ben felt he could make her see. He said that she must look at it this +way—that in a war you could not go and stay in enemy country, however +friendly your personal relations might be. Well, as far as he was +concerned this was a war, a class war. + +They were headed for the Ocean Drive, and Crystal rounded a sharp turn +before she answered seriously: + +“But I thought you didn’t believe in war.” + +“I don’t,” he answered. “I hate it—I hate all violence. We—labor, I +mean—didn’t initiate this, but when men won’t see, when they have power +and won’t stop abusing it, there is only one way to make—” + +“Why, Ben,” said Crystal, “you’re just a pacifist in other people’s +quarrels, but as militaristic as can be in your own. I’m not a +pacifist, but I’m a better one than you, because I don’t believe in +emphasizing any difference between human beings. That’s why I want a +League of Nations. I hate gangs—all women really do. Little girls don’t +form gangs like little boys. Every settlement worker knows that. I +won’t have you say that I belong to the other group. I won’t be +classified. I’m a human being—and I intend to behave as such.” + +Since she had left him she had been immersed again in her old life—her +old friends—and the result had been to make her wonder if her +experience with Ben had been as wonderful as it had seemed. When she +stopped for him she had been almost prepared to find that the wild joy +of their meetings had been something accidental and temporary, and that +only a stimulating and pleasant friendship was left. But as soon as she +saw that he really regarded their differences seriously, all her own +prudence and doubt melted away. She knew she was ready to make any +sacrifices for him, and in view of that all talk of obstacles was +folly. + +She stopped the car on the point of the island, with the open sea on +one hand, the harbor on the other. In front of them the lightship was +moving with a slow, majestic roll, and to the right was the long +festoon of Narragansett lights, and as they stopped the lighted bulk of +the New York boat appeared, making its way toward Point Judith. + +His prolonged silence began to frighten her. + +“Ben,” she said, “do you seriously mean that you believe friendship +between us is impossible?” + +“Friendship, nothing,” answered Moreton. “I love you.” + +He said it as if it had always been understood between them, as of +course it had, but the instant he said it, he gave her a quick, +appealing look to see how she would take so startling an assertion. + +If Crystal had poured out just what was in her mind at that second she +would have answered: “Of course you do. I’ve known that longer than you +have. And can’t you see that if I had had any doubt about its being +true, I’d have taken steps to make it true? But, as I really did not +doubt it, I’ve been able to be quite passive and leave it mostly to +you, which I so much prefer.” + +But rigorous candor is rarely attained, and Crystal did not say this. +In fact, for a few seconds she did not say anything, but merely allowed +her eyes to shine upon him, with the inevitable result that at the end +of precisely six seconds of their benevolent invitation he took her in +his arms and kissed her. It was a very unprotected point, and several +cars were standing not too far away, but Crystal, who had an excellent +sense of proportion, made no objection whatever. She was being proved +right in two important particulars—first, that she was a human being, +and second, that there was no barrier between them. She was very +generous about it. She did not say, “Where’s your barrier now?” or +anything like that; she simply said nothing, and the barrier passed out +of the conversation and was no more seen. + +Very soon, alleging that she must get home at the time at which she +usually did get home from dinners, she took him back; but she soothed +him with the promise of an uninterrupted day to follow. + +Time—the mere knowledge of unbroken hours ahead—is a boon which real +love cannot do without. Minor feelings may flourish on snatched +interviews and stolen meetings, but love demands—and usually +gets—protected leisure. The next day these lovers had it. They spent +the morning, when Mr. Cord was known to be playing golf, at the Cords’ +house, and then when Mr. Cord telephoned that he was staying to +luncheon at the club, if Crystal did not object (and Crystal did not), +she and Ben arranged a picnic—at least Tomes did, and they went off +about one o’clock in the blue car. They went to a pool in the rocks +that Crystal had always known about, with high walls around it, and +here, with a curtain of foam between them and the sea, for the waves +were rising, they ate lunch, as much alone as on a desert island. + +It was here that Ben asked her to marry him, or, to be accurate, it was +here that they first began talking about their life together, and +whether Nora would become reconciled to another woman about the flat. + +The nearest approach to a definite proposal was Ben’s saying: + +“You would not mind my saying something about all this to your father +before I go this evening, would you?” + +And Crystal replied: “Poor father! It will be a blow, I’m afraid.” + +“Well,” said Ben, “he told me himself that he liked me better than +David.” + +“That’s not saying much.” + +At this Ben laughed lightly. + +He might have had his wrong-headed notions about barriers, but he was +not so un-American as to regard a father as an obstacle. + +“But, oh, Crystal,” he added, “suppose you find you do hate being poor. +It is a bore in some ways.” + +Crystal, who had been tucking away the complicated dishes of her +luncheon basket, looked at Ben and lightly sucked one finger to which +some raspberry jam from Tomes’s supernal sandwiches had adhered. + +“I sha’n’t mind it a bit, Ben,” she said, “and for a good +reason—because I’m terribly conceited.” He did not understand at all, +and she went on: “I believe I shall be just as much of a person—perhaps +more—without money. The women who really mind being poor are the +humble-minded ones, who think that they are made by their clothes and +their lovely houses and their maids and their sables. When they lose +them they lose all their personality, and of course that terrifies +them. I don’t think I shall lose mine. Does it shock you to know that I +think such a lot of myself?” + +It appeared it did not shock him at all. + + +[Illustration: “Suppose You Find You Do Hate Being Poor?”] + + +When they reached the house she established him in the drawing-room and +went off to find her father. + +She was a true woman, by which is meant now and always that she +preferred to allow a man to digest his dinner before she tried to bring +him to a rational opinion. But in this case her hands were tied. The +Cords dined at eight—or sometimes a little later, and Ben’s boat left +for New York at half past nine, so that it would be utterly impossible +to postpone the discussion of her future until after dinner. It had to +be done at once. + +Crystal ran up and knocked at his bedroom door. Loud splashings from +the adjoining bathroom were all the answer she got. She sat down on the +stairs and waited. Those are the moments that try men’s and even +women’s souls. For the first time her enterprise seemed to her a little +reckless. For an instant she had the surprising experience of +recognizing the fact that Ben was a total stranger. She looked at the +gray-stone stairway on which she was sitting and thought that her life +had been as safe and sheltered as a cloister, and now, steered by this +total stranger, she proposed to launch herself on an uncharted course +of change. And to this program she was to bring her father’s +consent—for she knew very well that if she couldn’t, Ben wouldn’t be +able to—in the comparatively short time between now and dinner. Then, +the splashing having ceased, the sound of bureau drawers succeeded, and +Crystal sprang up and knocked again. + +“That you, Peters?” said an unencouraging voice. (Peters was Mr. Cord’s +valet.) + +“No, dear, it’s I,” said Crystal. + +“Oh, come in,” said Mr. Cord. He was standing in the middle of the room +in his shirt sleeves and gloomily contemplating the shirt he wore. +“What’s this laundress, anyhow? A Bolshevist or a pastry-cook?” he +said. “Did you ever see anything like this shirt?” + +Crystal approached and studied the shirt. It appeared to her to be +perfectly done up, but she said: “Yes, dear, how terrible! I’ll pack +her off to-morrow, but you always look all right whatever you wear; +that’s some comfort.” She saw that even this hadn’t done much good, +and, going to the heart of the problem, she asked, “How did your golf +go?” + +Mr. Cord’s gloom gathered as he answered, with resignation, “Oh, all +right.” + +His manner was exactly similar to Ben’s in his recent moment of +depression, and not unlike McKellar’s when he had explained what he +suffered under the good Lord’s weather. + +“Is Eddie’s game any better?” asked Crystal, feeling her way. + +“No,” cried her father, contemptuously. “He’s rotten, but I’m worse. +And golf-clubs, Crystal! No one can make a club any more. Have you +noticed that? But the truth of the matter is, I’m getting too old to +play golf.” And Mr. Cord sat down with a good but unconscious imitation +of a broken old man. + +Of course Crystal swept this away. She scolded him a little, pointed +out his recent prowess, and spoke slightingly of all younger athletes, +but she really had not time to do the job thoroughly, for the thought +of Ben, sitting so anxious in the drawing-room alone, hurried her on. + +“Anyhow, dear,” she said, “I’ve come to talk to you about something +terribly important. What would you say, father, if I told you I was +engaged?” + +Mr. Cord was so startled that he said, what was rare for him, the first +thing that came into his head: + +“Not to Eddie?” + +The true diplomatist, we have been told, simply takes advantage of +chance, and Crystal was diplomatic. “And suppose it is?” she replied. + +“I should refuse my consent,” replied her father. + +Crystal looked hurt. “Is there anything against Eddie,” she asked, +“except his golf?” + +“Yes,” answered her father, “there are two of the most serious things +in the world against him—first, that he doesn’t amount to anything; and +second, that you don’t love him.” + +“No,” Crystal admitted, “I don’t, but then—love—father, isn’t love +rather a serious undertaking nowadays? Is it a particularly helpful +adjunct to marriage? Look at poor Eugenia. Isn’t it really more +sensible to marry a nice man who can support one, and then if in time +one does fall in love with another man—” + +“Never let me hear you talk like that again, Crystal,” said her father, +with a severity and vigor he seldom showed outside of board meetings. +“It’s only your ignorance of life that saves you from being actually +revolting. I’m an old man and not sentimental, you’ll grant, but, take +my word for it, love is the only hope of pulling off marriage +successfully, and even then it’s not easy. As for Eugenia, I think +she’s made a fool of herself and is going to be unhappy, but I’d rather +do what she has done than what you’re contemplating. At least she cared +for that fellow—” + +“I’m glad you feel like that, darling,” said Crystal, “because it isn’t +Eddie I’m engaged to, but Ben Moreton. He’s waiting downstairs now.” + +Mr. Cord started up—his eyes shining like black flames. + +“By God! Crystal,” he said, “you sha’n’t marry that +fellow—Eugenia—perhaps—but not you.” + +“But, father, you said yourself, you thought he was a fine—” + +“I don’t care what I said,” replied Mr. Cord, and, striding to the +door, he flung it open and called in a voice that rolled about the +stone hall: “Mr. Moreton, Mr. Moreton! Come up here, will you?” + +Ben came bounding up the stairs like a panther. Cord beckoned him in +with a sharp gesture and shut the door. + +“This won’t do at all, Moreton,” he said. “You can’t have Crystal.” + +Ben did not answer; he looked very steadily at Cord, who went on: + +“You think I can’t stop it—that she’s of age and that you wouldn’t take +a penny of my money, anyhow. That’s the idea, isn’t it?” + +“That’s it,” said Ben. + +Cord turned sharply to Crystal. “Does what I think make any difference +to you?” he asked. + +“A lot, dear,” she answered, “but I don’t understand. You never seemed +so much opposed to the radical doctrine.” + +“No, it’s the radical, not the doctrine, your father objects to,” said +Ben. + +“Exactly,” answered Mr. Cord. “You’ve put it in a nutshell. Crystal, +I’m going to tell you what these radicals really are—they’re +failures—everyone of them. Sincere enough—they want the world changed +because they haven’t been able to get along in it as it is—they want a +new deal because they don’t know how to play their cards; and when they +get a new hand, they’ll play it just as badly. It’s not their theories +I object to, but them themselves. You think if you married Moreton +you’d be going into a great new world of idealism. You wouldn’t. You’d +be going into a world of failure—of the pettiest, most futile quarrels +in the world. The chief characteristic of the man who fails is that he +always believes it’s the other fellow’s fault; and they hate the man +who differs with them by one per cent more than they hate the man who +differs by one hundred. Has there ever been a revolution where they did +not persecute their fellow revolutionists worse than they persecuted +the old order, or where the new rule wasn’t more tyrannical than the +old?” + +“No one would dispute that,” said Ben. “It is the only way to win +through to—” + +“Ah,” said Cord, “I know what you’re going to say, but I tell you, you +win through to liberal practices when, and only when, the conservatives +become converted to your ideas, and put them through for you. That’s +why I say I have no quarrel with radical doctrines—they are coming, +always coming, but”—Cord paused to give his words full weight—“I hate +the radical.” + +There was a little pause. Crystal, who had sunk into a low chair, +raised her eyes to Ben, as if she expected a passionate contradiction +from him, but it did not come. + +“Yes,” he said, after a moment, “that’s all true, Mr. Cord—with +limitations; but, granting it, you’ve put my side, too. What are we to +say of the conservative—the man who has no vision of his own—who has to +go about stealing his beliefs from the other side? He’s very efficient +at putting _them_ into effect—but efficient as a tool, as a servant. +Look at the mess he makes of his own game when he tries to act on his +own ideas. He crushes democracy with an iron efficiency, and he creates +communism. He closes the door to trade-unionism and makes a revolution. +That’s efficiency for you. We radicals are not so damned inefficient, +while we let the conservatives do our work for us.” + +“Well, let it be revolution, then,” said Cord. “I believe you’re right. +It’s coming, but do you want to drag a girl like Crystal into it? Think +of her! Say you take her, as I suppose a young fellow like you can do. +She’d have perhaps ten years of an exciting division of allegiance +between your ideas and the way she had been brought up, and the rest of +her life (for, believe me, as we get older we all return to our early +traditions)—the rest of her life she’d spend regretting the ties and +environment of her youth. On the other hand, if she gives you up she +will have regrets, too, I know, but they won’t wreck her and embitter +her the way the others will.” + +Ben’s face darkened. No man not a colossal egotist could hear such a +prophesy with indifference. He did not at once answer, and then he +turned to Crystal. + +“What do you think of that?” he asked. + +To the surprise of both men, Crystal replied with a laugh. “I was +wondering,” she said, “when either of you would get round to asking +what I thought of it all.” + +“Well, what do you think?” said Cord, almost harshly. + +Crystal rose, and, slipping her arm through his, leaned her head on the +point of her father’s shoulder—he was of a good height. “I think,” she +said, “you both talk beautifully. I was so proud of you both—saying +such profound things so easily, and keeping your tempers so perfectly” +(both brows smoothed out), “and it was all the more wonderful because, +it seemed to me, you were both talking about things you knew nothing +about.” + +“What do you mean?” burst from both men with simultaneous astonishment. + +“Ben, dear, father doesn’t know any radicals—except you, and he’s only +seen you twice. Father dear, I don’t believe Ben ever talked five +minutes with an able, successful conservative until he came here +to-day.” + +“You’re going to throw me over, Crystal?” said Ben, seeing her pose +more clearly than he heard her words. + +“No,” said Mr. Cord, bitterly, “she’s going to throw over an old man in +favor of a young one.” + +“You silly creatures,” said Crystal, with a smile that made the words +affectionate and not rude. “How can I ever throw either of you over? +I’m going to be Ben’s wife, and I am my father’s daughter. I’m going to +be those two things for all my life.” + +Ben took her hand. She puzzled him, but he adored her. “But some day, +Crystal,” he said, “you will be obliged to choose between our +views—mine or your father’s. You must see that.” + +“He’s right,” her father chimed in. “This is not a temporary difference +of opinion, you know, Crystal. This cleavage is as old as mankind—the +radical against the conservative. Time doesn’t reconcile them.” + +Again the idea came to her: “They do love to form gangs, the poor +dears.” Aloud she said: “Yes, but the two types are rarely pure ones. +Why, father, you think Ben is a radical, but he’s the most hidebound +conservative about some things—much worse than you—about free verse, +for instance. I read a long editorial about it not a month ago. He +really thinks anyone who defends it ought to be deported to some poetic +limbo. Ben, you think my father is conservative. But there’s a great +scandal in his mental life. He’s a Baconian—” + +“He thinks Bacon wrote the plays!” exclaimed Ben, really shocked. + +“Certainly I do,” answered Mr. Cord. “Every man who uses his mind must +think so. There is nothing in favor of the Shakespeare theory, except +tradition—” + +He would have talked for several hours upon the subject, but Crystal +interrupted him by turning to Ben and continuing what she had meant to +say: + +“When you said I should have to choose between your ideas, you meant +between your political ideas. Perhaps I shall, but I won’t make my +choice, rest assured, until I have some reason for believing that each +of you knows something—honestly knows something about the other one’s +point of view.” + +“I don’t get it, exactly,” said Ben. + +She addressed Mr. Cord. + +“Father,” she went on, “Ben has a little flat in Charles Street, and an +old servant, and that’s where I’m going to live.” + +Her father, though bitterly wounded, had regained his sardonic calm. +“Perhaps,” he said, “you’ll bring him up to Seventy-ninth Street for +Sunday dinner now and then.” + +Crystal shook her head. “No, dear,” she said. “That isn’t the way it’s +going to be. As soon as I get settled and have time to look about me, I +shall take another little flat for you. You will live with us, for a +few months in the winter, and get to know Ben’s friends—his gang, as +you would say—get to know them not as a philanthropist, or an employer, +or an observer, but just as one of our friends—see if they really are +the way you think they are. And then, in March you shall go off to Palm +Beach or Virginia just as usual.” + +“That’s a fine idea,” said Mr. Cord, sarcastically. “Do you realize +that I shall hardly survive your marriage with the editor of _Liberty_. +I shall be kicked off—requested to resign from half a dozen boards for +having such a son-in-law—” + +“There’s freedom for you,” said Ben. + +“And,” continued Mr. Cord, “if it were known that I consented to the +marriage, and actually consorted with such fellows! You must realize, +Crystal, that most of the most influential men in the country think the +way Eddie does. Half my boards are composed of older Eddies.” + +“You’ll do better to resign from them, then,” said Crystal. + +Ben had been very much struck by Crystal’s suggestion. + +“Really, Mr. Cord,” he said, “I believe that is a great idea of +Crystal’s. I really believe if capital had more idea of the real views +of labor—as you said, you eventually adopt all our ideas, why wouldn’t +an intimate knowledge of individuals hurry that process?” + +“Simply because I should lose all influence with my own people by +merely investigating you in a friendly spirit.” + +“Glory!” exclaimed Ben, with open contempt for such people. “Think of +penalizing the first honest attempt to understand!” + +“You see the point of my plan, don’t you, Ben?” said Crystal. + +“You bet I do.” + +“That’s wonderful,” she answered, “for you’ve only heard half of it. In +July, August, and September, we will come here to Newport, and you will +get to understand father’s—” + +“Hold on,” cried Ben, “just a moment. That is absolutely impossible, +Crystal. You don’t understand. The paper couldn’t keep me a day if I +did that.” + +“Ha!” cried Mr. Cord, coming suddenly to life. “There’s freedom for +you!” + +“That would be very cruel of the owners, Ben, but if they did—” + +“It wouldn’t be cruel at all,” said Moreton. “They wouldn’t have any +choice. I should have lost all influence with my readers, if it were +known—” + +“Glory!” said Mr. Cord. “Think of penalizing the first honest attempt +to understand the capitalistic class!” + +Ben stood silent, caught in the grip of an intellectual dilemma which +he felt every instant would dissolve itself and which didn’t. + +Crystal for the first time moved away from her father. “Those are my +terms,” she said. “I stay with the man who agrees to them, and if you +both decline them—well, I’ll go off and try and open the oyster by +myself.” + +There was a long momentous pause, and then Tomes’s discreet knock on +the door. + +“Mr. Verriman on the telephone, madam.” + +“I can’t come,” said Crystal. “Ask him to send a message.” + +“Don’t you see, Crystal, what your plan would do?” said her father. +“Either it would make Moreton a red revolutionist and me a persecuting +Bourbon, or else it would just ruin us both for either of our +objectives.” + +“It won’t ruin you for my objectives,” said Crystal, “and women are +more human, you know, than men.” + +Another knock at the door. Tomes’s voice again: + +“Mr. Verriman wishes to know if he might dine here this evening?” + +“No,” said Cord, looking at Crystal. + +Crystal raised her voice. “Certainly, Tomes. Say we shall be delighted +to have him—at eight.” + +Both men turned to her. + +“Why did you do that, Crystal? Verriman—here—to-night?” + +Crystal did not answer—the identity of their tones, their words, and +their irritation with her should have told them the answer, but didn’t. + +She knew that only opposition to Eddie and Eddie’s many prototypes +could weld her two men solidly together. + +THE END + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13146 *** diff --git a/13146-h/13146-h.htm b/13146-h/13146-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..966dc79 --- /dev/null +++ b/13146-h/13146-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3690 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Beauty and the Bolshevist, by Alice Duer Miller</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +p.caption {font-weight: bold; + text-align: center; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13146 ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus01"></a> +<img src="images/image1_full.png" width="320" height="229" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">“I Beg Your Pardon. Is This a Private Raft?”</p> +</div> + +<h1>The Beauty and the Bolshevist</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">By ALICE DUER MILLER</h2> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Author of</i> “<i>The Charm School</i>” “<i>Ladies must Live</i>” “<i>Come +out of the Kitchen</i>” <i>etc</i>. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center"> +Illustrated +</p> + +<p class="center"> +Harper & Brothers Publishers<br /> +New York and London +</p> + +<p class="center"> +Printed in the United States of America<br /> +Published October, 1920 +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<p> +<a href="#illus01">“I beg your pardon. Is this a private raft?”</a> +</p> + +<p> +<a href="#illus02">“Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty”</a> +</p> + +<p> +<a href="#illus03">“I’ll be there in five minutes, in a little blue car”</a> +</p> + +<p> +<a href="#illus04">“Suppose you find you do hate being poor?”</a> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">Chapter I</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">Chapter II</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">Chapter III</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>Chapter I</h2> + +<p> +The editor of that much-abused New York daily, <i>Liberty</i>, pushed back his +editorial typewriter and opened one letter in the pile which the +office-boy—no respecter of persons—had just laid upon the desk +while whistling a piercing tune between his teeth. +</p> + +<p> +The letter said: +</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p> +DEAR BEN,—I hate to think what your feelings will be on learning that I +am engaged to be married to a daughter of the capitalistic class. Try to +overcome your prejudices, however, and judge Eugenia as an individual and not +as a member of a class. She has very liberal ideas, reads your paper, and is +content to go with me to Monroe College and lead the life of an instructor’s +wife. You will be glad to know that Mr. Cord disapproves as much as you do, and +will not give his daughter a cent, so that our life will be as hard on the +physical side as you in your most affectionate moments could desire. Mr. Cord +is under the impression that lack of an income will cool my ardor. You see he +could not think worse of me if he were my own brother. +</p> + +<p> +Yours, +</p> + +<p> +DAVID. +</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p> +The fine face of the editor darkened. It was the face of an idealist—the +deep-set, slowly changing eyes, the high cheek bones, but the mouth closed +firmly, almost obstinately, and contradicted the rest of the face with a touch +of aggressiveness, just as in Lincoln’s face the dreamer was contradicted by +the shrewd, practical mouth. He crossed his arms above the elbow so that one +long hand dangled on one side of his knees and one on the other—a +favorite pose of his—and sat thinking. +</p> + +<p> +The editor was often called a Bolshevist—as who is not in these days? For +language is given us not only to conceal thought, but often to prevent it, and +every now and then when the problems of the world become too complex and too +vital, some one stops all thought on a subject by inventing a tag, like “witch” +in the seventeenth century, or “Bolshevist” in the twentieth. +</p> + +<p> +Ben Moreton was not a Bolshevist; indeed, he had written several editorials to +show that, in his opinion, their doctrines were not sound, but of course the +people who denounced him never thought of reading his paper. He was a +socialist, a believer in government ownership, and, however equably he +attempted to examine any dispute between capital and labor, he always found for +labor. He was much denounced by ultraconservatives, and perhaps their instinct +was sound, for he was educated, determined, and possessed of a personality that +attached people warmly, so that he was more dangerous than those whose +doctrines were more militant. He was not wholly trusted by the extreme +radicals. His views were not consistently agreeable to either group. For +instance, he believed that the conscientious objectors were really +conscientious, a creed for which many people thought he ought to be deported. +On the other hand, he doubted that Wall Street had started the war for its own +purposes, a skepticism which made some of his friends think him just fit for a +bomb. +</p> + +<p> +The great problem of his life was how to hold together a body of liberals so +that they could be effective. This problem was going to be immensely +complicated by the marriage of his brother with the daughter of a conspicuous +capitalist like William Cord. +</p> + +<p> +He pushed the buzzer on his desk and wrote out the following telegram: +</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p> +David Moreton, Care William Cord, Newport, R.I. +</p> + +<p> +Am taking boat Newport to-night. Meet me. +</p> + +<p> +Ben. +</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p> +No one answered his buzzer, but presently a boy came in collecting copy, and +Moreton said to him: +</p> + +<p> +“Here, get this sent, and ask Klein to come here. He’s in the composing room.” +</p> + +<p> +And presently Mr. Klein entered, in the characteristic dress of the newspaper +man—namely, shirt sleeves and a green shade over his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Ben!” he exclaimed in some excitement. “Here’s a thousand-dollar +check just come in for the strike fund. How’s that for the second day?” +</p> + +<p> +“Good enough,” said Ben, who would ordinarily have put in a good hour rejoicing +over such unexpected good fortune, but whose mind was now on other things. “I +have to go out of town to-night. You’ll be here, won’t you, to lock the +presses? And, see here, Leo, what is the matter with our book page?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pretty rotten page,” replied Klein. +</p> + +<p> +“I should say it was—all about taxes and strikes and economic crises. I +told Green never to touch those things in the book reviews. Our readers get all +they want of that from us in the news and the editorials—hotter, better +stuff, too. I’ve told him not to touch ’em in the book page, and he runs +nothing else. He ought to be beautiful—ought to talk about fairies, and +poetry, and twelfth-century art. What’s the matter with him?” +</p> + +<p> +“He doesn’t know anything,” said Klein. “That’s his trouble. He’s clever, but +he doesn’t know much. I guess he only began to read books a couple years ago. +They excite him too much. He wouldn’t read a fairy story. He’d think he was +wasting time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Get some one to help him out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who’d I get?” +</p> + +<p> +“Look about. I’ve got to go home and pack a bag. Ask Miss Cox what time that +Newport boat leaves.” +</p> + +<p> +“Newport! Great heavens, Ben! What is this? A little week-end?” +</p> + +<p> +“A little weak brother, Leo.” +</p> + +<p> +“David in trouble again?” +</p> + +<p> +Moreton nodded. “He thinks he’s going to marry William Cord’s daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +Klein, who was Ben’s friend as well as his assistant, blanched at the name. +</p> + +<p> +“Cord’s daughter!” he exclaimed, and if he had said Jack-the-ripper’s, he could +not have expressed more horror. “Now isn’t it queer,” he went on, musingly, +“that David, brought up as he has been, can see anything to attract him in a +girl like that?” +</p> + +<p> +Ben was tidying his desk preparatory to departure—that is to say, he was +pushing all the papers far enough back to enable him to close the roller top, +and he answered, absently: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I suppose they’re all pretty much the same—girls.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what do you mean?” said Leo, reproachfully. “How can a girl who’s been +brought up to be a parasite—to display the wealth of her father and +husband, and has never done a useful thing since she was born—Why, a +woman was telling me the other day—I got caught in a block in the subway +and she was next me—awfully interesting, she was. She sewed in one of +these fashionable dressmaking establishments—and the things she told me +about what those women spend on their clothes—underclothes and furs and +everything. Now there must be something wrong with a woman who can spend money +on those things when she knows the agony of poverty right around her. You can’t +compare that sort of woman with a self-respecting, self-supporting girl—” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment the door opened and Miss Cox entered. She wore a short-sleeved, +low-neck, pink-satin blouse, a white-satin skirt, open-work stockings, and +slippers so high in the heels that her ankles turned inward. Her hair was +treated with henna and piled untidily on the top of her head. She was exactly +what Klein had described—a self-respecting, self-supporting girl, but, on +a superficial acquaintance, men of Cord’s group would have thought quite as +badly of her as Klein did of fashionable women. They would have been mistaken. +Miss Cox supported her mother, and, though only seventeen, denied herself all +forms of enjoyment except dress and an occasional movie. She was conscientious, +hard-working, accurate, and virtuous. She loved Ben, whom she regarded as wise, +beautiful, and generous, but she would have died rather than have him or anyone +know it. +</p> + +<p> +She undulated into the room, dropped one hip lower than the other, placed her +hand upon it and said, with a good deal of enunciation: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you very much, Miss Cox,” said Ben, gravely, and she went out again. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be a terrible thing for Dave to make a marriage like that,” Klein +went on as soon as she had gone, “getting mixed up with those fellows. And it +would be bad for you, Ben—” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mean to get mixed up with them,” said Ben. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I mean having Dave do it. It would kill the paper; it would endanger your +whole position; and as for leadership, you could never hope—” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus02"></a> +<img src="images/image2_full.png" width="468" height="600" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">“Mr. Moreton, the Newport Boat Leaves at Five-thirty”</p> +</div> + +<p> +“Now, look here, Leo. You don’t think I can stop my brother’s marrying because +it might be a poor connection for me? The point is that it wouldn’t be good for +Dave—to be a poorly tolerated hanger-on. That’s why I’m going hot-foot to +Newport. And while I’m away do try to do something about the book page. Get me +a culture-hound—get one of these Pater specialists from Harvard. Or,” he +added, with sudden inspiration when his hand was already on the door, “get a +woman—she’d have a sense of beauty and would know how to jolly Green into +agreeing with her.” And with this the editor was gone. +</p> + +<p> +It was the end of one of those burning weeks in August that New York often +knows. The sun went down as red as blood every evening behind the Palisades, +and before the streets and roofs had ceased to radiate heat the sun was up +again above Long Island Sound, as hot and red as ever. As Ben went uptown in +the Sixth Avenue Elevated he could see pale children hanging over the railings +of fire escapes, and behind them catch glimpses of dark, crowded rooms which +had all the disadvantages of caves without the coolness. But to-day he was too +concentrated on his own problem to notice. +</p> + +<p> +Since Ben’s sixteenth year his brother David had been dependent on him. Their +father had been professor of economics in a college in that part of the United +States which Easterners describe as the “Middle West.” In the gay days when +muck-raking was at its height Professor Moreton had lost his chair because he +had denounced in his lecture room financial operations which to-day would be +against the law. At that time they were well thought of, and even practiced by +the eminent philanthropist who had endowed the very chair which Moreton +occupied. The trustees felt that it was unkind and unnecessary to complicate +their already difficult duties by such tactlessness, and their hearts began to +turn against Moreton, as most of our hearts turn against those who make life +too hard for us. Before long they asked him to resign on account of his +age—he was just sixty and extremely vigorous; but immediately afterward, +having been deeply surprised and hurt, he did what Goldsmith recommends to +lovely woman under not dissimilar circumstances—he died. He left his two +young sons—he had married late in life—absolutely unprovided for. +Ben, the elder of the two, was sixteen, and just ready for college; but he +could not give four precious years to an academic degree. He went to work. With +the background of an educated environment and a very sound knowledge of +economic questions, breathed in from his earliest days, he found a place at +once on a new paper—or, rather, on an old paper just being converted into +a new organ of liberalism—<i>Liberty</i>. It was independent in politics, +and was supposed to be independent in economic questions, but by the time Ben +worked up to the editorship it was well recognized to be an anticapitalist +sheet. The salary of its editor, though not large, was sufficient to enable him +to send his younger brother through college, with the result that David, a +little weak, a little self-indulgent, a little—partly through physical +causes—disinclined to effort, was now a poet, a classicist and an +instructor in a fresh-water college. Ben made him an allowance to enable him to +live—the college not thinking this necessary for its instructors. But +during the war Ben had not been able to manage the allowance, because, to the +surprise of many of his friends, Ben had volunteered early. +</p> + +<p> +Although the reasons for doing this seemed absurdly simple to him, the decision +had been a difficult one. He was a pacifist—saw no virtue in war +whatsoever. He wished to convert others to his opinion—unlike many +reformers who prefer to discuss questions only with those who already agree +with them. He argued that the speeches of a man who had been through war, or, +better still, the posthumous writings of one who has been killed in war, would +have more weight with the public than the best logic of one who had held aloof. +But his radical friends felt that he was using this argument merely as an +excuse for choosing the easy path of conformity, while the few +ultraconservatives who mentioned the matter at all assumed that he had been +drafted against his will. Afterward, when the war was over and his terrible +book, <i>War</i>, appeared, no one was pleased, for the excellent reason that +it was published at a moment when the whole world wanted to forget war +entirely. The pay of a private, however, had not allowed him to continue +David’s allowance, and so David, displaying unusual energy, had found a job for +himself as tutor for the summer to William Cord’s son. Ben had not quite +approved of a life that seemed to him slightly parasitical, but it was healthy +and quiet and, above everything, David had found it for himself, and initiative +was so rare in the younger man that Ben could not bear to crush it with +disapproval. +</p> + +<p> +Increasingly, during the two years he was in France, Ben was displeased by +David’s letters. The Cords were described as kindly, well-educated people, fond +one of another, considerate of the tutor, with old-fashioned traditions of +American liberties. Ben asked himself if he would have been better pleased if +David’s employers had been cruel, vulgar, and blatant, and found the answer was +in the affirmative. It would, he thought, have been a good deal safer for +David’s integrity if he had not been so comfortable. +</p> + +<p> +For two summers Ben had made no protest, but the third summer, when the war was +over and the allowance again possible, he urged David not to go back to +Newport. David flatly refused to yield. He said he saw no reason why he should +go on taking Ben’s money when this simple way of earning a full living was open +to him. Wasn’t Ben’s whole theory that everyone should be self-supporting? Why +not be consistent? +</p> + +<p> +Ignorant people might imagine that two affectionate brothers could not quarrel +over an issue purely affectionate. But the Moretons did quarrel—more +bitterly than ever before, and that is saying a great deal. With the +extraordinary tenacity of memory that develops under strong emotion, they each +contrived to recall and to mention everything which the other had done that was +wrong, ridiculous, or humiliating since their earliest days. They parted with +the impression on David’s part that Ben thought him a self-indulgent grafter, +and on Ben’s side that David thought him a bully solely interested in imposing +his will on those unfortunate enough to be dependent on him. +</p> + +<p> +It was after half past four when, having walked up five flights of stairs, he +let himself into his modest flat on the top floor of an old-fashioned +brownstone house. As he opened the door, he called, +</p> + +<p> +“Nora!” +</p> + +<p> +No beautiful partner of a free-love affair appeared, but an elderly woman in +spectacles who had once been Professor Moreton’s cook, and now, doing all the +housework for Ben, contrived to make him so comfortable that the editor of a +more radical paper than his own had described the flat as “a bourgeois +interior.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nora,” said Ben, “put something in my bag for the night—I’m going to +Newport in a few minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +He had expected a flood of questions, for Nora was no looker-on at life, and he +was surprised by her merely observing that she was glad he was getting away +from the heat. The truth was that she knew far more about David than he did. +She had consistently coddled David since his infancy, and he told her a great +deal. Besides, she took care of his things when he was at Ben’s. She had known +of sachets, photographs, and an engraved locket that he wore on his +watch-chain. She was no radical. She had seen disaster come upon the old +professor and attributed it, not to the narrowness of the trustees, but to the +folly of the professor. She disapproved of most of Ben’s friends, and would +have despised his paper if she ever read it. The only good thing about it in +her estimation was, he seemed to be able “to knock a living out of it”—a +process which Nora regarded with a sort of gay casualness. She did not blame +him for making so little money and thus keeping her housekeeping cramped, but +she never in her own mind doubted that it would be far better if he had more. +The idea that David was about to marry money seemed to her simply the reward of +virtue—her own virtue in bringing David up so well. She knew that Mr. +Cord opposed the marriage, but she supposed that Ben would arrange all that. +She had great confidence in Ben. Still he was very young, very young, so she +gave him a word of advice as she put his bag into his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t take any nonsense. Remember you’re every bit as good as they. Only +don’t, for goodness’ sake, Mr. Ben, talk any of your ideas to them. A rich man +like Mr. Cord wouldn’t like that.” +</p> + +<p> +Ben laughed. “How would you like me to bring you home a lovely heiress of my +own?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She took a thread off his coat. “Only don’t let her come interfering in my +kitchen,” she said, and hurried him away. He had a good deal of courage, but he +had not enough to tell Nora he was going to Newport to stop her darling’s +marriage. +</p> + +<p> +The Newport boat gets to Newport about two o’clock in the morning, and +experienced travelers, if any such choose this method of approach, go on to +Fall River and take a train back to Newport, arriving in time for a comfortable +nine-o’clock breakfast. But Ben was not experienced, and he supposed that when +you took a boat for Newport and reached Newport the thing to do was to get off +the boat. +</p> + +<p> +It had been a wonderful night on the Sound, and Ben had not been to bed, partly +because, applying late on a Friday evening, he had not been able to get a room, +but partly because the moon and the southerly breeze and the silver shores of +Long Island and the red and white lighthouses had been too beautiful to leave. +Besides, he had wanted to think out carefully what he was going to say to his +brother. +</p> + +<p> +To separate a man from the woman he loves, however unwisely, has some of the +same disadvantages as offering a bribe—one respects the other person less +in proportion as one succeeds. What, Ben said to himself, could he urge against +a girl he did not know? Yet, on the other hand, if he had known her, his +objections would have seemed regrettably personal. Either way, it was difficult +to know what to say. He wondered what Cord had said, and smiled to think that +here was one object for which he and Cord were co-operating—only Cord +would never believe it. That was one trouble with capitalists—they always +thought themselves so damned desirable. And Ben did not stop to inquire how it +was that capitalists had gained this impression. +</p> + +<p> +On the pier he looked about for David, but there was no David. Of course the +boy had overslept, or hadn’t received his telegram—Ben said this to +himself, but somehow the vision of David comfortably asleep in a luxurious bed +in the Cords’s house irritated him. +</p> + +<p> +His meditations were broken in upon by a negro boy with an open hack, who +volunteered to “take him up for fifty cents.” It sounded reasonable. Ben got in +and they moved slowly down the narrow pier, the horses’ hoofs clumping lazily +on the wooden pavement. Turning past the alley of Thames Street, still alight +at three o’clock in the morning, Ben stopped at the suggestion of his driver +and left his bag at a hotel, and then they went on up the hill, past the tower +of the Skeleton in Armor, past old houses with tall, pillared porticoes, +reminiscent of the days when the South patronized Newport, and turned into +Bellevue Avenue—past shops with names familiar to Fifth Avenue, past a +villa with bright-eyed owls on the gateposts, past many large, silent houses +and walled gardens. +</p> + +<p> +The air was very cool, and now and then the scent of some flowering bush +trailed like a visible cloud across their path. Then suddenly the whole avenue +was full of little red lights, like the garden in “Faust” when Mephistopheles +performs his magic on it. Here and there the huge headlights of a car shone on +the roadway, magnifying every rut in the asphalt, and bringing out strange, +vivid shades in the grass and the hydrangea bushes. They were passing a +frowning palace set on a piece of velvet turf as small as a pocket +handkerchief—so small that the lighted windows were plainly visible from +the road. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop,” said Ben to his driver. He had suddenly realized how long it must be +before he could rouse the Cord household. +</p> + +<p> +He paid his driver, got out, and made his way up the driveway toward the house. +Groups of chauffeurs were standing about their cars—vigorous, smartly +dressed men, young for the most part. Ben wondered if it were possible that +they were content with the present arrangement, and whether their wives and +children were not stifling in the city at that very moment. He caught a +sentence here and there as he passed. “And, believe me,” one was saying, “as +soon as he got into the box he did not do a thing to that fellar from +Tiverton—” Ben’s footsteps lagged a little. He was a baseball fan. He +almost forgave the chauffeurs for being content. They seemed to him human +beings, after all. +</p> + +<p> +He approached the house, and, walking past a narrow, unroofed piazza, he found +himself opposite a long window. He looked straight into the ballroom. The ball +was a fancy ball—the best of the season. It was called a Balkan Ball, +which gave all the guests the opportunity of dressing pretty much as they +pleased. The wood of the long paneled room was golden, and softened the light +from the crystal appliques along the wall, and set off the bright dresses of +the dancers as a gold bowl sets off the colors of fruit. +</p> + +<p> +Every now and then people stepped out on the piazza, and as they did they +became audible to Ben for a few seconds. First, two middle-aged men, solid, +bronzed, laughing rather wickedly together. Ben drew back, afraid of what he +might overhear, but it turned out to be no very guilty secret. “My dear +fellow,” one was saying, “I gave him a stroke a hole, and he’s twenty years +younger than I am—well, fifteen anyhow. The trouble with these young men +is that they lack—” +</p> + +<p> +Ben never heard what it was that young men lacked. +</p> + +<p> +Next came a boy and a girl, talking eagerly, the girl’s hand gesticulating at +her round, red lips. Ben had no scruples in overhearing them—theirs +appeared to be the universal secret. But here again he was wrong. She was +saying: “Round and round—not up and down. My dentist says that if you +always brush them round and round—” +</p> + +<p> +Then two young men—boys, with cigarettes drooping from their lips; they +were saying, “I haven’t pitched a game since before the war, but he said to go +in and get that Tiverton fellow, and so—” Ben saw that he was in the +presence of the hero of the late game. He forgave him, too. +</p> + +<p> +As a matter of fact, he had never given the fashionable world enough attention +to hate it. He knew that Leo Klein derived a very revivifying antagonism from +reading about it, and often bought himself an entrance to the opera partly +because he loved music, but partly, Ben always thought, because he liked to +look up at the boxes and hate the occupants for their jewels and inattention. +But Ben watched the spectacle with as much detachment as he would have watched +a spring dance among the Indians. +</p> + +<p> +And then suddenly his detachment melted away, for a lovely girl came through +the window—lovely with that particular and specific kind of loveliness +which Ben thought of when he used the word—<i>his</i> kind. He used to +wonder afterward how he had known it at that first glimpse, for, in the dim +light of the piazza, he could not see some of her greatest beauties—the +whiteness of her skin, white as milk where her close, fine, brown hair began, +or the blue of the eyes set at an angle which might have seemed Oriental in +eyes less enchanting turquoise in color. But he could see her slenderness and +grace. She was dressed in clinging blues and greens and she wore a silver +turban. She leaned her hands on the railings—she turned them out along +the railings; they were slender and full of character—not soft. Ben +looked at the one nearest him. With hardly more than a turn of his head he +could have kissed it. The idea appealed to him strongly; he played with it, +just as when he was a child in a college town he had played with the idea of +getting up in church and walking about on the backs of the pews. This would be +pleasanter, and the subsequent getaway even easier. He glanced at the dark lawn +behind him; there appeared to be no obstacle to escape. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps, under the spell of her attraction for him, and the knowledge that he +would never see her again, he might actually have done it, but she broke the +trance by speaking to a tall, stolid young man who was with her. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Eddie,” she said, as if answering something he had said some time ago, “I +really was at home, at just the time I said, only this new butler does hate you +so—” +</p> + +<p> +“You might speak to him about it—you might even get rid of him,” replied +the young man, in the tone of one deeply imposed upon. +</p> + +<p> +“Good butlers are so rare nowadays.” +</p> + +<p> +“And are devoted friends so easy to find?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, but a good deal easier than butlers, Eddie dear.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man gave an exclamation of annoyance. “Let us find some place out of +the way. I want to speak to you seriously—” he began, and they moved out +of earshot—presumably to a secluded spot of Eddie’s choosing. +</p> + +<p> +When they had gone Ben felt distinctly lonely, and, what was more absurd, +slighted, as if Eddie had deliberately taken the girl away from him—out +of reach. How silly, he thought, for Eddie to want to talk to her, when it was +so clear the fellow did not know how to talk to her. How silly to say, in the +sulky tone, “Are devoted friends so easy to find?” Of course they +were—for a girl like that—devoted friends, passionate lovers, and +sentimental idiots undoubtedly blocked her path. +</p> + +<p> +It might have been some comfort to him to know that in the remote spot of his +own choosing, a stone bench under a purple beech, Eddie was simply going from +bad to worse. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Crystal,” he began, with that irritating reasonableness of manner which +implies that the speaker is going to be reasonable for two, “I’ve been thinking +over the situation. I know that you don’t love me, but then I don’t believe you +will ever be deeply in love with any one. I don’t think you are that kind of +woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Eddie, how dreadful!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see that at all. Just as well, perhaps. You don’t want to get yourself +into such a position as poor Eugenia.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do, I would. I’d give anything to be as much in love as Eugenia.” +</p> + +<p> +“What? With a fellow like that! A complete outsider.” +</p> + +<p> +“Outside of what? The human race?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, no,” said Eddie, as if he were yielding a good deal, “but outside of +your traditions and your set.” +</p> + +<p> +“My set! Good for him to be outside of it, I say. What have they ever done to +make anyone want to be inside of it? Why, David is an educated gentleman. To +hear him quote Horace—” +</p> + +<p> +“Horace who?” +</p> + +<p> +“Really, Eddie.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I see. You mean the poet. That’s nothing to laugh at, Crystal. It was a +natural mistake. I thought, of course, you meant some of those anarchists who +want to upset the world.” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal looked at him more honestly and seriously than she had yet done. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, don’t you think there <i>is</i> something wrong with the present +arrangement of things, Eddie?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I don’t, and I hate to hear you talk like a socialist.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am a socialist.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re nothing of the kind.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I know what I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all—not at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I certainly think the rich are too rich, while the poor are so horridly poor.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You’d</i> get on well without your maid and your car and your father’s +charge accounts at all the shops, wouldn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +Though agreeable to talk seriously if you agree, it is correspondingly +dangerous if you disagree. Crystal stood up, trembling with an emotion which +Eddie, although he was rather angry himself, considered utterly unaccountable. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she said, almost proudly, “I <i>am</i> luxurious, I <i>am</i> dependent +on those things. But whose fault is that? It’s the way I was brought +up—it’s all wrong. But, even though I am dependent on them, I believe I +could exist without them. I’d feel like killing myself if I didn’t think so. +Sometimes I want to go away and find out if I couldn’t live and be myself +without all this background of luxury. But at the worst—I’m just one +girl—suppose I were weak and couldn’t get on without them? That wouldn’t +prove that they are right. I’m not so blinded that I can’t see that a system by +which I profit may still be absolutely wrong. But you always seem to think, +Eddie, that it’s part of the Constitution of the United States that you should +have everything you’ve always had.” +</p> + +<p> +Eddie rose, too, with the manner of a man who has allowed things to go far +enough. “Look here, my dear girl,” he said, “I am a man and I’m older than you, +and have seen more of the world. I know you don’t mean any harm, but I must +tell you that this is very wicked, dangerous talk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dangerous, perhaps, Eddie, but I can’t see how it can be wicked to want to +give up your special privileges.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where in the world do you pick up ideas like this?” +</p> + +<p> +“I inherited them from an English ancestor of mine, who gave up all that he had +when he enlisted in Washington’s army.” +</p> + +<p> +“You got that stuff,” said Eddie, brushing this aside, “from David Moreton, and +that infernal seditious paper his brother edits—and that white-livered +book which I haven’t read against war. I’d like to put them all in jail.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a pity,” said Crystal, “that your side can’t think of a better argument +than putting everyone who disagrees with you in jail.” +</p> + +<p> +With this she turned and left him, and, entering the ballroom, flung herself +into the arms of the first partner she met. It was a timid boy, who, startled +by the eagerness with which she chose him, with her bright eyes and quickly +drawn breath, was just coming to the conclusion that a lovely, rich, and +admired lady, had fallen passionately in love with him, when with equal +suddenness she stepped out of his arms and was presently driving her small, +open car down the avenue. +</p> + +<p> +Under the purple beech Eddie, left alone, sank back on the stone bench and +considered, somewhat as the persecutors of Socrates may have done, suitable +punishments for those who put vile, revolutionary ideas into the heads of young +and lovely women. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime Ben, who had enjoyed the party more than most of the invited +guests, and far more than the disconsolate Eddie, had left his vantage point at +the window. He had suddenly become aware of a strange light stealing under the +trees, and, looking up, he saw with surprise that the stars were growing small +and the heavens turning steel-color—in fact, that it was dawn. +</p> + +<p> +Convinced that sunrise was a finer sight than the end of the grandest ball that +ever was given, he made his way down a shabby back lane, and before long came +out on the edge of the cliffs, with the whole panorama of sunrise over the +Atlantic spread out before him. +</p> + +<p> +He stood there a moment, somebody’s close, well-kept lawn under his feet, and a +pale-pink sea sucking in and out on the rocks a hundred feet below. The same +hot, red sun was coming up; there wasn’t a steady breeze, but cool salt puffs +came to him now and then with a breaking wave. It was going to be a hot day, +and Ben liked swimming better than most things in life. He hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +If he had turned to the left, he would have come presently to a public beach +and would have had his swim conventionally and in due time. But some impulse +told him to turn to the right, and he began to wander westward along the edge +of the cliffs—always on his left hand, space and the sea, and on his +right, lawns or gardens or parapets crowned by cactus plants in urns, and +behind these a great variety of houses—French chateaux and marble palaces +and nice little white cottages, and, finally, a frowning Gothic castle. All +alike seemed asleep, with empty piazzas and closed shutters, and the only sign +of life he saw in any of them was one pale housemaid shaking a duster out of a +window in an upper gable. +</p> + +<p> +At last he came to a break in the cliffs—a cove, with a beach in it, a +group of buildings obviously bathing-houses. The sacredness of this pavilion +did not occur to Ben; indeed, there was nothing to suggest it. He entered it +light-heartedly and was discouraged to find the door of every cabin securely +locked. The place was utterly deserted. But Ben was persistent, and presently +he detected a bit of a garment hanging over a door, and, pulling it out, he +found himself in possession of a man’s bathing suit. A little farther on he +discovered a telephone room unlocked. Here he undressed and a minute later was +swimming straight out to sea. +</p> + +<p> +The level rays of the sun were doing to the water just what the headlights of +the motors had done to the road; they were enlarging every ripple and edging +the deep purple-blue with yellow light. Except for a fishing dory chunking out +to its day’s work, Ben had the sea and land to himself. He felt as if they were +all his own, and, for a socialist, was guilty of the sin of pride of +possession. He was enjoying himself so much that it was a long time before he +turned to swim back. +</p> + +<p> +He was swimming with his head under water most of the time so that he did not +at once notice that a raft he had passed on his way out was now occupied. As +soon as he did see it his head came up. It was a female figure, and even from a +distance he could see that she was unconscious of his presence and felt quite +as sure of having the world to herself as he was. She was sitting on the edge +of the raft, kicking a pair of the prettiest legs in the world in and out of +the water. They were clad in the thinnest of blue-silk stockings, the same in +which a few minutes before she had been dancing, but not being able to find any +others in her bathhouse, she had just kept them on, recklessly ignoring the +inevitable problem of what she should wear home. She was leaning back on her +straightened arms, with her head back, looking up into the sky and softly +whistling to herself. Ben saw in a second that she was the girl of the silver +turban. +</p> + +<p> +He stole nearer and nearer, cutting silently through the water, and then, when +he had looked his fill, he put his head down again, splashed a little, and did +not look up until his hand was on the raft, when he allowed an expression of +calm surprise to appear on his face. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” he said. “Is this a private raft?” +</p> + +<p> +The young lady, who had had plenty of time since the splash to arrange her +countenance, looked at him with a blank coldness, and then suddenly smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it was a private world,” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s certainly a very agreeable one,” said Ben, climbing on the raft. “And +what I like particularly about it is the fact that no one is alive but you and +me. Newport appears to be a city of the dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“It always was,” she answered, contemptuously. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come. Not an hour ago you were dancing in blue and green and a silver +turban at a party over there,” and he waved his hand in the direction from +which he had come. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you think it was a good ball?” +</p> + +<p> +“I enjoyed it,” he answered, truthfully. +</p> + +<p> +Her face fell. “How very disappointing,” she said. “I didn’t see you there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Disappointing that you did not see me there?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she replied, and then, less positively; “No; I meant it was disappointing +that you were the kind of man who went to parties—and enjoyed them.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be silly to go if you didn’t enjoy them,” he returned, lightly. +</p> + +<p> +She turned to him very seriously. “You’re right,” she said; “it is +silly—very silly, and it’s just what I do. I consider parties like that +the lowest, emptiest form of human entertainment. They’re dull; they’re +expensive; they keep you from doing intelligent things, like studying; they +keep you from doing simple, healthy things, like sleeping and exercising; they +make you artificial; they make you civil to people you despise—they make +women, at least, for we must have partners—” +</p> + +<p> +“But why do you go, then?” +</p> + +<p> +She was silent, and they looked straight and long at each other. Then she said, +gravely: +</p> + +<p> +“The answer’s very humiliating. I go because I haven’t anything else to do.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not reassure her. “Yes, that’s bad,” he said, after a second. “But of +course you could not expect to have anything else to do when all your time is +taken up like that. ‘When the half gods go,’ you know, ‘the gods arrive.’” +</p> + +<p> +The quotation was not new to Crystal; in fact, she had quoted it to Eddie not +very long before, apropos of another girl to whom he had shown a mild +attention, but it seemed to her as if she took in for the first time its real +meaning. Whether it was the dawn, exhaustion, a stimulating personality, love, +or mere accident, the words now came to her with all the beauty and truth of a +religious conviction. They seemed to shake her and make her over. She felt as +if she could never be sufficiently grateful to the person who had thus made all +life fresh and new to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” she said, very gently, “that’s it. I see. You won’t believe me, but I +assure you from now on I mean to be entirely different.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please, not too different.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, yes, as different as possible. I’ve been so unhappy, and unhappy about +nothing definite—that’s the worst kind, only that I have not liked the +life I was leading.” +</p> + +<p> +She glanced at him appealingly. She had tried to tell this simple story to so +many people, for she had many friends, and yet no one had ever really +understood. Some had told her she was spoiled, more, that there was no use in +trying to change her life because she would soon marry; most of them had +advised her to marry and find out what real trouble was. Now, as she spoke she +saw that this strange young man from the sea not only understood her +discontent, but thought it natural, almost commonplace. +</p> + +<p> +She poured it all out. “Only the worst thing,” she ended, “is that I’m not +really any good. There isn’t anything else that I know how to do.” +</p> + +<p> +“I doubt that,” he answered, and she began to doubt it, too. “I’m sure there +are lots of things you could do if you put your mind on it. Did you ever try to +write?” +</p> + +<p> +Now, indeed, she felt sure that he was gifted with powers more than +mortal—to have guessed this secret which no one else had ever suspected. +She colored deeply. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes,” she answered, “I think I can—a little, only I’ve so little +education.” +</p> + +<p> +“So little education?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I belong to the cultivated classes—three languages and nothing +solid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you know, three languages seem pretty solid to me,” said Ben, who had +wrestled very unsuccessfully with the French tongue. “You speak three +languages, and let me see, you know a good deal about painting and poetry and +jade and Chinese porcelains?” +</p> + +<p> +She shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. “Oh, of course everyone knows about +those things, but what good are they?” +</p> + +<p> +They were a good deal of good to Ben. He pressed on toward his final goal. +“What is your attitude toward fairies?” he asked, and Miss Cox would have heard +in his tone a faint memory of his voice when he engaged a new office-boy. +</p> + +<p> +Her attitude toward fairies was perfectly satisfactory, and he showed so much +appreciation that she went on and told him her great secret in full. She had +once had something published and been paid money for it—fifteen +dollars—and probably never in her life had she spoken of any sum with so +much respect. It had been, well, a sort of a review of a new illustrated +edition of Hans Andersen’s Tales, treating them as if they were modern stories, +commenting on them from the point of view of morals and +probability—making fun of people who couldn’t give themselves up to the +charm of a story unless it tallied with their own horrid little experiences of +life. She told it, she said, very badly, but perhaps he could get the idea. +</p> + +<p> +He got it perfectly. “Good,” he said. “I’ll give you a job. I’m a newspaper +editor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” she exclaimed, “you’re not Mr. Munsey, are you, or Mr. Reid, or Mr. +Ochs?” +</p> + +<p> +Her knowledge of newspaper owners seemed to come to a sudden end. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he answered, smiling, “nor even Mr. Hearst. I did not say I owned a +newspaper. I edit it. I need some one just like you for my book page, only +you’d have to come to New York and work hard, and there wouldn’t be very much +salary. Can you work?” +</p> + +<p> +“Anyone can.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I will.” (It was a vow.) “And now I must go. I have to drive myself +home in an open car, and the tourists do stare at one so—in fancy dress.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but when am I to see you again? I leave Newport to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Telephone me—2079—and we’ll arrange to do something this +afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“And whom shall I ask for?” +</p> + +<p> +“Telephone at two-fifteen to the minute, and I’ll answer the telephone myself.” +</p> + +<p> +She evidently rather enjoyed the mystery of their not knowing each other’s +names. But a black idea occurred to Ben. She had slid off the raft and swum a +few strokes before he shouted to her: +</p> + +<p> +“Look here. Your name isn’t Eugenia, is it?” +</p> + +<p> +She waved her hand. “No, I’m Crystal,” she called back. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-by, Crystal.” +</p> + +<p> +This time she did not wave, but, swimming on her side with long, easy strokes, +she gave him a sweet, reassuring look. +</p> + +<p> +After she had gone he lay down on the raft with his face buried in his arms. A +few moments before he had thought he could never see enough of the sunrise and +the sea, but now he wanted to shut it out in favor of a much finer spectacle +within him. So this was love. Strange that no one had ever been able to prepare +you for it. Strange that poets had never been able to give you a hint of its +stupendous inevitability. He wondered if all miracles were like that—so +simple—so— +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly he heard her voice near him. He lifted his head from his arms. She was +there in the water below him, clinging to the raft with one hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I just came back to tell you something,” she said. “I thought you ought to +know it before things went any farther.” +</p> + +<p> +He thought, “Good God! she’s in love with some one else!” and the horror of the +idea made him look at her severely. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not perhaps just as I seem—I mean my views are rather liberal. In +fact”—she brought it out with an effort—“I’m almost a socialist.” +</p> + +<p> +The relief was so great that Ben couldn’t speak. He bent his head and kissed +the hand that had tempted him a few hours before. +</p> + +<p> +She did not resent his action. Her special technique in such matters was to +pretend that such little incidents hardly came into the realm of her +consciousness. She said, “At two-fifteen, then,” and swam away for good. +</p> + +<p> +Later in the day a gentleman who owned both a bathing house and a bathing suit +on Bailey’s beach was showing the latter possession to a group of friends. +</p> + +<p> +“No one can tell me that Newport isn’t damp,” he said. “I haven’t been in +bathing for twenty-four hours, and yet I can actually wring the water out of my +suit.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<p> +That same morning, about ten o’clock, Mr. William Cord was shut up in the study +of his house—shut up, that is, as far as entrance from the rest of the +house was concerned, but very open as to windows looking out across the grass +to the sea. It was a small room, and the leather chairs which made up most of +its furnishings were worn, and the bookshelves were filled with volumes like +railroad reports and <i>Poor’s Manual</i>, but somehow the total effect of the +room was so agreeable that the family used it more than Mr. Cord liked. +</p> + +<p> +He was an impressive figure, tall, erect, and with that suggestion of unbroken +health which had had something to do with his success in life. His hair must +have been of a sandy brown, for it had turned, not gray nor white, but that +queer no-color that sandy hair does turn, melting into all pale surroundings. +His long face was not vividly colored, either, but was stamped with the +immobility of expression that sensitive people in contact with violent life +almost always acquire. The result was that there seemed to be something dead +about his face until you saw his eyes, dark and fierce, as if all the fire and +energy of the man were concentrated in them. +</p> + +<p> +He was dressed in gray golfing-clothes that smelled more of peat than peat +does, and, though officially supposed to be wrestling with the more secret part +of correspondence which even his own secretary was not allowed to see, he was +actually wiggling a new golf-club over the rug, and toying with the romantic +idea that it would enable him to drive farther than he had ever driven before. +</p> + +<p> +There was a knock at the door. Mr. Cord leaned the driver in a corner, clasped +his hands behind his back, straddled his legs a trifle, so that they seemed to +grow out of the rug as the eternal oak grows out of the sod, and said, “Come +in,” in the tone of a man who, considering the importance of his occupation, +bears interruption exceedingly well. +</p> + +<p> +Tomes, the butler, entered. “Mr. Verriman, sir, to see you.” +</p> + +<p> +“To see <i>me</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Cord just nodded at this, which evidently meant that the visitor was to be +admitted, for Tomes never made a mistake and Verriman presently entered. Mr. +Cord had seen Eddie Verriman the night before at the ball, and had thought him +a very fine figure of a man, so now, putting two and two together, he said to +himself, “Is he here to ask my blessing?” +</p> + +<p> +Aloud he said nothing, but just nodded; it was a belief that had translated +itself into a habit—to let the other man explain first. +</p> + +<p> +“I know I’m interrupting you, Mr. Cord,” Verriman began. Mr. Cord made a +lateral gesture with his hand, as if all he had were at the disposal of his +friends, even his most precious asset—time. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s something very important,” Eddie went on. “I’m worried. I haven’t slept. +Mr. Cord, have you checked up Crystal’s economic beliefs lately?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lately?” said Mr. Cord. “I don’t know that I ever have. Have a cigar?” +</p> + +<p> +Eddie waved the cigar aside as if his host had offered it to him in the midst +of a funeral service. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I have,” he said, as if some one had to do a parent’s duty, “and I’ve +been very much distressed—shocked. I had a long talk with her about it at +the dance last night.” +</p> + +<p> +“About economics?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Eddie, don’t I seem to remember your telling me you were in love with +Crystal?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Mr. Cord, I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what do you want to talk economics for? Or is it done like that +nowadays?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to,” answered Eddie, almost in a wail. “<i>She</i> does. She gets +me going and then we quarrel because she has terrible opinions. She talks +wildly. I have to point out to her that she’s wrong. And last night she told +me”—Eddie glanced about to be sure he was not overheard—“she told +me that she was a socialist.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord had just lit the very cigar which Eddie had waved away, and he took +the first critical puffs at it before he answered: +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ask her what that was?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—no—I didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Missed a trick there, Eddie.” +</p> + +<p> +It was impossible to accuse so masklike a magnate of frivolity, but Eddie was +often dissatisfied with Mr. Cord’s reactions to the serious problems of life. +</p> + +<p> +“But don’t you think it’s terrible,” he went on, eagerly, “for Crystal to be a +socialist? In this age of the world—civilization trembling on the +brink—chaos”—Eddie made a gesture toward the perfectly ordered +shelves containing <i>Poor’s Manual</i>—“staring us in the face? You say +that the half-baked opinions of an immature girl make no difference?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I shouldn’t say that—at least not to Crystal,” murmured her father. +</p> + +<p> +“But the mere fact that she picks up such ideas proves that they are in the air +about us and that terrifies me—terrifies me,” ended Eddie, his voice +rising as he saw that his host intended to remain perfectly calm. +</p> + +<p> +“Which terrifies you, Eddie—Crystal or the revolution?” +</p> + +<p> +“The general discontent—the fact that civilization is tr—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, that,” said Mr. Cord, hastily. “Well, I wouldn’t allow that to terrify +me, Eddie. I should have more sympathy with ou if it had been Crystal. Crystal +is a good deal of a proposition, I grant you. The revolution seems to me +simpler. If a majority of our fellow countrymen really want it, they are going +to get it in spite of you and me; and if they don’t want it, they won’t have it +no matter how Crystal talks to you at parties. So cheer up, Eddie, and have a +cigar.” +</p> + +<p> +“They can, they will,” said Eddie, not even troubling to wave away the cigar +this time. “You don’t appreciate what an organized minority of foreign +agitators can do in this country. Why, they can—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if a minority of foreigners can put over a revolution against the will +of the American people, we ought to shut up shop, Eddie.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not afraid?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean you wouldn’t fight it?” +</p> + +<p> +“You bet your life I’d fight it,” said Mr. Cord, gayly, “but I fight lots of +things without being afraid of them. What’s the use of being afraid? Here I am +sixty-five, conservative and trained to only one game, and yet I feel as if +<i>I</i> could manage to make my own way even under soviet rule. Anyway, I +don’t want to die or emigrate just because my country changes its form of +government. Only it would have to be the wish of the majority, and I don’t +believe it ever will be. In the meantime there is just one thing I <i>am</i> +afraid of—and that’s the thing that you and most of my friends want to do +first—suppressing free speech; if you suppress it, we won’t know who +wants what. Then you really do get an explosion.” +</p> + +<p> +Eddie had got Mr. Cord to be serious now, with the unfortunate result that the +older man was more shocking than ever. +</p> + +<p> +“Free speech doesn’t mean treason and sedition,” Eddie began. +</p> + +<p> +“It means the other man’s opinion.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause during which Eddie became more perturbed and Mr. Cord settled +back to his habitual calm. +</p> + +<p> +“Wouldn’t you suppress <i>anything</i>?” Verriman asked at length, willing to +know the worst. “Not even such a vile sheet as <i>Liberty</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you ever see it, Eddie?” +</p> + +<p> +“Read a rotten paper like that? Certainly not. Do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I subscribe to it.” And, bending down, Mr. Cord unlocked a drawer in his desk +and produced the issue of the preceding day. +</p> + +<p> +“I notice you keep it locked up,” said Eddie, and felt that he had scored. +</p> + +<p> +“I have to,” replied Mr. Cord, “or else Crystal gets hold of it and cuts it all +up into extracts—she must have sent you some—before I get a chance +to read it. Besides, it shocks Tomes. You ought to talk to Tomes, Eddie. He +thinks about as you do—” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment the door opened and Tomes himself entered. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Moreton would like to see you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Even Cord’s calm was a little disturbed by this unexpected news. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Moreton!” he exclaimed. “Not—not—not—not?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir,” said Tomes, always in possession of accurate information. “His +brother, I believe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Show him in here,” said Cord, and added to Eddie, as Tomes left the room: +“Well, here he is—the editor himself, Eddie. You can say it all to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to see such fellows,” Verriman began. +</p> + +<p> +“Stay and protect me, Eddie. He may have a bomb in his pocket.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t really believe that he’s come to—” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Eddie, I don’t. I think he’s come like young Lochinvar—to dance a +little late at the wedding. To try to persuade me to accept that lazy, +good-looking brother of his as a son-in-law. He’ll have quite a job over that.” +Then, as the door opened, Mr. Cord’s eyes concentrated on it and his manner +became a shade sharper. “Ah, Mr. Moreton, good morning. Mr. Verriman—Mr. +Moreton.” +</p> + +<p> +Ben was a good-looking young man, but it was his expression—at once +illuminated and determined—that made him unusual. And the effect of his +night and morning had been to intensify this, so that now, as he stood a moment +in the doorway, he was a very attractive and compelling figure. +</p> + +<p> +“I came to see my brother, Mr. Cord,” he said, simply, “but I hear he’s not +here any more. If I could speak to you alone for a few minutes—” He +glanced at Eddie, whom he instantly recognized as the man who had not known how +to talk to the woman in the world best worth talking to. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you may speak before Mr. Verriman,” said Cord. “He knows the +situation—knows your brother—knows my children—knows about +you. In fact, we were just speaking about your paper when you came in. However, +I must tell you that Mr. Verriman doesn’t approve of <i>Liberty</i>. At least, +I believe I understood you right, Eddie.” And Mr. Cord, having thus assured +himself a few minutes to regain his poise, leaned back comfortably in his +chair. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s wrong with the paper, Mr. Verriman?” said Ben, pleasantly. +</p> + +<p> +Eddie did not love the adventure of mental combat, but he was no coward. “It +seems to me,” he said, “that it preaches such radical changes in our government +that it is seditious. To be frank, Mr. Moreton, I think the government ought to +suppress it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But we don’t break the law. The government can’t suppress us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then the laws ought to be changed so that it can.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all we advocate, Mr. Verriman, the changing of the law. It isn’t any +more seditious for me to say it than for you to, is it?” +</p> + +<p> +Of course in Eddie’s opinion it was—much, much more seditious. Only +somehow it was a difficult point to make clear, if a person was so wrongheaded +he couldn’t see it for himself. The point was that he, Eddie, was right in +wanting the laws changed and Moreton was wrong. Anyone, it seemed to Eddie, +would agree to that, unless he happened to agree with Moreton beforehand, and +those were just the people who ought to be deported, imprisoned, or even +perhaps in rare instances, as examples, strung up to lamp-posts. Only each time +he tried to put these very natural opinions in words, they kept sounding wrong +and tyrannical and narrow—qualities which Eddie knew he was entirely +without. In order to counteract this effect, he tried at first to speak very +temperately and calmly, but, unhappily, this only had the effect of making him +sound patronizing to Ben’s ears. +</p> + +<p> +In short, it was hardly to be expected that the discussion would be amicable, +and it was not. Each man began to be angry in his own way. Eddie shouted a +little, and Ben expressed himself with turns of phrase quite needlessly +insulting. Ben found Verriman’s assumption that the profits of capital were +bound up with patriotism, family life, and the Christian religion almost as +irritating as Verriman found Ben’s assumption that the government of labor as a +class would be entirely without the faults that have always marked every form +of class government. +</p> + +<p> +“And suppose you got socialism,” said Eddie, at last, “suppose you did divide +everything up equally, don’t you suppose that in a few years the clever, +strong, industrious men would have it all in their own hands?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very likely,” said Ben, “but that would be quite a change from the present +arrangement, wouldn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord had a narrow escape from laughing out loud, which would have cost him +the friendship of the man with whom on the whole he really agreed. He thought +it was time to interfere. +</p> + +<p> +“This is very interesting, Mr. Moreton,” he said, “but I fancy it wasn’t about +the general radical propaganda that you came to see me.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Ben, turning slowly. He felt as a dog feels who is dragged out of +the fight just as it begins to get exciting. “No, I came to see you about this +unfortunate engagement of my brother’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Unfortunate?” asked Mr. Cord, without criticism. +</p> + +<p> +“I should consider it so, and I understand you do, too.” +</p> + +<p> +Cord did not move an eyelash; this was an absolutely new form of attack. It had +certainly never crossed his mind that any objection could come from the Moreton +family. +</p> + +<p> +“You consider it unfortunate?” said Eddie, as if it would be mere insolence on +Ben’s part to object to his brother’s marrying anyone. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you give me your reasons for objecting?” said Cord. +</p> + +<p> +Ben smiled. “You ought to understand them,” he said, “for I imagine they’re +pretty much the same as your own. I mean they are both founded on class +consciousness. I feel that it will be destructive to the things I value most in +David to be dependent on, or associated with, the capitalistic group. Just as +you feel it will be destructive to your daughter to be married to a +tutor—a fellow with radical views and a seditious brother—” +</p> + +<p> +“One moment, one moment,” said Cord; “you’ve got this all wrong so far as I’m +concerned. I do most emphatically disagree with the radical propaganda. I think +the radical is usually just a man who hasn’t got something he wants.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the conservative is a man who wants to keep something he’s got,” said Ben, +less hostilely than he had spoken to Eddie. +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly, exactly,” said Cord. “In ideality there isn’t much to choose between +them, but, generally speaking, I have more respect for the man who has +succeeded in getting something to preserve than for the man who hasn’t got +anything to lose.” +</p> + +<p> +“If their opportunities were equal.” +</p> + +<p> +“I say in general. There is not much to choose between the two types; but there +is in my opinion a shade in favor of the conservative on the score of +efficiency, and I am old-fashioned perhaps, but I like efficiency. If it came +to a fight, I should fight on the conservative side. But this is all beside the +point. My objections to your brother, Mr. Moreton, are not objections to his +group or class. They are personal to him. Damned personal.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t like David?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, he’s an attractive young fellow, but, if you’ll forgive my saying so, Mr. +Moreton, I don’t think he’s any good. He’s weak, he’s idle, he entirely lacks +that aggressive will that—whether we have your revolution or not—is +the only bulwark a woman has in this world. Why, Mr. Moreton, you are evidently +a very much more advanced and dangerous radical than your brother, but I should +not have half the objection to you that I have to him. There is only one thing +that makes a difference in this world—character. Your brother hasn’t got +it.” +</p> + +<p> +For an instant the perfect accuracy of Cord’s statements about David left Ben +silent. Then he pulled himself together and said, with a firmness he did not +wholly feel: +</p> + +<p> +“You hardly do David justice. He may not have great force, but he has talent, +great sweetness, no vices—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, quite, quite, quite, quite,” said Cord, with a gesture of his long hand +that should somehow have recalled to Ben the motion of a hand he had recently +kissed. +</p> + +<p> +“However,” said Ben, “there is no use in arguing about our differences. The +point is we are agreed that this marriage ought not to be. Let us co-operate on +that. Where could I find David? I believe if I could see him I’d have some +effect on him.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean you could talk him out of marrying the girl he loves?” +</p> + +<p> +“I might make him see the folly of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I haven’t said anything as bad about your brother as that, Mr. Moreton. +But you do him injustice. You couldn’t talk him out of it, and if you could, +she’d talk him right back into it again. But there is one thing to consider. I +understand you make him an allowance. How about stopping that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t consider that for a moment,” said Ben, with more temper than he had +so far shown. “I don’t make him that allowance so that I can force him to do +what I think best. I give it to him because he needs it. I don’t believe in +force, Mr. Cord.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, you do, Mr. Moreton.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“You were proposing to use a much more pernicious kind of force when you +proposed talking the boy out of his first love. However, to be candid with you, +I must tell you that the issue is dead. They ran off yesterday and were married +in Boston.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a short silence and then Ben moved toward the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you stay to lunch?” said Mr. Cord, politely. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, no,” said Ben. He wanted to be alone. Like all dominating people +who don’t get their own way in an altruistic issue, his feelings were deeply +wounded. He took his hat from the disapproving Tomes, and went out to the sea +to think. He supposed he was going to think about David’s future and the +terrible blow his paper had just received. +</p> + +<p> +As the door closed behind him, Eddie turned to Mr. Cord with a world of +reproach in his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he said, “I must say, sir, I think you were unnecessarily gentle with +that fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Seemed to me a fine young fellow,” said Mr. Cord. +</p> + +<p> +“Asking him to lunch,” said Eddie. +</p> + +<p> +“I did that for Crystal,” replied Cord, getting up and slapping his +pockets—a gesture which in some subconscious way he hoped would make +Eddie go home. “She’s always so keen to meet new people. If she heard that the +editor of <i>Liberty</i> had been here while she was asleep and that I had not +tried to keep him for her to see—whew!—she would make a scene.” +</p> + +<p> +“But she oughtn’t to see people like that,” protested Eddie, as if he were +trying to talk sense in a madhouse. “That was what I was just explaining to +you, Mr. Cord, when—” +</p> + +<p> +“So you were, Eddie, so you were,” said Mr. Cord. “Stay to lunch and tell +Crystal. Or, rather,” he added, hastily glancing at the clock, “come back to +lunch in an hour. I have to go now and see—” Mr. Cord hesitated for the +fraction of a second—“the gardener. If you don’t see gardeners now and +then and let them scold you about the weather and the Lord’s arrangement of the +seasons, they go mad and beat their wives. See you later, Eddie,” and Mr. Cord +stepped out through the French window. It was only great crises like these that +led him to offer himself up to the attacks of his employees. +</p> + +<p> +A severe elderly man with a long, flat upper lip and side whiskers immediately +sprang apparently from the earth and approached him. He had exactly the manner +of resolute gloom that a small boy has when something has gone wrong at school +and he wants his mother to drag it out of him. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, sir,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Morning, McKellar,” said Cord, gayly. “Everything’s all right, I suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +McKellar shook his head. Everything was about as far from all right as it well +could be. The cook was a violent maniac who required peas to be picked so young +that they weren’t worth the picking. Tomes and his footman were a band of +malicious pirates who took pleasure in cutting for the table the very buds +which McKellar was cherishing for the horticultural show. And as for the +season—McKellar could not remember such a devastatingly dry August since +he was a lad at home. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, McKellar, we had rain two days ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“You wouldn’t call that little mist rain, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“And last week a perfect downpour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, that’s the kind doesn’t sink into the soil.” Looking up critically at the +heavens, McKellar expressed his settled conviction that in two weeks’ time +hardly a blade or a shrub would be alive in the island at Newport. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, that will save us all a lot of trouble, McKellar,” said Mr. Cord, and +presently left his gloomy gardener. He had attained his object. When he went +back into the house, Eddie had gone, and he could go back to his new driver in +peace. +</p> + +<p> +He was not interrupted until ten minutes past one, when Crystal came into the +room, her eyes shining with exactly the same color that, beyond the lawn, the +sea was displaying. Unlike Eddie, she looked better than in her fancy dress. +She had on flat tennis shoes, a cotton blouse and a duck skirt, and a +russet-colored sweater. Miss Cox would have rejected every item of her costume +except the row of pearls, which just showed at her throat. +</p> + +<p> +She kissed her father rapidly, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, dear. Are you ready for breakfast—lunch I mean?” +</p> + +<p> +She was a little bit flustered for the reason that it seemed to her as if any +one would be able to see that she was an entirely different Crystal from the +one of the evening before, and she was not quite sure what she was going to +answer when her father said, as she felt certain he must say at any moment, “My +dear child, what has come over you?” +</p> + +<p> +He did not say this, however. He held out his golf-club and said, “Got a new +driver.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, dear, very nice,” said Crystal. “But I want to have lunch +punctually, to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord sighed. Crystal wasn’t always very sympathetic. “I’m ready,” he said, +“only Eddie’s coming.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Eddie!</i>” exclaimed Crystal, drawing her shoulders up, as if at the sight +of a cobra in her path. “Why is Eddie coming to lunch? I did not ask him.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, my dear, I took that liberty,” replied her father. “It seemed the only way +of getting rid of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I sha’n’t wait for him,” said Crystal, ringing the bell. “I have an +engagement at a quarter past two.” +</p> + +<p> +“At the golf club?” asked her father, his eye lighting a little. “You might +drive me out, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, dear; quite in the other direction—with a man who was at the party +last night.” +</p> + +<p> +“You enjoyed the party?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you stayed till morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“I stopped and took a swim.” +</p> + +<p> +“You enjoyed that, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +His daughter glanced at him and turned crimson; but she did not have to answer, +for at that moment Tomes came, in response to her ring, and she said: +</p> + +<p> +“We won’t wait lunch for Mr. Verriman, Tomes.” Then, as he went away, she +asked, “And what was Eddie doing here this morning, anyhow?” +</p> + +<p> +“He was scolding me,” replied Mr. Cord. “Have you noticed, Crystal, what a lot +of scolding is going on in the world at present? I believe that that is why no +one is getting any work done—everyone is so busy scolding everybody else. +The politicians are scolding, and the newspapers are scolding, and most of the +fellows I know are scolding. I believe I’ve got hold of a great truth—” +</p> + +<p> +“And may I ask what Eddie was scolding about?” asked Crystal, no more +interested in great truths than most of us. +</p> + +<p> +“About you.” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal moved her head about as if things had now reached a point where it +wasn’t even worth while to be angry. “About me?” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems you’re a socialist, my dear. Eddie asked me how long it was since I +had taken an inventory of your economic beliefs. I could not remember that I +ever had, but perhaps you will tell them to me now. That is,” Mr. Cord added, +“if you can do it without scolding me—probably an impossible condition to +impose nowadays.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a pity about Eddie,” said Crystal, fiercely. “If only stupid people would +be content to be stupid, instead of trying to run the world—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, my dear, it’s only stupid people who are under the impression that they +can. Good morning again, Eddie, we were just speaking of you.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord added the last sentence without the slightest change of tone or +expression as his guest was ushered in by Tomes, who, catching Crystal’s eyes +for a more important fact than Eddie’s arrival, murmured that luncheon was +served. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Eddie,” said Crystal, and there was a sort of gay vibration in her whole +figure, and her tone was like a bright banner of war, “and so you came round to +complain to my father, did you?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord laid his hand on her shoulder. “Do you think you could demolish Eddie +just as well at table, my dear?” he said. “If so, there’s no use in letting the +food get cold.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, she can do it anywhere,” replied Eddie, bitterly, and then, striking his +habitual note of warning, he went on, “but, honestly, Crystal, if you had heard +what your father and I heard this morning—” +</p> + +<p> +“I had a visit from David’s brother this morning,” put in Mr. Cord, “the editor +of your favorite morning paper.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ben Moreton, here! Oh, <i>father</i>, why didn’t you call me? Yes, I know,” +she added, as her father opened his mouth to say that she had left most +particular instructions that she was to be allowed to sleep as late as she +could, “I know, but you must have known I should have wanted to look David’s +brother over. Has he long hair? Does he wear a soft tie? Did you hate him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Eddie didn’t take much of a fancy to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should say not. A damned, hollow-eyed fanatic.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is he as good-looking as David, father? What does he look like?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord hesitated. “Well, a little like my engraving of Thomas Jefferson as a +young man.” +</p> + +<p> +“He looks as if he might have a bomb in his pocket.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Eddie, do keep quiet, there’s a dear, and let father give me one of his +long, wonderful accounts. Go ahead, father.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mr. Cord, helping himself from a dish that Tomes was presenting to +him, “as I told you, Eddie had dropped in very kindly to scold me about you, +when Tomes announced Mr. Moreton. Tomes thought he ought to be put straight out +of the house. Didn’t you, Tomes?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir,” said Tomes, who was getting used to his employer, although he did +not encourage this sort of thing, particularly before the footmen. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Moreton came in and said, very simply—” +</p> + +<p> +“Has he good manners, father?” +</p> + +<p> +“He has no manners at all,” roared Eddie. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how nice,” said Crystal, of whom it might be asserted without flattery +that she now understood in perfection the art of irritating Eddie. +</p> + +<p> +“He is very direct and natural,” her father continued. “He has a lot more punch +than your brother-in-law, my dear. In fact, I was rather impressed with the +young fellow until he and Eddie fell to quarreling. Things did not go so well, +then.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean,” said Crystal, the gossip rather getting the best of the reformer in +her, “that he lost his temper horribly?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should say he did,” said Eddie. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Eddie, you know you were not perfectly calm,” answered Cord. “Let us say +that they both lost their tempers, which is strange, for as far as I could see +they were agreed on many essentials. They both believe that one class in the +community ought to govern the other. They both believe the world is in a very +bad way; only, according to Eddie, we are going to have chaos if capital loses +its control of the situation; and according to Moreton we are going to have +chaos if labor doesn’t get control. So, as one or the other seems bound to +happen, we ought to be able to adjust ourselves to chaos. In fact, Crystal, I +have been interviewing McKellar about having a chaos cellar built in the +garden.” +</p> + +<p> +Eddie pushed back his plate; it was empty, but the gesture suggested that he +could not go on choking down the food of a man who joked about such serious +matters. +</p> + +<p> +“I must say, Mr. Cord,” he began, “I really must say—” He paused, +surprised to find that he really hadn’t anything that he must say, and Crystal +turned to her father: +</p> + +<p> +“But you haven’t told me why he came. To see Eugenia, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; he hadn’t heard of the marriage. He came to talk to his brother.” +</p> + +<p> +“For you must know,” put in Eddie, hastily, “that Mr. Ben Moreton does not +approve of the marriage—oh, dear, no. He would consider such a connection +quite beneath his family. He disapproves of Eugenia as a sister-in-law.” +</p> + +<p> +“How could any one disapprove of her?” asked her sister, hotly. +</p> + +<p> +“Jevver hear such nerve?” said Eddie. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not Eugenia; it’s capital Moreton disapproves of,” Mr. Cord went on, +patiently explaining. “You see it never crossed our minds that the Moretons +might object, but of course they do. They regard us as a very degrading +connection. Doubtless it will hurt Ben Moreton with his readers to be connected +with a financial pirate like myself, quite as much as it will hurt me in the +eyes of most of my fellow board members when it becomes known that my +son-in-law’s brother is the editor of <i>Liberty</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Moretons disapprove,” repeated Crystal, to whom the idea was not at all +agreeable. +</p> + +<p> +“Disapprove, nonsense!” said Eddie. “I believe he came to blackmail you. To see +what he could get out of you if he offered to stop the marriage. Well, why not? +If these fellows believe all the money ought to be taken away from the +capitalists, why should they care how it’s done? I can’t see much difference +between robbing a man, and legislating his fortune out of—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I must tell you, father dear,” said Crystal, exactly as if Eddie had not +been speaking, “that I think it was horrid of you not to have me called when +you must have known—” +</p> + +<p> +“Crystal, you’re scolding me,” wailed her father. “And most unjustly. I did ask +him to lunch just for your sake, although I saw Eddie was shocked, and I was +afraid Tomes would give warning. But I did ask him, only he wouldn’t stay.” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal rose from the table with her eye on the clock, and they began to make +their way back to Mr. Cord’s study, as she asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Why wouldn’t he stay?” +</p> + +<p> +“I gathered because he didn’t want to. Perhaps he was afraid he’d have to argue +with Eddie about capital and labor all through lunch. And of course he did not +know that I had another beautiful daughter sleeping off the effects of a late +party, or very likely he would have accepted.” +</p> + +<p> +Very likely he would. +</p> + +<p> +Just as they entered the study, the telephone rang. Crystal sprang to the +instrument, brushing away her father’s hand, which had moved toward it. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s for me, dear,” she said, and continued, speaking into the mouthpiece: +“Yes, it’s I.” (A pause.) “Where are you?... Oh, yes, I know the place. I’ll be +there in five minutes, in a little blue car.” She hung up the receiver, sprang +up, and looked very much surprised to see Eddie and her father still there just +as before. “Good-by, Eddie,” she said, “I’m sorry, but I have an engagement. +Good-by, father.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t want to run me out to the golf club first?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not possible, dear. The chauffeur can take you in the big car.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but he’ll scold me all the way about there not being room enough in the +garage.” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal was firm. “I’m sorry, but I can’t, dear. This is important. I may take +a job. I’ll tell you all about it this evening.” And she left the room, with a +smile that kept getting entirely beyond her control. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s this? What’s this?” cried Eddie as the door shut. “A job. You wouldn’t +let Crystal take a job, would you, Mr. Cord?” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t been consulted,” said Mr. Cord, taking out his new driver again. +</p> + +<p> +“But didn’t you notice how excited she was. I’m sure it’s decided.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I noticed, Eddie; but it looked to me more like a man than a job. How do +you think we’d come out if I gave you a stroke and a half a hole?” +</p> + +<p> +Eddie was too perturbed even to answer. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime, Crystal was spinning along Bellevue Avenue, forgetting to bow +to her friends, and wondering why the car was going so badly until, her eye +falling on the speedometer, she noticed that she was doing a mild thirty-five +miles an hour. Sooner, therefore, than the law allowed, she reached a small +park that surrounds a statue of Perry, and there she picked up a passenger. +</p> + +<p> +Ben got in and shut the little door almost before she brought the car to a +standstill. +</p> + +<p> +“When you were little,” he said, “did you ever imagine something wonderful that +might happen—like the door’s opening and a delegation coming to elect you +captain of the baseball team, or whatever is a little girl’s equivalent of +that—and keep on imagining it and imagining it, until it seemed as if it +really were going to happen? Well, I have been standing here saying to myself, +Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Crystal should come in a little blue car and take +me to drive? And, by Heaven! you’ll never believe me, but she actually did.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus03"></a> +<img src="images/image3_full.png" width="600" height="536" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">“I’ll Be There in Five Minutes, In a Little Blue Car”</p> +</div> + +<p> +“Tell me everything you’ve done since I saw you,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t done anything but think about you. Oh yes, I have, too. I’ve +reappraised the universe. You see, you’ve just made me a present of a brand-new +world, and I’ve been pretty busy, I can tell you, untying the string and +unwrapping the paper, and bless me, Crystal, it looks like a mighty fine +present so far.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” she said, “I think you talk charmingly.” She had started to say, “you +make love charmingly,” but on second thoughts decided that the overt statement +had better come from him. “Dear me,” she went on, “we have so much to talk +about. There’s my job. Can’t we talk a little about that?” +</p> + +<p> +They could and did. Their talk consisted largely in his telling her how much +richer a service she could render his paper through having been unconsciously +steeped in beauty than if she had been merely intellectually +instructed—than if, as she more simply put it, she had known something. +And as he talked, her mind began to expand in the warm atmosphere of his praise +and to give off its perfume like a flower. +</p> + +<p> +But the idea of her working with him day after day, helping the development of +the paper which had grown as dear as a child to him, was so desirable that he +did not dare to contemplate it unless it promised realization. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” he broke out, “you won’t really do it. Your family will object, or +something. Probably when I go away to-night, I shall never see you again.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are still going away to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +“I must.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him and slowly shook her head, as a mother shakes her head at the +foolish plans of a child. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought I was going,” he said, weakly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +He groaned, but did not answer. +</p> + +<p> +She thought, “Oh, dear, I wish when men want to be comforted they would not +make a girl spend so much time and energy getting them to say that they do want +it.” Aloud she said: +</p> + +<p> +“You must tell me what’s the matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a long story.” +</p> + +<p> +“We have all afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it—we haven’t all eternity.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, eternity,” said Crystal, dismissing it with the Cord wave of the hand. +“Who wants eternity? ‘Since we must die how bright the starry track,’ you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“No; what is that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t remember.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh.” +</p> + +<p> +After this meeting of minds they drove for some time in silence. Ben was seeing +a new aspect of Newport—bare, rugged country, sandy roads, a sudden high +rock jutting out toward the sea, a rock on which tradition asserts that Bishop +Berkeley once sat and considered the illusion of matter. They stopped at length +at the edge of a sandy beach. Crystal parked her car neatly with a sharp turn +of the wheel, and got out. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a tea basket,” she called over her shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +Ben’s heart bounded at the news—not that he was hungry, but as the hour +was now but little past half after two a tea basket indicated a prolonged +interview. He found it tucked away in the back of the car, and followed her. +They sat down at the edge of the foam. He lit a pipe, clasped his hands about +his knees and stared out to sea; she curled her feet backward, grasped an ankle +in her hand, and, looking at him, said: +</p> + +<p> +“Now what makes you groan so?” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t meant to be dishonest,” he said, “but I have been obtaining your +friendship—trying to—under false pretenses.” +</p> + +<p> +“Trying to?” said Crystal. “Now isn’t it silly to put that in.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned and smiled at her. She was really incredibly sweet. “But, all the +same,” he went on, “there is a barrier, a real, tangible barrier between us.” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal’s heart suffered a chill convulsion at these words. “Good gracious!” +she thought. “He’s entangled with another woman—oh +dear!—<i>marriage</i>”—But she did not interrupt him, and he +continued: +</p> + +<p> +“I let you think that I was one of the men you might have known—that I +was asked to your party last night, whereas, as a matter of fact, I only +watched you—” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal’s mind, working with its normal rapidity, invented, faced, and passed +over the fact that he must have been one of the musicians. She said aloud: +</p> + +<p> +“I think I ought to tell you that I’m not much of a believer in +barriers—between sensible people who want friendship.” +</p> + +<p> +“Friendship!” exclaimed Ben, as if that were the last thing he had come out on +a lovely summer afternoon to discuss. +</p> + +<p> +“There aren’t any real barriers any more,” Crystal continued. “Differences of +position, and religion, and all those things don’t seem to matter now. Romeo +and Juliet wouldn’t have paid any attention to the little family disagreement +if they had lived to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“In the case of Romeo and Juliet, if I remember correctly,” said Ben, “it was +not exactly a question of friendship.” +</p> + +<p> +She colored deeply, but he refused to modify his statement, for, after all, it +was correct. “But difference of opinion <i>is</i> an obstacle,” he went on. “I +have seen husbands and wives parted by differences of opinion in the late war. +And as far as I’m concerned there’s a war on now—a different war, and I +came here to try to prevent my brother marrying into an enemy influence—” +</p> + +<p> +“Good Heavens!” cried Crystal. “You are Ben Moreton! Why didn’t I see it +sooner? I’m Crystal Cord,” and, lifting up her chin, she laughed. +</p> + +<p> +That she could laugh as the gulf opened between them seemed to him terrible. He +turned his head away. +</p> + +<p> +She stopped laughing. “You don’t think it’s amusing?” (He shook his head.) +“That we’re relations-in-law, when we thought it was all so unknown and +romantic? No wonder I felt at home with you, when I’ve read so many of your +letters to David—such nice letters, too—and I subscribe to your +paper, and read every word of the editorials. And to think that you would not +lunch with me to-day, when my father asked you.” +</p> + +<p> +“To think that it was you I was being asked to lunch with, and didn’t know it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you dine with us to-morrow,” she answered, stating a simple fact. +</p> + +<p> +“Crystal,” he said, and put his hand on hers as if this would help him through +his long explanation; but the continuity of his thought was destroyed and his +spirit wounded by her immediately withdrawing it; and then—so exactly +does the spring of love resemble the uncertain glory of an April day—he +was rendered perfectly happy again by perceiving that her action was due to the +publicity of their position and not to repugnance to the caress. +</p> + +<p> +Fortunately he was a man not without invention, and so when a few minutes later +she suggested opening the tea basket, he insisted on moving to a more retired +spot on the plea that the teakettle would burn better out of the wind; and +Crystal, who must have known that Tomes never gave her a teakettle, but made +the tea at home and put it in a thermos bottle, at once agreed to the +suggestion. +</p> + +<p> +They moved back across the road, where irregular rocks sheltered small plots of +grass and wild flowers, and here, instead of an Arcadian duet, they had, most +unsuitably, their first quarrel. +</p> + +<p> +It began as quarrels are so apt to do, by a complete agreement. Of course he +would stay over the next day, which was Sunday, and not very busy in the office +of <i>Liberty</i>. In return he expected her undivided attention. She at once +admitted that this was part of the plan—only there would have to be one +little exception; she was dining out this evening. Oh, well, that could be +broken, couldn’t it? She would like to break it, but it happened to be one of +those engagements that had to be kept. Ben could not understand that. +</p> + +<p> +At first she tried to explain it to him: She had chosen her own evening several +weeks ago with these people, who wanted her to meet a friend of theirs who was +motoring down specially from Boston. She felt she must keep her word. +</p> + +<p> +“I assure you I don’t want to, but you understand, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +If she had looked at his face she would not have asked the last question. He +did not understand; indeed, he had resolved not to. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said, “I must own, I don’t. If you told me that you <i>wanted</i> to +go, that would be one thing. I shouldn’t have a word to say then.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, you would, Ben,” said Crystal, but he did not notice her. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t understand your allowing yourself to be dragged there against your +will. You say you despise this life, but you seem to take it pretty seriously +if you can’t break any engagement that you may make.” +</p> + +<p> +“How absurd you are! Of course I often break engagements.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see. You do when the inducement is sufficient. Well, that makes it all +perfectly clear.” +</p> + +<p> +She felt both angry and inclined to cry. She knew that to yield to either +impulse would instantly solve the problem and bring a very unreasonable young +man to reason. She ran over both scenes in her imagination. Registering anger, +she would rise and say that, really, Mr. Moreton, if he would not listen to her +explanation there was no use in prolonging the discussion. That would be the +critical moment. He would take her in his arms then and there, or else he would +let her go, and they would drive in silence, and part at the little park, where +of course she might say, “Aren’t you silly to leave me like this?”—only +her experience was that it was never very practical to make up with an angry +man in public. +</p> + +<p> +To burst into tears was a safer method, but she had a natural repugnance to +crying, and perhaps she was subconsciously aware that she might be left, after +the quarrel was apparently made up by this method, with a slight resentment +against the man who had forced her to adopt so illogical a line of conduct. +</p> + +<p> +A middle course appealed to her. She laid her hand on Ben’s. A few minutes +before it would have seemed unbelievable to Ben that his own hand would have +remained cold and lifeless under that touch, but such was now the case. +</p> + +<p> +“Ben,” she said, “if you go on being disagreeable a second longer you must make +up your mind how you will behave when I burst into tears.” +</p> + +<p> +“How I should behave?” +</p> + +<p> +She nodded. +</p> + +<p> +His hands clasped hers. He told her how he should behave. He even offered to +show her, without putting her to the trouble of tears. +</p> + +<p> +“You mean,” she said, “that you would forgive me? Well, forgive me, anyhow. I’m +doing what I think is right about this old dinner. Perhaps I’m wrong about it; +perhaps you’re mistaken and I’m not absolutely perfect, but if I were, think +what a lot of fun you would miss in changing me. And you know I never meant to +abandon you for the whole evening. I’ll get away at half past nine and we’ll +take a little turn.” +</p> + +<p> +So that was settled. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<p> +As they drove back she revealed another plan to him—she was taking him +for a moment to see a friend of hers. He protested. He did not want to see +anyone but herself, but Crystal was firm. He must see this woman; she was their +celebrated parlor Bolshevist. Ben hated parlor Bolshevists. Did he know any? +No. Well, then. Anyhow, Sophia would never forgive her if she did not bring +him. Sophia adored celebrities. Sophia who? Sophia Dawson. The name seemed +dimly familiar to Ben, and then he remembered. It was the name on the +thousand-dollar check for the strike sufferers that had come in the day before. +</p> + +<p> +They drove up an avenue of little oaks to a formidable palace built of gray +stone, so smoothly faced that there was not a crevice in the immense pale +façade. Two men in knee-breeches opened the double doors and they went +in between golden grilles and rows of tall white lilies. They were led through +a soundless hall, and up stairs so thickly carpeted that the feet sank in as in +new-fallen snow, and finally they were ushered through a small painted door +into a small painted room, which had been brought all the way from Sienna, and +there they found Mrs. Dawson—a beautiful, worn, world-weary Mrs. Dawson, +with one streak of gray in the front of her dark hair, her tragic eyes, and her +long violet and black draperies—a perfect Sibyl. +</p> + +<p> +Crystal did not treat her as a Sibyl, however. “Hullo, Sophie!” she said. “This +is my brother-in-law’s brother, Ben Moreton. He’s crazy to meet you. You’ll +like him. I can’t stay because I’m dining somewhere or other, but he’s not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will he dine with me?” said Mrs. Dawson in a wonderful deep, slow +voice—“just stay on and dine with me alone?” +</p> + +<p> +Ben began to say that he couldn’t, but Crystal said yes, that he would be +delighted to, and that she would stop for him again about half past nine, and +that it was a wonderful plan, and then she went away. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Dawson seemed to take it all as a matter of course. “Sit down, Mr. +Moreton,” she said. “I have a quarrel with you.” +</p> + +<p> +Ben could not help feeling a little disturbed by the way he had been injected +into Mrs. Dawson’s evening without her volition. He did not sit down. +</p> + +<p> +“You know,” he said, “there isn’t any reason why you should have me to dine +just because Crystal says so. I do want to thank you for the check you sent in +to us for the strike fund. It will do a lot of good.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that,” replied Mrs. Dawson. “They are fighting all our battles for us.” +</p> + +<p> +“It cheered us up in the office. I wanted to tell you, and now I think I’ll go. +I dare say you are dining out, anyhow—” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes flashed at him. “Dining out!” she exclaimed, as if the suggestion +insulted her. “You evidently don’t know me. I never dine out. I have nothing in +common with these people. I lead a very lonely life. You do me a favor by +staying. You and I could exchange ideas. There is no one in Newport whom I can +talk to—reactionaries.” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Cord is not exactly a reactionary,” said Ben, sitting down. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Dawson smiled. “Crystal is not a reactionary; Crystal is a child,” she +replied. “But what can you expect of William Cord’s daughter? He is a dangerous +and disintegrating force—cold—cynical—he feels not the +slightest public responsibility for his possessions.” Mrs. Dawson laid her hand +on her heart as if it were weighted with all her jewels and footmen and +palaces. “Most Bourbons are cynical about human life, but he goes farther; he +is cynical about his own wealth. And that brings me to my quarrel with you, Mr. +Moreton. How could you let your brother spend his beautiful vigorous youth as a +parasite to Cord’s vapid son? Was that consistent with your beliefs?” +</p> + +<p> +This attack on his consistency from a lady whose consistency seemed even more +flagrant amused Ben, but as he listened he was obliged to admit that there was +a great deal of good sense in what she had to say about David, whom she had met +once or twice at the Cords’. Ben was too candid and eager not to ask her before +long the question that was in his mind—how it was possible for a woman +holding her views to be leading a life so opposed to them. +</p> + +<p> +She was not at all offended, and even less at a loss for an answer. “I am not a +free agent, Mr. Moreton,” she said. “Unhappily, before I began to think at all, +I had undertaken certain obligations. The law allows a woman to dispose of +everything but her property while she is still a child. I married at eighteen.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a story not without interest and Mrs. Dawson told it well. There does +not live a man who would not have been interested. +</p> + +<p> +They dined, not in the great dining room downstairs, nor even in the painted +room from Sienna, but in a sort of loggia that opened from it, where, beyond +the shaded lights, Ben could watch the moon rise out of the sea. +</p> + +<p> +It was a perfect little meal, short, delicious, and quickly served by three +servants. He enjoyed it thoroughly, although he found his hostess a strangely +confusing companion. He would make up his mind that she was a sincere soul +captured by her environment, when a freshly discovered jewel on her long +fingers would shake his faith. And he would just decide that she was a +melodramatic fraud, when she would surprise him by her scholarly knowledge of +social problems. She had read deeply, knew several languages, and had known +many of the European leaders. Such phrases as “Jaurès wrote me ten days +before he died—” were frequent, but not too frequent, on her lips. +</p> + +<p> +By the time Crystal stopped for him Ben had begun to feel like a child who has +lost his mother in a museum, or as Dante might have felt if he had missed +Virgil from his side. When he bade Mrs. Dawson good night, she asked him to +come back. +</p> + +<p> +“Come and spend September here,” she said, as if it were a small thing. “You +can work all day if you like. I sha’n’t disturb you, and you need never see a +soul. It will do you good.” +</p> + +<p> +He was touched by the invitation, but of course he refused it. He tried to +explain tactfully, but clearly, why it was that he couldn’t do that sort of +thing—that the editor of <i>Liberty</i> did not take his holiday at +Newport. +</p> + +<p> +She understood, and sighed. “Ah, yes,” she said. “I’m like that man in +mythology whom neither the sky nor the earth would receive. I’m very lonely, +Mr. Moreton.” +</p> + +<p> +He found himself feeling sorry for her, as he followed a footman downstairs, +his feet sinking into the carpets at each step. Crystal in the blue car was at +the door. She was bareheaded and the wind had been blowing her hair about. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” she said, as he got in, “did you have a good time? I’m sure you had a +good dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +“Excellent, but confusing. I don’t quite get your friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t understand Sophia?” Crystal’s tone expressed surprise. “You mean her +jewels and her footmen? Why, Ben, it’s just like the fathers of this country +who talked about all men being equal and yet were themselves slaveholders. She +sincerely believes those things in a way, and then it’s such a splendid role to +play, and she enjoys that; and then it teases Freddie Dawson. Freddie is rather +sweet if he’s thoroughly unhappy, and this keeps him unhappy almost all the +time. Did she ask you to stay? I meant her to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, she did; but of course I couldn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Ben, why not?” +</p> + +<p> +This brought them once more to the discussion of the barrier. This time Ben +felt he could make her see. He said that she must look at it this +way—that in a war you could not go and stay in enemy country, however +friendly your personal relations might be. Well, as far as he was concerned +this was a war, a class war. +</p> + +<p> +They were headed for the Ocean Drive, and Crystal rounded a sharp turn before +she answered seriously: +</p> + +<p> +“But I thought you didn’t believe in war.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t,” he answered. “I hate it—I hate all violence. We—labor, I +mean—didn’t initiate this, but when men won’t see, when they have power +and won’t stop abusing it, there is only one way to make—” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Ben,” said Crystal, “you’re just a pacifist in other people’s quarrels, +but as militaristic as can be in your own. I’m not a pacifist, but I’m a better +one than you, because I don’t believe in emphasizing any difference between +human beings. That’s why I want a League of Nations. I hate gangs—all +women really do. Little girls don’t form gangs like little boys. Every +settlement worker knows that. I won’t have you say that I belong to the other +group. I won’t be classified. I’m a human being—and I intend to behave as +such.” +</p> + +<p> +Since she had left him she had been immersed again in her old life—her +old friends—and the result had been to make her wonder if her experience +with Ben had been as wonderful as it had seemed. When she stopped for him she +had been almost prepared to find that the wild joy of their meetings had been +something accidental and temporary, and that only a stimulating and pleasant +friendship was left. But as soon as she saw that he really regarded their +differences seriously, all her own prudence and doubt melted away. She knew she +was ready to make any sacrifices for him, and in view of that all talk of +obstacles was folly. +</p> + +<p> +She stopped the car on the point of the island, with the open sea on one hand, +the harbor on the other. In front of them the lightship was moving with a slow, +majestic roll, and to the right was the long festoon of Narragansett lights, +and as they stopped the lighted bulk of the New York boat appeared, making its +way toward Point Judith. +</p> + +<p> +His prolonged silence began to frighten her. +</p> + +<p> +“Ben,” she said, “do you seriously mean that you believe friendship between us +is impossible?” +</p> + +<p> +“Friendship, nothing,” answered Moreton. “I love you.” +</p> + +<p> +He said it as if it had always been understood between them, as of course it +had, but the instant he said it, he gave her a quick, appealing look to see how +she would take so startling an assertion. +</p> + +<p> +If Crystal had poured out just what was in her mind at that second she would +have answered: “Of course you do. I’ve known that longer than you have. And +can’t you see that if I had had any doubt about its being true, I’d have taken +steps to make it true? But, as I really did not doubt it, I’ve been able to be +quite passive and leave it mostly to you, which I so much prefer.” +</p> + +<p> +But rigorous candor is rarely attained, and Crystal did not say this. In fact, +for a few seconds she did not say anything, but merely allowed her eyes to +shine upon him, with the inevitable result that at the end of precisely six +seconds of their benevolent invitation he took her in his arms and kissed her. +It was a very unprotected point, and several cars were standing not too far +away, but Crystal, who had an excellent sense of proportion, made no objection +whatever. She was being proved right in two important particulars—first, +that she was a human being, and second, that there was no barrier between them. +She was very generous about it. She did not say, “Where’s your barrier now?” or +anything like that; she simply said nothing, and the barrier passed out of the +conversation and was no more seen. +</p> + +<p> +Very soon, alleging that she must get home at the time at which she usually did +get home from dinners, she took him back; but she soothed him with the promise +of an uninterrupted day to follow. +</p> + +<p> +Time—the mere knowledge of unbroken hours ahead—is a boon which +real love cannot do without. Minor feelings may flourish on snatched interviews +and stolen meetings, but love demands—and usually gets—protected +leisure. The next day these lovers had it. They spent the morning, when Mr. +Cord was known to be playing golf, at the Cords’ house, and then when Mr. Cord +telephoned that he was staying to luncheon at the club, if Crystal did not +object (and Crystal did not), she and Ben arranged a picnic—at least +Tomes did, and they went off about one o’clock in the blue car. They went to a +pool in the rocks that Crystal had always known about, with high walls around +it, and here, with a curtain of foam between them and the sea, for the waves +were rising, they ate lunch, as much alone as on a desert island. +</p> + +<p> +It was here that Ben asked her to marry him, or, to be accurate, it was here +that they first began talking about their life together, and whether Nora would +become reconciled to another woman about the flat. +</p> + +<p> +The nearest approach to a definite proposal was Ben’s saying: +</p> + +<p> +“You would not mind my saying something about all this to your father before I +go this evening, would you?” +</p> + +<p> +And Crystal replied: “Poor father! It will be a blow, I’m afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Ben, “he told me himself that he liked me better than David.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not saying much.” +</p> + +<p> +At this Ben laughed lightly. +</p> + +<p> +He might have had his wrong-headed notions about barriers, but he was not so +un-American as to regard a father as an obstacle. +</p> + +<p> +“But, oh, Crystal,” he added, “suppose you find you do hate being poor. It is a +bore in some ways.” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal, who had been tucking away the complicated dishes of her luncheon +basket, looked at Ben and lightly sucked one finger to which some raspberry jam +from Tomes’s supernal sandwiches had adhered. +</p> + +<p> +“I sha’n’t mind it a bit, Ben,” she said, “and for a good reason—because +I’m terribly conceited.” He did not understand at all, and she went on: “I +believe I shall be just as much of a person—perhaps more—without +money. The women who really mind being poor are the humble-minded ones, who +think that they are made by their clothes and their lovely houses and their +maids and their sables. When they lose them they lose all their personality, +and of course that terrifies them. I don’t think I shall lose mine. Does it +shock you to know that I think such a lot of myself?” +</p> + +<p> +It appeared it did not shock him at all. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus04"></a> +<img src="images/image4_full.png" width="600" height="402" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">“Suppose You Find You Do Hate Being Poor?”</p> +</div> + +<p> +When they reached the house she established him in the drawing-room and went +off to find her father. +</p> + +<p> +She was a true woman, by which is meant now and always that she preferred to +allow a man to digest his dinner before she tried to bring him to a rational +opinion. But in this case her hands were tied. The Cords dined at +eight—or sometimes a little later, and Ben’s boat left for New York at +half past nine, so that it would be utterly impossible to postpone the +discussion of her future until after dinner. It had to be done at once. +</p> + +<p> +Crystal ran up and knocked at his bedroom door. Loud splashings from the +adjoining bathroom were all the answer she got. She sat down on the stairs and +waited. Those are the moments that try men’s and even women’s souls. For the +first time her enterprise seemed to her a little reckless. For an instant she +had the surprising experience of recognizing the fact that Ben was a total +stranger. She looked at the gray-stone stairway on which she was sitting and +thought that her life had been as safe and sheltered as a cloister, and now, +steered by this total stranger, she proposed to launch herself on an uncharted +course of change. And to this program she was to bring her father’s +consent—for she knew very well that if she couldn’t, Ben wouldn’t be able +to—in the comparatively short time between now and dinner. Then, the +splashing having ceased, the sound of bureau drawers succeeded, and Crystal +sprang up and knocked again. +</p> + +<p> +“That you, Peters?” said an unencouraging voice. (Peters was Mr. Cord’s valet.) +</p> + +<p> +“No, dear, it’s I,” said Crystal. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come in,” said Mr. Cord. He was standing in the middle of the room in his +shirt sleeves and gloomily contemplating the shirt he wore. “What’s this +laundress, anyhow? A Bolshevist or a pastry-cook?” he said. “Did you ever see +anything like this shirt?” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal approached and studied the shirt. It appeared to her to be perfectly +done up, but she said: “Yes, dear, how terrible! I’ll pack her off to-morrow, +but you always look all right whatever you wear; that’s some comfort.” She saw +that even this hadn’t done much good, and, going to the heart of the problem, +she asked, “How did your golf go?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord’s gloom gathered as he answered, with resignation, “Oh, all right.” +</p> + +<p> +His manner was exactly similar to Ben’s in his recent moment of depression, and +not unlike McKellar’s when he had explained what he suffered under the good +Lord’s weather. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Eddie’s game any better?” asked Crystal, feeling her way. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” cried her father, contemptuously. “He’s rotten, but I’m worse. And +golf-clubs, Crystal! No one can make a club any more. Have you noticed that? +But the truth of the matter is, I’m getting too old to play golf.” And Mr. Cord +sat down with a good but unconscious imitation of a broken old man. +</p> + +<p> +Of course Crystal swept this away. She scolded him a little, pointed out his +recent prowess, and spoke slightingly of all younger athletes, but she really +had not time to do the job thoroughly, for the thought of Ben, sitting so +anxious in the drawing-room alone, hurried her on. +</p> + +<p> +“Anyhow, dear,” she said, “I’ve come to talk to you about something terribly +important. What would you say, father, if I told you I was engaged?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord was so startled that he said, what was rare for him, the first thing +that came into his head: +</p> + +<p> +“Not to Eddie?” +</p> + +<p> +The true diplomatist, we have been told, simply takes advantage of chance, and +Crystal was diplomatic. “And suppose it is?” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +“I should refuse my consent,” replied her father. +</p> + +<p> +Crystal looked hurt. “Is there anything against Eddie,” she asked, “except his +golf?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” answered her father, “there are two of the most serious things in the +world against him—first, that he doesn’t amount to anything; and second, +that you don’t love him.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” Crystal admitted, “I don’t, but then—love—father, isn’t love +rather a serious undertaking nowadays? Is it a particularly helpful adjunct to +marriage? Look at poor Eugenia. Isn’t it really more sensible to marry a nice +man who can support one, and then if in time one does fall in love with another +man—” +</p> + +<p> +“Never let me hear you talk like that again, Crystal,” said her father, with a +severity and vigor he seldom showed outside of board meetings. “It’s only your +ignorance of life that saves you from being actually revolting. I’m an old man +and not sentimental, you’ll grant, but, take my word for it, love is the only +hope of pulling off marriage successfully, and even then it’s not easy. As for +Eugenia, I think she’s made a fool of herself and is going to be unhappy, but +I’d rather do what she has done than what you’re contemplating. At least she +cared for that fellow—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad you feel like that, darling,” said Crystal, “because it isn’t Eddie +I’m engaged to, but Ben Moreton. He’s waiting downstairs now.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord started up—his eyes shining like black flames. +</p> + +<p> +“By God! Crystal,” he said, “you sha’n’t marry that +fellow—Eugenia—perhaps—but not you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, father, you said yourself, you thought he was a fine—” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care what I said,” replied Mr. Cord, and, striding to the door, he +flung it open and called in a voice that rolled about the stone hall: “Mr. +Moreton, Mr. Moreton! Come up here, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +Ben came bounding up the stairs like a panther. Cord beckoned him in with a +sharp gesture and shut the door. +</p> + +<p> +“This won’t do at all, Moreton,” he said. “You can’t have Crystal.” +</p> + +<p> +Ben did not answer; he looked very steadily at Cord, who went on: +</p> + +<p> +“You think I can’t stop it—that she’s of age and that you wouldn’t take a +penny of my money, anyhow. That’s the idea, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it,” said Ben. +</p> + +<p> +Cord turned sharply to Crystal. “Does what I think make any difference to you?” +he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“A lot, dear,” she answered, “but I don’t understand. You never seemed so much +opposed to the radical doctrine.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it’s the radical, not the doctrine, your father objects to,” said Ben. +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly,” answered Mr. Cord. “You’ve put it in a nutshell. Crystal, I’m going +to tell you what these radicals really are—they’re +failures—everyone of them. Sincere enough—they want the world +changed because they haven’t been able to get along in it as it is—they +want a new deal because they don’t know how to play their cards; and when they +get a new hand, they’ll play it just as badly. It’s not their theories I object +to, but them themselves. You think if you married Moreton you’d be going into a +great new world of idealism. You wouldn’t. You’d be going into a world of +failure—of the pettiest, most futile quarrels in the world. The chief +characteristic of the man who fails is that he always believes it’s the other +fellow’s fault; and they hate the man who differs with them by one per cent +more than they hate the man who differs by one hundred. Has there ever been a +revolution where they did not persecute their fellow revolutionists worse than +they persecuted the old order, or where the new rule wasn’t more tyrannical +than the old?” +</p> + +<p> +“No one would dispute that,” said Ben. “It is the only way to win through +to—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said Cord, “I know what you’re going to say, but I tell you, you win +through to liberal practices when, and only when, the conservatives become +converted to your ideas, and put them through for you. That’s why I say I have +no quarrel with radical doctrines—they are coming, always coming, +but”—Cord paused to give his words full weight—“I hate the +radical.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a little pause. Crystal, who had sunk into a low chair, raised her +eyes to Ben, as if she expected a passionate contradiction from him, but it did +not come. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said, after a moment, “that’s all true, Mr. Cord—with +limitations; but, granting it, you’ve put my side, too. What are we to say of +the conservative—the man who has no vision of his own—who has to go +about stealing his beliefs from the other side? He’s very efficient at putting +<i>them</i> into effect—but efficient as a tool, as a servant. Look at +the mess he makes of his own game when he tries to act on his own ideas. He +crushes democracy with an iron efficiency, and he creates communism. He closes +the door to trade-unionism and makes a revolution. That’s efficiency for you. +We radicals are not so damned inefficient, while we let the conservatives do +our work for us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, let it be revolution, then,” said Cord. “I believe you’re right. It’s +coming, but do you want to drag a girl like Crystal into it? Think of her! Say +you take her, as I suppose a young fellow like you can do. She’d have perhaps +ten years of an exciting division of allegiance between your ideas and the way +she had been brought up, and the rest of her life (for, believe me, as we get +older we all return to our early traditions)—the rest of her life she’d +spend regretting the ties and environment of her youth. On the other hand, if +she gives you up she will have regrets, too, I know, but they won’t wreck her +and embitter her the way the others will.” +</p> + +<p> +Ben’s face darkened. No man not a colossal egotist could hear such a prophesy +with indifference. He did not at once answer, and then he turned to Crystal. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think of that?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +To the surprise of both men, Crystal replied with a laugh. “I was wondering,” +she said, “when either of you would get round to asking what I thought of it +all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what do you think?” said Cord, almost harshly. +</p> + +<p> +Crystal rose, and, slipping her arm through his, leaned her head on the point +of her father’s shoulder—he was of a good height. “I think,” she said, +“you both talk beautifully. I was so proud of you both—saying such +profound things so easily, and keeping your tempers so perfectly” (both brows +smoothed out), “and it was all the more wonderful because, it seemed to me, you +were both talking about things you knew nothing about.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” burst from both men with simultaneous astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“Ben, dear, father doesn’t know any radicals—except you, and he’s only +seen you twice. Father dear, I don’t believe Ben ever talked five minutes with +an able, successful conservative until he came here to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re going to throw me over, Crystal?” said Ben, seeing her pose more +clearly than he heard her words. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Mr. Cord, bitterly, “she’s going to throw over an old man in favor +of a young one.” +</p> + +<p> +“You silly creatures,” said Crystal, with a smile that made the words +affectionate and not rude. “How can I ever throw either of you over? I’m going +to be Ben’s wife, and I am my father’s daughter. I’m going to be those two +things for all my life.” +</p> + +<p> +Ben took her hand. She puzzled him, but he adored her. “But some day, Crystal,” +he said, “you will be obliged to choose between our views—mine or your +father’s. You must see that.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s right,” her father chimed in. “This is not a temporary difference of +opinion, you know, Crystal. This cleavage is as old as mankind—the +radical against the conservative. Time doesn’t reconcile them.” +</p> + +<p> +Again the idea came to her: “They do love to form gangs, the poor dears.” Aloud +she said: “Yes, but the two types are rarely pure ones. Why, father, you think +Ben is a radical, but he’s the most hidebound conservative about some +things—much worse than you—about free verse, for instance. I read a +long editorial about it not a month ago. He really thinks anyone who defends it +ought to be deported to some poetic limbo. Ben, you think my father is +conservative. But there’s a great scandal in his mental life. He’s a +Baconian—” +</p> + +<p> +“He thinks Bacon wrote the plays!” exclaimed Ben, really shocked. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly I do,” answered Mr. Cord. “Every man who uses his mind must think +so. There is nothing in favor of the Shakespeare theory, except +tradition—” +</p> + +<p> +He would have talked for several hours upon the subject, but Crystal +interrupted him by turning to Ben and continuing what she had meant to say: +</p> + +<p> +“When you said I should have to choose between your ideas, you meant between +your political ideas. Perhaps I shall, but I won’t make my choice, rest +assured, until I have some reason for believing that each of you knows +something—honestly knows something about the other one’s point of view.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t get it, exactly,” said Ben. +</p> + +<p> +She addressed Mr. Cord. +</p> + +<p> +“Father,” she went on, “Ben has a little flat in Charles Street, and an old +servant, and that’s where I’m going to live.” +</p> + +<p> +Her father, though bitterly wounded, had regained his sardonic calm. “Perhaps,” +he said, “you’ll bring him up to Seventy-ninth Street for Sunday dinner now and +then.” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal shook her head. “No, dear,” she said. “That isn’t the way it’s going to +be. As soon as I get settled and have time to look about me, I shall take +another little flat for you. You will live with us, for a few months in the +winter, and get to know Ben’s friends—his gang, as you would +say—get to know them not as a philanthropist, or an employer, or an +observer, but just as one of our friends—see if they really are the way +you think they are. And then, in March you shall go off to Palm Beach or +Virginia just as usual.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a fine idea,” said Mr. Cord, sarcastically. “Do you realize that I +shall hardly survive your marriage with the editor of <i>Liberty</i>. I shall +be kicked off—requested to resign from half a dozen boards for having +such a son-in-law—” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s freedom for you,” said Ben. +</p> + +<p> +“And,” continued Mr. Cord, “if it were known that I consented to the marriage, +and actually consorted with such fellows! You must realize, Crystal, that most +of the most influential men in the country think the way Eddie does. Half my +boards are composed of older Eddies.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll do better to resign from them, then,” said Crystal. +</p> + +<p> +Ben had been very much struck by Crystal’s suggestion. +</p> + +<p> +“Really, Mr. Cord,” he said, “I believe that is a great idea of Crystal’s. I +really believe if capital had more idea of the real views of labor—as you +said, you eventually adopt all our ideas, why wouldn’t an intimate knowledge of +individuals hurry that process?” +</p> + +<p> +“Simply because I should lose all influence with my own people by merely +investigating you in a friendly spirit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Glory!” exclaimed Ben, with open contempt for such people. “Think of +penalizing the first honest attempt to understand!” +</p> + +<p> +“You see the point of my plan, don’t you, Ben?” said Crystal. +</p> + +<p> +“You bet I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s wonderful,” she answered, “for you’ve only heard half of it. In July, +August, and September, we will come here to Newport, and you will get to +understand father’s—” +</p> + +<p> +“Hold on,” cried Ben, “just a moment. That is absolutely impossible, Crystal. +You don’t understand. The paper couldn’t keep me a day if I did that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ha!” cried Mr. Cord, coming suddenly to life. “There’s freedom for you!” +</p> + +<p> +“That would be very cruel of the owners, Ben, but if they did—” +</p> + +<p> +“It wouldn’t be cruel at all,” said Moreton. “They wouldn’t have any choice. I +should have lost all influence with my readers, if it were known—” +</p> + +<p> +“Glory!” said Mr. Cord. “Think of penalizing the first honest attempt to +understand the capitalistic class!” +</p> + +<p> +Ben stood silent, caught in the grip of an intellectual dilemma which he felt +every instant would dissolve itself and which didn’t. +</p> + +<p> +Crystal for the first time moved away from her father. “Those are my terms,” +she said. “I stay with the man who agrees to them, and if you both decline +them—well, I’ll go off and try and open the oyster by myself.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a long momentous pause, and then Tomes’s discreet knock on the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Verriman on the telephone, madam.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t come,” said Crystal. “Ask him to send a message.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you see, Crystal, what your plan would do?” said her father. “Either it +would make Moreton a red revolutionist and me a persecuting Bourbon, or else it +would just ruin us both for either of our objectives.” +</p> + +<p> +“It won’t ruin you for my objectives,” said Crystal, “and women are more human, +you know, than men.” +</p> + +<p> +Another knock at the door. Tomes’s voice again: +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Verriman wishes to know if he might dine here this evening?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Cord, looking at Crystal. +</p> + +<p> +Crystal raised her voice. “Certainly, Tomes. Say we shall be delighted to have +him—at eight.” +</p> + +<p> +Both men turned to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you do that, Crystal? Verriman—here—to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal did not answer—the identity of their tones, their words, and +their irritation with her should have told them the answer, but didn’t. +</p> + +<p> +She knew that only opposition to Eddie and Eddie’s many prototypes could weld +her two men solidly together. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE END +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13146 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/13146-h/images/cover.jpg b/13146-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..66d5876 --- /dev/null +++ b/13146-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/13146-h/images/image1_full.png b/13146-h/images/image1_full.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..81b9ada --- /dev/null +++ b/13146-h/images/image1_full.png diff --git a/13146-h/images/image2_full.png b/13146-h/images/image2_full.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e1816d1 --- /dev/null +++ b/13146-h/images/image2_full.png diff --git a/13146-h/images/image3_full.png b/13146-h/images/image3_full.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..533c4cd --- /dev/null +++ b/13146-h/images/image3_full.png diff --git a/13146-h/images/image4_full.png b/13146-h/images/image4_full.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..58ab5e0 --- /dev/null +++ b/13146-h/images/image4_full.png diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b714585 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #13146 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13146) diff --git a/old/13146-0.txt b/old/13146-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aac5c41 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13146-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2955 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Beauty and the Bolshevist, by Alice Duer Miller + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Beauty and the Bolshevist + +Author: Alice Duer Miller + +Release Date: August 9, 2004 [eBook #13146] +[Most recently updated: October 30, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Melissa Er-Raqabi, Joshua Hutchinson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAUTY AND THE BOLSHEVIST *** + + + + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration: “I Beg Your Pardon. Is This a Private Raft?”] + + + + +The Beauty and the Bolshevist + +By ALICE DUER MILLER + + +_Author of_ “_The Charm School_” “_Ladies must Live_” “_Come out of the +Kitchen_” _etc_. + + + + +Illustrated + + +Harper & Brothers Publishers +New York and London + + +Printed in the United States of America +Published October, 1920 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +“I beg your pardon. Is this a private raft?” +“Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty” +“I’ll be there in five minutes, in a little blue car” +“Suppose you find you do hate being poor?” + + + + +CONTENTS + + Chapter I + Chapter II + Chapter III + + + + +Chapter I + + +The editor of that much-abused New York daily, _Liberty_, pushed back +his editorial typewriter and opened one letter in the pile which the +office-boy—no respecter of persons—had just laid upon the desk while +whistling a piercing tune between his teeth. + +The letter said: + + +DEAR BEN,—I hate to think what your feelings will be on learning that I +am engaged to be married to a daughter of the capitalistic class. Try +to overcome your prejudices, however, and judge Eugenia as an +individual and not as a member of a class. She has very liberal ideas, +reads your paper, and is content to go with me to Monroe College and +lead the life of an instructor’s wife. You will be glad to know that +Mr. Cord disapproves as much as you do, and will not give his daughter +a cent, so that our life will be as hard on the physical side as you in +your most affectionate moments could desire. Mr. Cord is under the +impression that lack of an income will cool my ardor. You see he could +not think worse of me if he were my own brother. + +Yours, + +DAVID. + + +The fine face of the editor darkened. It was the face of an +idealist—the deep-set, slowly changing eyes, the high cheek bones, but +the mouth closed firmly, almost obstinately, and contradicted the rest +of the face with a touch of aggressiveness, just as in Lincoln’s face +the dreamer was contradicted by the shrewd, practical mouth. He crossed +his arms above the elbow so that one long hand dangled on one side of +his knees and one on the other—a favorite pose of his—and sat thinking. + +The editor was often called a Bolshevist—as who is not in these days? +For language is given us not only to conceal thought, but often to +prevent it, and every now and then when the problems of the world +become too complex and too vital, some one stops all thought on a +subject by inventing a tag, like “witch” in the seventeenth century, or +“Bolshevist” in the twentieth. + +Ben Moreton was not a Bolshevist; indeed, he had written several +editorials to show that, in his opinion, their doctrines were not +sound, but of course the people who denounced him never thought of +reading his paper. He was a socialist, a believer in government +ownership, and, however equably he attempted to examine any dispute +between capital and labor, he always found for labor. He was much +denounced by ultraconservatives, and perhaps their instinct was sound, +for he was educated, determined, and possessed of a personality that +attached people warmly, so that he was more dangerous than those whose +doctrines were more militant. He was not wholly trusted by the extreme +radicals. His views were not consistently agreeable to either group. +For instance, he believed that the conscientious objectors were really +conscientious, a creed for which many people thought he ought to be +deported. On the other hand, he doubted that Wall Street had started +the war for its own purposes, a skepticism which made some of his +friends think him just fit for a bomb. + +The great problem of his life was how to hold together a body of +liberals so that they could be effective. This problem was going to be +immensely complicated by the marriage of his brother with the daughter +of a conspicuous capitalist like William Cord. + +He pushed the buzzer on his desk and wrote out the following telegram: + + +David Moreton, Care William Cord, Newport, R.I. + +Am taking boat Newport to-night. Meet me. + +Ben. + + +No one answered his buzzer, but presently a boy came in collecting +copy, and Moreton said to him: + +“Here, get this sent, and ask Klein to come here. He’s in the composing +room.” + +And presently Mr. Klein entered, in the characteristic dress of the +newspaper man—namely, shirt sleeves and a green shade over his eyes. + +“Look here, Ben!” he exclaimed in some excitement. “Here’s a +thousand-dollar check just come in for the strike fund. How’s that for +the second day?” + +“Good enough,” said Ben, who would ordinarily have put in a good hour +rejoicing over such unexpected good fortune, but whose mind was now on +other things. “I have to go out of town to-night. You’ll be here, won’t +you, to lock the presses? And, see here, Leo, what is the matter with +our book page?” + +“Pretty rotten page,” replied Klein. + +“I should say it was—all about taxes and strikes and economic crises. I +told Green never to touch those things in the book reviews. Our readers +get all they want of that from us in the news and the +editorials—hotter, better stuff, too. I’ve told him not to touch ’em in +the book page, and he runs nothing else. He ought to be beautiful—ought +to talk about fairies, and poetry, and twelfth-century art. What’s the +matter with him?” + +“He doesn’t know anything,” said Klein. “That’s his trouble. He’s +clever, but he doesn’t know much. I guess he only began to read books a +couple years ago. They excite him too much. He wouldn’t read a fairy +story. He’d think he was wasting time.” + +“Get some one to help him out.” + +“Who’d I get?” + +“Look about. I’ve got to go home and pack a bag. Ask Miss Cox what time +that Newport boat leaves.” + +“Newport! Great heavens, Ben! What is this? A little week-end?” + +“A little weak brother, Leo.” + +“David in trouble again?” + +Moreton nodded. “He thinks he’s going to marry William Cord’s +daughter.” + +Klein, who was Ben’s friend as well as his assistant, blanched at the +name. + +“Cord’s daughter!” he exclaimed, and if he had said Jack-the-ripper’s, +he could not have expressed more horror. “Now isn’t it queer,” he went +on, musingly, “that David, brought up as he has been, can see anything +to attract him in a girl like that?” + +Ben was tidying his desk preparatory to departure—that is to say, he +was pushing all the papers far enough back to enable him to close the +roller top, and he answered, absently: + +“Oh, I suppose they’re all pretty much the same—girls.” + +“Why, what do you mean?” said Leo, reproachfully. “How can a girl who’s +been brought up to be a parasite—to display the wealth of her father +and husband, and has never done a useful thing since she was born—Why, +a woman was telling me the other day—I got caught in a block in the +subway and she was next me—awfully interesting, she was. She sewed in +one of these fashionable dressmaking establishments—and the things she +told me about what those women spend on their clothes—underclothes and +furs and everything. Now there must be something wrong with a woman who +can spend money on those things when she knows the agony of poverty +right around her. You can’t compare that sort of woman with a +self-respecting, self-supporting girl—” + +At this moment the door opened and Miss Cox entered. She wore a +short-sleeved, low-neck, pink-satin blouse, a white-satin skirt, +open-work stockings, and slippers so high in the heels that her ankles +turned inward. Her hair was treated with henna and piled untidily on +the top of her head. She was exactly what Klein had described—a +self-respecting, self-supporting girl, but, on a superficial +acquaintance, men of Cord’s group would have thought quite as badly of +her as Klein did of fashionable women. They would have been mistaken. +Miss Cox supported her mother, and, though only seventeen, denied +herself all forms of enjoyment except dress and an occasional movie. +She was conscientious, hard-working, accurate, and virtuous. She loved +Ben, whom she regarded as wise, beautiful, and generous, but she would +have died rather than have him or anyone know it. + +She undulated into the room, dropped one hip lower than the other, +placed her hand upon it and said, with a good deal of enunciation: + +“Oh, Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty.” + +“Thank you very much, Miss Cox,” said Ben, gravely, and she went out +again. + +“It would be a terrible thing for Dave to make a marriage like that,” +Klein went on as soon as she had gone, “getting mixed up with those +fellows. And it would be bad for you, Ben—” + +“I don’t mean to get mixed up with them,” said Ben. + +“No, I mean having Dave do it. It would kill the paper; it would +endanger your whole position; and as for leadership, you could never +hope—” + + +[Illustration: “Mr. Moreton, the Newport Boat Leaves at Five-thirty”] + + +“Now, look here, Leo. You don’t think I can stop my brother’s marrying +because it might be a poor connection for me? The point is that it +wouldn’t be good for Dave—to be a poorly tolerated hanger-on. That’s +why I’m going hot-foot to Newport. And while I’m away do try to do +something about the book page. Get me a culture-hound—get one of these +Pater specialists from Harvard. Or,” he added, with sudden inspiration +when his hand was already on the door, “get a woman—she’d have a sense +of beauty and would know how to jolly Green into agreeing with her.” +And with this the editor was gone. + +It was the end of one of those burning weeks in August that New York +often knows. The sun went down as red as blood every evening behind the +Palisades, and before the streets and roofs had ceased to radiate heat +the sun was up again above Long Island Sound, as hot and red as ever. +As Ben went uptown in the Sixth Avenue Elevated he could see pale +children hanging over the railings of fire escapes, and behind them +catch glimpses of dark, crowded rooms which had all the disadvantages +of caves without the coolness. But to-day he was too concentrated on +his own problem to notice. + +Since Ben’s sixteenth year his brother David had been dependent on him. +Their father had been professor of economics in a college in that part +of the United States which Easterners describe as the “Middle West.” In +the gay days when muck-raking was at its height Professor Moreton had +lost his chair because he had denounced in his lecture room financial +operations which to-day would be against the law. At that time they +were well thought of, and even practiced by the eminent philanthropist +who had endowed the very chair which Moreton occupied. The trustees +felt that it was unkind and unnecessary to complicate their already +difficult duties by such tactlessness, and their hearts began to turn +against Moreton, as most of our hearts turn against those who make life +too hard for us. Before long they asked him to resign on account of his +age—he was just sixty and extremely vigorous; but immediately +afterward, having been deeply surprised and hurt, he did what Goldsmith +recommends to lovely woman under not dissimilar circumstances—he died. +He left his two young sons—he had married late in life—absolutely +unprovided for. Ben, the elder of the two, was sixteen, and just ready +for college; but he could not give four precious years to an academic +degree. He went to work. With the background of an educated environment +and a very sound knowledge of economic questions, breathed in from his +earliest days, he found a place at once on a new paper—or, rather, on +an old paper just being converted into a new organ of +liberalism—_Liberty_. It was independent in politics, and was supposed +to be independent in economic questions, but by the time Ben worked up +to the editorship it was well recognized to be an anticapitalist sheet. +The salary of its editor, though not large, was sufficient to enable +him to send his younger brother through college, with the result that +David, a little weak, a little self-indulgent, a little—partly through +physical causes—disinclined to effort, was now a poet, a classicist and +an instructor in a fresh-water college. Ben made him an allowance to +enable him to live—the college not thinking this necessary for its +instructors. But during the war Ben had not been able to manage the +allowance, because, to the surprise of many of his friends, Ben had +volunteered early. + +Although the reasons for doing this seemed absurdly simple to him, the +decision had been a difficult one. He was a pacifist—saw no virtue in +war whatsoever. He wished to convert others to his opinion—unlike many +reformers who prefer to discuss questions only with those who already +agree with them. He argued that the speeches of a man who had been +through war, or, better still, the posthumous writings of one who has +been killed in war, would have more weight with the public than the +best logic of one who had held aloof. But his radical friends felt that +he was using this argument merely as an excuse for choosing the easy +path of conformity, while the few ultraconservatives who mentioned the +matter at all assumed that he had been drafted against his will. +Afterward, when the war was over and his terrible book, _War_, +appeared, no one was pleased, for the excellent reason that it was +published at a moment when the whole world wanted to forget war +entirely. The pay of a private, however, had not allowed him to +continue David’s allowance, and so David, displaying unusual energy, +had found a job for himself as tutor for the summer to William Cord’s +son. Ben had not quite approved of a life that seemed to him slightly +parasitical, but it was healthy and quiet and, above everything, David +had found it for himself, and initiative was so rare in the younger man +that Ben could not bear to crush it with disapproval. + +Increasingly, during the two years he was in France, Ben was displeased +by David’s letters. The Cords were described as kindly, well-educated +people, fond one of another, considerate of the tutor, with +old-fashioned traditions of American liberties. Ben asked himself if he +would have been better pleased if David’s employers had been cruel, +vulgar, and blatant, and found the answer was in the affirmative. It +would, he thought, have been a good deal safer for David’s integrity if +he had not been so comfortable. + +For two summers Ben had made no protest, but the third summer, when the +war was over and the allowance again possible, he urged David not to go +back to Newport. David flatly refused to yield. He said he saw no +reason why he should go on taking Ben’s money when this simple way of +earning a full living was open to him. Wasn’t Ben’s whole theory that +everyone should be self-supporting? Why not be consistent? + +Ignorant people might imagine that two affectionate brothers could not +quarrel over an issue purely affectionate. But the Moretons did +quarrel—more bitterly than ever before, and that is saying a great +deal. With the extraordinary tenacity of memory that develops under +strong emotion, they each contrived to recall and to mention everything +which the other had done that was wrong, ridiculous, or humiliating +since their earliest days. They parted with the impression on David’s +part that Ben thought him a self-indulgent grafter, and on Ben’s side +that David thought him a bully solely interested in imposing his will +on those unfortunate enough to be dependent on him. + +It was after half past four when, having walked up five flights of +stairs, he let himself into his modest flat on the top floor of an +old-fashioned brownstone house. As he opened the door, he called, + +“Nora!” + +No beautiful partner of a free-love affair appeared, but an elderly +woman in spectacles who had once been Professor Moreton’s cook, and +now, doing all the housework for Ben, contrived to make him so +comfortable that the editor of a more radical paper than his own had +described the flat as “a bourgeois interior.” + +“Nora,” said Ben, “put something in my bag for the night—I’m going to +Newport in a few minutes.” + +He had expected a flood of questions, for Nora was no looker-on at +life, and he was surprised by her merely observing that she was glad he +was getting away from the heat. The truth was that she knew far more +about David than he did. She had consistently coddled David since his +infancy, and he told her a great deal. Besides, she took care of his +things when he was at Ben’s. She had known of sachets, photographs, and +an engraved locket that he wore on his watch-chain. She was no radical. +She had seen disaster come upon the old professor and attributed it, +not to the narrowness of the trustees, but to the folly of the +professor. She disapproved of most of Ben’s friends, and would have +despised his paper if she ever read it. The only good thing about it in +her estimation was, he seemed to be able “to knock a living out of +it”—a process which Nora regarded with a sort of gay casualness. She +did not blame him for making so little money and thus keeping her +housekeeping cramped, but she never in her own mind doubted that it +would be far better if he had more. The idea that David was about to +marry money seemed to her simply the reward of virtue—her own virtue in +bringing David up so well. She knew that Mr. Cord opposed the marriage, +but she supposed that Ben would arrange all that. She had great +confidence in Ben. Still he was very young, very young, so she gave him +a word of advice as she put his bag into his hand. + +“Don’t take any nonsense. Remember you’re every bit as good as they. +Only don’t, for goodness’ sake, Mr. Ben, talk any of your ideas to +them. A rich man like Mr. Cord wouldn’t like that.” + +Ben laughed. “How would you like me to bring you home a lovely heiress +of my own?” he said. + +She took a thread off his coat. “Only don’t let her come interfering in +my kitchen,” she said, and hurried him away. He had a good deal of +courage, but he had not enough to tell Nora he was going to Newport to +stop her darling’s marriage. + +The Newport boat gets to Newport about two o’clock in the morning, and +experienced travelers, if any such choose this method of approach, go +on to Fall River and take a train back to Newport, arriving in time for +a comfortable nine-o’clock breakfast. But Ben was not experienced, and +he supposed that when you took a boat for Newport and reached Newport +the thing to do was to get off the boat. + +It had been a wonderful night on the Sound, and Ben had not been to +bed, partly because, applying late on a Friday evening, he had not been +able to get a room, but partly because the moon and the southerly +breeze and the silver shores of Long Island and the red and white +lighthouses had been too beautiful to leave. Besides, he had wanted to +think out carefully what he was going to say to his brother. + +To separate a man from the woman he loves, however unwisely, has some +of the same disadvantages as offering a bribe—one respects the other +person less in proportion as one succeeds. What, Ben said to himself, +could he urge against a girl he did not know? Yet, on the other hand, +if he had known her, his objections would have seemed regrettably +personal. Either way, it was difficult to know what to say. He wondered +what Cord had said, and smiled to think that here was one object for +which he and Cord were co-operating—only Cord would never believe it. +That was one trouble with capitalists—they always thought themselves so +damned desirable. And Ben did not stop to inquire how it was that +capitalists had gained this impression. + +On the pier he looked about for David, but there was no David. Of +course the boy had overslept, or hadn’t received his telegram—Ben said +this to himself, but somehow the vision of David comfortably asleep in +a luxurious bed in the Cords’s house irritated him. + +His meditations were broken in upon by a negro boy with an open hack, +who volunteered to “take him up for fifty cents.” It sounded +reasonable. Ben got in and they moved slowly down the narrow pier, the +horses’ hoofs clumping lazily on the wooden pavement. Turning past the +alley of Thames Street, still alight at three o’clock in the morning, +Ben stopped at the suggestion of his driver and left his bag at a +hotel, and then they went on up the hill, past the tower of the +Skeleton in Armor, past old houses with tall, pillared porticoes, +reminiscent of the days when the South patronized Newport, and turned +into Bellevue Avenue—past shops with names familiar to Fifth Avenue, +past a villa with bright-eyed owls on the gateposts, past many large, +silent houses and walled gardens. + +The air was very cool, and now and then the scent of some flowering +bush trailed like a visible cloud across their path. Then suddenly the +whole avenue was full of little red lights, like the garden in “Faust” +when Mephistopheles performs his magic on it. Here and there the huge +headlights of a car shone on the roadway, magnifying every rut in the +asphalt, and bringing out strange, vivid shades in the grass and the +hydrangea bushes. They were passing a frowning palace set on a piece of +velvet turf as small as a pocket handkerchief—so small that the lighted +windows were plainly visible from the road. + +“Stop,” said Ben to his driver. He had suddenly realized how long it +must be before he could rouse the Cord household. + +He paid his driver, got out, and made his way up the driveway toward +the house. Groups of chauffeurs were standing about their +cars—vigorous, smartly dressed men, young for the most part. Ben +wondered if it were possible that they were content with the present +arrangement, and whether their wives and children were not stifling in +the city at that very moment. He caught a sentence here and there as he +passed. “And, believe me,” one was saying, “as soon as he got into the +box he did not do a thing to that fellar from Tiverton—” Ben’s +footsteps lagged a little. He was a baseball fan. He almost forgave the +chauffeurs for being content. They seemed to him human beings, after +all. + +He approached the house, and, walking past a narrow, unroofed piazza, +he found himself opposite a long window. He looked straight into the +ballroom. The ball was a fancy ball—the best of the season. It was +called a Balkan Ball, which gave all the guests the opportunity of +dressing pretty much as they pleased. The wood of the long paneled room +was golden, and softened the light from the crystal appliques along the +wall, and set off the bright dresses of the dancers as a gold bowl sets +off the colors of fruit. + +Every now and then people stepped out on the piazza, and as they did +they became audible to Ben for a few seconds. First, two middle-aged +men, solid, bronzed, laughing rather wickedly together. Ben drew back, +afraid of what he might overhear, but it turned out to be no very +guilty secret. “My dear fellow,” one was saying, “I gave him a stroke a +hole, and he’s twenty years younger than I am—well, fifteen anyhow. The +trouble with these young men is that they lack—” + +Ben never heard what it was that young men lacked. + +Next came a boy and a girl, talking eagerly, the girl’s hand +gesticulating at her round, red lips. Ben had no scruples in +overhearing them—theirs appeared to be the universal secret. But here +again he was wrong. She was saying: “Round and round—not up and down. +My dentist says that if you always brush them round and round—” + +Then two young men—boys, with cigarettes drooping from their lips; they +were saying, “I haven’t pitched a game since before the war, but he +said to go in and get that Tiverton fellow, and so—” Ben saw that he +was in the presence of the hero of the late game. He forgave him, too. + +As a matter of fact, he had never given the fashionable world enough +attention to hate it. He knew that Leo Klein derived a very revivifying +antagonism from reading about it, and often bought himself an entrance +to the opera partly because he loved music, but partly, Ben always +thought, because he liked to look up at the boxes and hate the +occupants for their jewels and inattention. But Ben watched the +spectacle with as much detachment as he would have watched a spring +dance among the Indians. + +And then suddenly his detachment melted away, for a lovely girl came +through the window—lovely with that particular and specific kind of +loveliness which Ben thought of when he used the word—_his_ kind. He +used to wonder afterward how he had known it at that first glimpse, +for, in the dim light of the piazza, he could not see some of her +greatest beauties—the whiteness of her skin, white as milk where her +close, fine, brown hair began, or the blue of the eyes set at an angle +which might have seemed Oriental in eyes less enchanting turquoise in +color. But he could see her slenderness and grace. She was dressed in +clinging blues and greens and she wore a silver turban. She leaned her +hands on the railings—she turned them out along the railings; they were +slender and full of character—not soft. Ben looked at the one nearest +him. With hardly more than a turn of his head he could have kissed it. +The idea appealed to him strongly; he played with it, just as when he +was a child in a college town he had played with the idea of getting up +in church and walking about on the backs of the pews. This would be +pleasanter, and the subsequent getaway even easier. He glanced at the +dark lawn behind him; there appeared to be no obstacle to escape. + +Perhaps, under the spell of her attraction for him, and the knowledge +that he would never see her again, he might actually have done it, but +she broke the trance by speaking to a tall, stolid young man who was +with her. + +“No, Eddie,” she said, as if answering something he had said some time +ago, “I really was at home, at just the time I said, only this new +butler does hate you so—” + +“You might speak to him about it—you might even get rid of him,” +replied the young man, in the tone of one deeply imposed upon. + +“Good butlers are so rare nowadays.” + +“And are devoted friends so easy to find?” + +“No, but a good deal easier than butlers, Eddie dear.” + +The young man gave an exclamation of annoyance. “Let us find some place +out of the way. I want to speak to you seriously—” he began, and they +moved out of earshot—presumably to a secluded spot of Eddie’s choosing. + +When they had gone Ben felt distinctly lonely, and, what was more +absurd, slighted, as if Eddie had deliberately taken the girl away from +him—out of reach. How silly, he thought, for Eddie to want to talk to +her, when it was so clear the fellow did not know how to talk to her. +How silly to say, in the sulky tone, “Are devoted friends so easy to +find?” Of course they were—for a girl like that—devoted friends, +passionate lovers, and sentimental idiots undoubtedly blocked her path. + +It might have been some comfort to him to know that in the remote spot +of his own choosing, a stone bench under a purple beech, Eddie was +simply going from bad to worse. + +“Dear Crystal,” he began, with that irritating reasonableness of manner +which implies that the speaker is going to be reasonable for two, “I’ve +been thinking over the situation. I know that you don’t love me, but +then I don’t believe you will ever be deeply in love with any one. I +don’t think you are that kind of woman.” + +“Oh, Eddie, how dreadful!” + +“I don’t see that at all. Just as well, perhaps. You don’t want to get +yourself into such a position as poor Eugenia.” + +“I do, I would. I’d give anything to be as much in love as Eugenia.” + +“What? With a fellow like that! A complete outsider.” + +“Outside of what? The human race?” + +“Well, no,” said Eddie, as if he were yielding a good deal, “but +outside of your traditions and your set.” + +“My set! Good for him to be outside of it, I say. What have they ever +done to make anyone want to be inside of it? Why, David is an educated +gentleman. To hear him quote Horace—” + +“Horace who?” + +“Really, Eddie.” + +“Oh, I see. You mean the poet. That’s nothing to laugh at, Crystal. It +was a natural mistake. I thought, of course, you meant some of those +anarchists who want to upset the world.” + +Crystal looked at him more honestly and seriously than she had yet +done. + +“Well, don’t you think there _is_ something wrong with the present +arrangement of things, Eddie?” + +“No, I don’t, and I hate to hear you talk like a socialist.” + +“I am a socialist.” + +“You’re nothing of the kind.” + +“I suppose I know what I am.” + +“Not at all—not at all.” + +“I certainly think the rich are too rich, while the poor are so +horridly poor.” + +“_You’d_ get on well without your maid and your car and your father’s +charge accounts at all the shops, wouldn’t you?” + +Though agreeable to talk seriously if you agree, it is correspondingly +dangerous if you disagree. Crystal stood up, trembling with an emotion +which Eddie, although he was rather angry himself, considered utterly +unaccountable. + +“Yes,” she said, almost proudly, “I _am_ luxurious, I _am_ dependent on +those things. But whose fault is that? It’s the way I was brought +up—it’s all wrong. But, even though I am dependent on them, I believe I +could exist without them. I’d feel like killing myself if I didn’t +think so. Sometimes I want to go away and find out if I couldn’t live +and be myself without all this background of luxury. But at the +worst—I’m just one girl—suppose I were weak and couldn’t get on without +them? That wouldn’t prove that they are right. I’m not so blinded that +I can’t see that a system by which I profit may still be absolutely +wrong. But you always seem to think, Eddie, that it’s part of the +Constitution of the United States that you should have everything +you’ve always had.” + +Eddie rose, too, with the manner of a man who has allowed things to go +far enough. “Look here, my dear girl,” he said, “I am a man and I’m +older than you, and have seen more of the world. I know you don’t mean +any harm, but I must tell you that this is very wicked, dangerous +talk.” + +“Dangerous, perhaps, Eddie, but I can’t see how it can be wicked to +want to give up your special privileges.” + +“Where in the world do you pick up ideas like this?” + +“I inherited them from an English ancestor of mine, who gave up all +that he had when he enlisted in Washington’s army.” + +“You got that stuff,” said Eddie, brushing this aside, “from David +Moreton, and that infernal seditious paper his brother edits—and that +white-livered book which I haven’t read against war. I’d like to put +them all in jail.” + +“It’s a pity,” said Crystal, “that your side can’t think of a better +argument than putting everyone who disagrees with you in jail.” + +With this she turned and left him, and, entering the ballroom, flung +herself into the arms of the first partner she met. It was a timid boy, +who, startled by the eagerness with which she chose him, with her +bright eyes and quickly drawn breath, was just coming to the conclusion +that a lovely, rich, and admired lady, had fallen passionately in love +with him, when with equal suddenness she stepped out of his arms and +was presently driving her small, open car down the avenue. + +Under the purple beech Eddie, left alone, sank back on the stone bench +and considered, somewhat as the persecutors of Socrates may have done, +suitable punishments for those who put vile, revolutionary ideas into +the heads of young and lovely women. + +In the meantime Ben, who had enjoyed the party more than most of the +invited guests, and far more than the disconsolate Eddie, had left his +vantage point at the window. He had suddenly become aware of a strange +light stealing under the trees, and, looking up, he saw with surprise +that the stars were growing small and the heavens turning +steel-color—in fact, that it was dawn. + +Convinced that sunrise was a finer sight than the end of the grandest +ball that ever was given, he made his way down a shabby back lane, and +before long came out on the edge of the cliffs, with the whole panorama +of sunrise over the Atlantic spread out before him. + +He stood there a moment, somebody’s close, well-kept lawn under his +feet, and a pale-pink sea sucking in and out on the rocks a hundred +feet below. The same hot, red sun was coming up; there wasn’t a steady +breeze, but cool salt puffs came to him now and then with a breaking +wave. It was going to be a hot day, and Ben liked swimming better than +most things in life. He hesitated. + +If he had turned to the left, he would have come presently to a public +beach and would have had his swim conventionally and in due time. But +some impulse told him to turn to the right, and he began to wander +westward along the edge of the cliffs—always on his left hand, space +and the sea, and on his right, lawns or gardens or parapets crowned by +cactus plants in urns, and behind these a great variety of +houses—French chateaux and marble palaces and nice little white +cottages, and, finally, a frowning Gothic castle. All alike seemed +asleep, with empty piazzas and closed shutters, and the only sign of +life he saw in any of them was one pale housemaid shaking a duster out +of a window in an upper gable. + +At last he came to a break in the cliffs—a cove, with a beach in it, a +group of buildings obviously bathing-houses. The sacredness of this +pavilion did not occur to Ben; indeed, there was nothing to suggest it. +He entered it light-heartedly and was discouraged to find the door of +every cabin securely locked. The place was utterly deserted. But Ben +was persistent, and presently he detected a bit of a garment hanging +over a door, and, pulling it out, he found himself in possession of a +man’s bathing suit. A little farther on he discovered a telephone room +unlocked. Here he undressed and a minute later was swimming straight +out to sea. + +The level rays of the sun were doing to the water just what the +headlights of the motors had done to the road; they were enlarging +every ripple and edging the deep purple-blue with yellow light. Except +for a fishing dory chunking out to its day’s work, Ben had the sea and +land to himself. He felt as if they were all his own, and, for a +socialist, was guilty of the sin of pride of possession. He was +enjoying himself so much that it was a long time before he turned to +swim back. + +He was swimming with his head under water most of the time so that he +did not at once notice that a raft he had passed on his way out was now +occupied. As soon as he did see it his head came up. It was a female +figure, and even from a distance he could see that she was unconscious +of his presence and felt quite as sure of having the world to herself +as he was. She was sitting on the edge of the raft, kicking a pair of +the prettiest legs in the world in and out of the water. They were clad +in the thinnest of blue-silk stockings, the same in which a few minutes +before she had been dancing, but not being able to find any others in +her bathhouse, she had just kept them on, recklessly ignoring the +inevitable problem of what she should wear home. She was leaning back +on her straightened arms, with her head back, looking up into the sky +and softly whistling to herself. Ben saw in a second that she was the +girl of the silver turban. + +He stole nearer and nearer, cutting silently through the water, and +then, when he had looked his fill, he put his head down again, splashed +a little, and did not look up until his hand was on the raft, when he +allowed an expression of calm surprise to appear on his face. + +“I beg your pardon,” he said. “Is this a private raft?” + +The young lady, who had had plenty of time since the splash to arrange +her countenance, looked at him with a blank coldness, and then suddenly +smiled. + +“I thought it was a private world,” she replied. + +“It’s certainly a very agreeable one,” said Ben, climbing on the raft. +“And what I like particularly about it is the fact that no one is alive +but you and me. Newport appears to be a city of the dead.” + +“It always was,” she answered, contemptuously. + +“Oh, come. Not an hour ago you were dancing in blue and green and a +silver turban at a party over there,” and he waved his hand in the +direction from which he had come. + +“Did you think it was a good ball?” + +“I enjoyed it,” he answered, truthfully. + +Her face fell. “How very disappointing,” she said. “I didn’t see you +there.” + +“Disappointing that you did not see me there?” + +“No,” she replied, and then, less positively; “No; I meant it was +disappointing that you were the kind of man who went to parties—and +enjoyed them.” + +“It would be silly to go if you didn’t enjoy them,” he returned, +lightly. + +She turned to him very seriously. “You’re right,” she said; “it is +silly—very silly, and it’s just what I do. I consider parties like that +the lowest, emptiest form of human entertainment. They’re dull; they’re +expensive; they keep you from doing intelligent things, like studying; +they keep you from doing simple, healthy things, like sleeping and +exercising; they make you artificial; they make you civil to people you +despise—they make women, at least, for we must have partners—” + +“But why do you go, then?” + +She was silent, and they looked straight and long at each other. Then +she said, gravely: + +“The answer’s very humiliating. I go because I haven’t anything else to +do.” + +He did not reassure her. “Yes, that’s bad,” he said, after a second. +“But of course you could not expect to have anything else to do when +all your time is taken up like that. ‘When the half gods go,’ you know, +‘the gods arrive.’” + +The quotation was not new to Crystal; in fact, she had quoted it to +Eddie not very long before, apropos of another girl to whom he had +shown a mild attention, but it seemed to her as if she took in for the +first time its real meaning. Whether it was the dawn, exhaustion, a +stimulating personality, love, or mere accident, the words now came to +her with all the beauty and truth of a religious conviction. They +seemed to shake her and make her over. She felt as if she could never +be sufficiently grateful to the person who had thus made all life fresh +and new to her. + +“Ah,” she said, very gently, “that’s it. I see. You won’t believe me, +but I assure you from now on I mean to be entirely different.” + +“Please, not too different.” + +“Oh yes, yes, as different as possible. I’ve been so unhappy, and +unhappy about nothing definite—that’s the worst kind, only that I have +not liked the life I was leading.” + +She glanced at him appealingly. She had tried to tell this simple story +to so many people, for she had many friends, and yet no one had ever +really understood. Some had told her she was spoiled, more, that there +was no use in trying to change her life because she would soon marry; +most of them had advised her to marry and find out what real trouble +was. Now, as she spoke she saw that this strange young man from the sea +not only understood her discontent, but thought it natural, almost +commonplace. + +She poured it all out. “Only the worst thing,” she ended, “is that I’m +not really any good. There isn’t anything else that I know how to do.” + +“I doubt that,” he answered, and she began to doubt it, too. “I’m sure +there are lots of things you could do if you put your mind on it. Did +you ever try to write?” + +Now, indeed, she felt sure that he was gifted with powers more than +mortal—to have guessed this secret which no one else had ever +suspected. She colored deeply. + +“Why, yes,” she answered, “I think I can—a little, only I’ve so little +education.” + +“So little education?” + +“Yes, I belong to the cultivated classes—three languages and nothing +solid.” + +“Well, you know, three languages seem pretty solid to me,” said Ben, +who had wrestled very unsuccessfully with the French tongue. “You speak +three languages, and let me see, you know a good deal about painting +and poetry and jade and Chinese porcelains?” + +She shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. “Oh, of course everyone +knows about those things, but what good are they?” + +They were a good deal of good to Ben. He pressed on toward his final +goal. “What is your attitude toward fairies?” he asked, and Miss Cox +would have heard in his tone a faint memory of his voice when he +engaged a new office-boy. + +Her attitude toward fairies was perfectly satisfactory, and he showed +so much appreciation that she went on and told him her great secret in +full. She had once had something published and been paid money for +it—fifteen dollars—and probably never in her life had she spoken of any +sum with so much respect. It had been, well, a sort of a review of a +new illustrated edition of Hans Andersen’s Tales, treating them as if +they were modern stories, commenting on them from the point of view of +morals and probability—making fun of people who couldn’t give +themselves up to the charm of a story unless it tallied with their own +horrid little experiences of life. She told it, she said, very badly, +but perhaps he could get the idea. + +He got it perfectly. “Good,” he said. “I’ll give you a job. I’m a +newspaper editor.” + +“Oh,” she exclaimed, “you’re not Mr. Munsey, are you, or Mr. Reid, or +Mr. Ochs?” + +Her knowledge of newspaper owners seemed to come to a sudden end. + +“No,” he answered, smiling, “nor even Mr. Hearst. I did not say I owned +a newspaper. I edit it. I need some one just like you for my book page, +only you’d have to come to New York and work hard, and there wouldn’t +be very much salary. Can you work?” + +“Anyone can.” + +“Well, will you?” + +“Indeed I will.” (It was a vow.) “And now I must go. I have to drive +myself home in an open car, and the tourists do stare at one so—in +fancy dress.” + +“Yes, but when am I to see you again? I leave Newport to-night.” + +“Telephone me—2079—and we’ll arrange to do something this afternoon.” + +“And whom shall I ask for?” + +“Telephone at two-fifteen to the minute, and I’ll answer the telephone +myself.” + +She evidently rather enjoyed the mystery of their not knowing each +other’s names. But a black idea occurred to Ben. She had slid off the +raft and swum a few strokes before he shouted to her: + +“Look here. Your name isn’t Eugenia, is it?” + +She waved her hand. “No, I’m Crystal,” she called back. + +“Good-by, Crystal.” + +This time she did not wave, but, swimming on her side with long, easy +strokes, she gave him a sweet, reassuring look. + +After she had gone he lay down on the raft with his face buried in his +arms. A few moments before he had thought he could never see enough of +the sunrise and the sea, but now he wanted to shut it out in favor of a +much finer spectacle within him. So this was love. Strange that no one +had ever been able to prepare you for it. Strange that poets had never +been able to give you a hint of its stupendous inevitability. He +wondered if all miracles were like that—so simple—so— + +Suddenly he heard her voice near him. He lifted his head from his arms. +She was there in the water below him, clinging to the raft with one +hand. + +“I just came back to tell you something,” she said. “I thought you +ought to know it before things went any farther.” + +He thought, “Good God! she’s in love with some one else!” and the +horror of the idea made him look at her severely. + +“I’m not perhaps just as I seem—I mean my views are rather liberal. In +fact”—she brought it out with an effort—“I’m almost a socialist.” + +The relief was so great that Ben couldn’t speak. He bent his head and +kissed the hand that had tempted him a few hours before. + +She did not resent his action. Her special technique in such matters +was to pretend that such little incidents hardly came into the realm of +her consciousness. She said, “At two-fifteen, then,” and swam away for +good. + +Later in the day a gentleman who owned both a bathing house and a +bathing suit on Bailey’s beach was showing the latter possession to a +group of friends. + +“No one can tell me that Newport isn’t damp,” he said. “I haven’t been +in bathing for twenty-four hours, and yet I can actually wring the +water out of my suit.” + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +That same morning, about ten o’clock, Mr. William Cord was shut up in +the study of his house—shut up, that is, as far as entrance from the +rest of the house was concerned, but very open as to windows looking +out across the grass to the sea. It was a small room, and the leather +chairs which made up most of its furnishings were worn, and the +bookshelves were filled with volumes like railroad reports and _Poor’s +Manual_, but somehow the total effect of the room was so agreeable that +the family used it more than Mr. Cord liked. + +He was an impressive figure, tall, erect, and with that suggestion of +unbroken health which had had something to do with his success in life. +His hair must have been of a sandy brown, for it had turned, not gray +nor white, but that queer no-color that sandy hair does turn, melting +into all pale surroundings. His long face was not vividly colored, +either, but was stamped with the immobility of expression that +sensitive people in contact with violent life almost always acquire. +The result was that there seemed to be something dead about his face +until you saw his eyes, dark and fierce, as if all the fire and energy +of the man were concentrated in them. + +He was dressed in gray golfing-clothes that smelled more of peat than +peat does, and, though officially supposed to be wrestling with the +more secret part of correspondence which even his own secretary was not +allowed to see, he was actually wiggling a new golf-club over the rug, +and toying with the romantic idea that it would enable him to drive +farther than he had ever driven before. + +There was a knock at the door. Mr. Cord leaned the driver in a corner, +clasped his hands behind his back, straddled his legs a trifle, so that +they seemed to grow out of the rug as the eternal oak grows out of the +sod, and said, “Come in,” in the tone of a man who, considering the +importance of his occupation, bears interruption exceedingly well. + +Tomes, the butler, entered. “Mr. Verriman, sir, to see you.” + +“To see _me_?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +Cord just nodded at this, which evidently meant that the visitor was to +be admitted, for Tomes never made a mistake and Verriman presently +entered. Mr. Cord had seen Eddie Verriman the night before at the ball, +and had thought him a very fine figure of a man, so now, putting two +and two together, he said to himself, “Is he here to ask my blessing?” + +Aloud he said nothing, but just nodded; it was a belief that had +translated itself into a habit—to let the other man explain first. + +“I know I’m interrupting you, Mr. Cord,” Verriman began. Mr. Cord made +a lateral gesture with his hand, as if all he had were at the disposal +of his friends, even his most precious asset—time. + +“It’s something very important,” Eddie went on. “I’m worried. I haven’t +slept. Mr. Cord, have you checked up Crystal’s economic beliefs +lately?” + +“Lately?” said Mr. Cord. “I don’t know that I ever have. Have a cigar?” + +Eddie waved the cigar aside as if his host had offered it to him in the +midst of a funeral service. + +“Well, I have,” he said, as if some one had to do a parent’s duty, “and +I’ve been very much distressed—shocked. I had a long talk with her +about it at the dance last night.” + +“About economics?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Why, Eddie, don’t I seem to remember your telling me you were in love +with Crystal?” + +“Yes, Mr. Cord, I am.” + +“Then what do you want to talk economics for? Or is it done like that +nowadays?” + +“I don’t want to,” answered Eddie, almost in a wail. “_She_ does. She +gets me going and then we quarrel because she has terrible opinions. +She talks wildly. I have to point out to her that she’s wrong. And last +night she told me”—Eddie glanced about to be sure he was not +overheard—“she told me that she was a socialist.” + +Mr. Cord had just lit the very cigar which Eddie had waved away, and he +took the first critical puffs at it before he answered: + +“Did you ask her what that was?” + +“No—no—I didn’t.” + +“Missed a trick there, Eddie.” + +It was impossible to accuse so masklike a magnate of frivolity, but +Eddie was often dissatisfied with Mr. Cord’s reactions to the serious +problems of life. + +“But don’t you think it’s terrible,” he went on, eagerly, “for Crystal +to be a socialist? In this age of the world—civilization trembling on +the brink—chaos”—Eddie made a gesture toward the perfectly ordered +shelves containing _Poor’s Manual_—“staring us in the face? You say +that the half-baked opinions of an immature girl make no difference?” + +“No, I shouldn’t say that—at least not to Crystal,” murmured her +father. + +“But the mere fact that she picks up such ideas proves that they are in +the air about us and that terrifies me—terrifies me,” ended Eddie, his +voice rising as he saw that his host intended to remain perfectly calm. + +“Which terrifies you, Eddie—Crystal or the revolution?” + +“The general discontent—the fact that civilization is tr—” + +“Oh yes, that,” said Mr. Cord, hastily. “Well, I wouldn’t allow that to +terrify me, Eddie. I should have more sympathy with ou if it had been +Crystal. Crystal is a good deal of a proposition, I grant you. The +revolution seems to me simpler. If a majority of our fellow countrymen +really want it, they are going to get it in spite of you and me; and if +they don’t want it, they won’t have it no matter how Crystal talks to +you at parties. So cheer up, Eddie, and have a cigar.” + +“They can, they will,” said Eddie, not even troubling to wave away the +cigar this time. “You don’t appreciate what an organized minority of +foreign agitators can do in this country. Why, they can—” + +“Well, if a minority of foreigners can put over a revolution against +the will of the American people, we ought to shut up shop, Eddie.” + +“You’re not afraid?” + +“No.” + +“You mean you wouldn’t fight it?” + +“You bet your life I’d fight it,” said Mr. Cord, gayly, “but I fight +lots of things without being afraid of them. What’s the use of being +afraid? Here I am sixty-five, conservative and trained to only one +game, and yet I feel as if _I_ could manage to make my own way even +under soviet rule. Anyway, I don’t want to die or emigrate just because +my country changes its form of government. Only it would have to be the +wish of the majority, and I don’t believe it ever will be. In the +meantime there is just one thing I _am_ afraid of—and that’s the thing +that you and most of my friends want to do first—suppressing free +speech; if you suppress it, we won’t know who wants what. Then you +really do get an explosion.” + +Eddie had got Mr. Cord to be serious now, with the unfortunate result +that the older man was more shocking than ever. + +“Free speech doesn’t mean treason and sedition,” Eddie began. + +“It means the other man’s opinion.” + +There was a pause during which Eddie became more perturbed and Mr. Cord +settled back to his habitual calm. + +“Wouldn’t you suppress _anything_?” Verriman asked at length, willing +to know the worst. “Not even such a vile sheet as _Liberty_?” + +“Do you ever see it, Eddie?” + +“Read a rotten paper like that? Certainly not. Do you?” + +“I subscribe to it.” And, bending down, Mr. Cord unlocked a drawer in +his desk and produced the issue of the preceding day. + +“I notice you keep it locked up,” said Eddie, and felt that he had +scored. + +“I have to,” replied Mr. Cord, “or else Crystal gets hold of it and +cuts it all up into extracts—she must have sent you some—before I get a +chance to read it. Besides, it shocks Tomes. You ought to talk to +Tomes, Eddie. He thinks about as you do—” + +At this moment the door opened and Tomes himself entered. + +“Mr. Moreton would like to see you, sir.” + +Even Cord’s calm was a little disturbed by this unexpected news. + +“Mr. Moreton!” he exclaimed. “Not—not—not—not?” + +“No, sir,” said Tomes, always in possession of accurate information. +“His brother, I believe.” + +“Show him in here,” said Cord, and added to Eddie, as Tomes left the +room: “Well, here he is—the editor himself, Eddie. You can say it all +to him.” + +“I don’t want to see such fellows,” Verriman began. + +“Stay and protect me, Eddie. He may have a bomb in his pocket.” + +“You don’t really believe that he’s come to—” + +“No, Eddie, I don’t. I think he’s come like young Lochinvar—to dance a +little late at the wedding. To try to persuade me to accept that lazy, +good-looking brother of his as a son-in-law. He’ll have quite a job +over that.” Then, as the door opened, Mr. Cord’s eyes concentrated on +it and his manner became a shade sharper. “Ah, Mr. Moreton, good +morning. Mr. Verriman—Mr. Moreton.” + +Ben was a good-looking young man, but it was his expression—at once +illuminated and determined—that made him unusual. And the effect of his +night and morning had been to intensify this, so that now, as he stood +a moment in the doorway, he was a very attractive and compelling +figure. + +“I came to see my brother, Mr. Cord,” he said, simply, “but I hear he’s +not here any more. If I could speak to you alone for a few minutes—” He +glanced at Eddie, whom he instantly recognized as the man who had not +known how to talk to the woman in the world best worth talking to. + +“Oh, you may speak before Mr. Verriman,” said Cord. “He knows the +situation—knows your brother—knows my children—knows about you. In +fact, we were just speaking about your paper when you came in. However, +I must tell you that Mr. Verriman doesn’t approve of _Liberty_. At +least, I believe I understood you right, Eddie.” And Mr. Cord, having +thus assured himself a few minutes to regain his poise, leaned back +comfortably in his chair. + +“What’s wrong with the paper, Mr. Verriman?” said Ben, pleasantly. + +Eddie did not love the adventure of mental combat, but he was no +coward. “It seems to me,” he said, “that it preaches such radical +changes in our government that it is seditious. To be frank, Mr. +Moreton, I think the government ought to suppress it.” + +“But we don’t break the law. The government can’t suppress us.” + +“Then the laws ought to be changed so that it can.” + +“That’s all we advocate, Mr. Verriman, the changing of the law. It +isn’t any more seditious for me to say it than for you to, is it?” + +Of course in Eddie’s opinion it was—much, much more seditious. Only +somehow it was a difficult point to make clear, if a person was so +wrongheaded he couldn’t see it for himself. The point was that he, +Eddie, was right in wanting the laws changed and Moreton was wrong. +Anyone, it seemed to Eddie, would agree to that, unless he happened to +agree with Moreton beforehand, and those were just the people who ought +to be deported, imprisoned, or even perhaps in rare instances, as +examples, strung up to lamp-posts. Only each time he tried to put these +very natural opinions in words, they kept sounding wrong and tyrannical +and narrow—qualities which Eddie knew he was entirely without. In order +to counteract this effect, he tried at first to speak very temperately +and calmly, but, unhappily, this only had the effect of making him +sound patronizing to Ben’s ears. + +In short, it was hardly to be expected that the discussion would be +amicable, and it was not. Each man began to be angry in his own way. +Eddie shouted a little, and Ben expressed himself with turns of phrase +quite needlessly insulting. Ben found Verriman’s assumption that the +profits of capital were bound up with patriotism, family life, and the +Christian religion almost as irritating as Verriman found Ben’s +assumption that the government of labor as a class would be entirely +without the faults that have always marked every form of class +government. + +“And suppose you got socialism,” said Eddie, at last, “suppose you did +divide everything up equally, don’t you suppose that in a few years the +clever, strong, industrious men would have it all in their own hands?” + +“Very likely,” said Ben, “but that would be quite a change from the +present arrangement, wouldn’t it?” + +Mr. Cord had a narrow escape from laughing out loud, which would have +cost him the friendship of the man with whom on the whole he really +agreed. He thought it was time to interfere. + +“This is very interesting, Mr. Moreton,” he said, “but I fancy it +wasn’t about the general radical propaganda that you came to see me.” + +“No,” said Ben, turning slowly. He felt as a dog feels who is dragged +out of the fight just as it begins to get exciting. “No, I came to see +you about this unfortunate engagement of my brother’s.” + +“Unfortunate?” asked Mr. Cord, without criticism. + +“I should consider it so, and I understand you do, too.” + +Cord did not move an eyelash; this was an absolutely new form of +attack. It had certainly never crossed his mind that any objection +could come from the Moreton family. + +“You consider it unfortunate?” said Eddie, as if it would be mere +insolence on Ben’s part to object to his brother’s marrying anyone. + +“Will you give me your reasons for objecting?” said Cord. + +Ben smiled. “You ought to understand them,” he said, “for I imagine +they’re pretty much the same as your own. I mean they are both founded +on class consciousness. I feel that it will be destructive to the +things I value most in David to be dependent on, or associated with, +the capitalistic group. Just as you feel it will be destructive to your +daughter to be married to a tutor—a fellow with radical views and a +seditious brother—” + +“One moment, one moment,” said Cord; “you’ve got this all wrong so far +as I’m concerned. I do most emphatically disagree with the radical +propaganda. I think the radical is usually just a man who hasn’t got +something he wants.” + +“And the conservative is a man who wants to keep something he’s got,” +said Ben, less hostilely than he had spoken to Eddie. + +“Exactly, exactly,” said Cord. “In ideality there isn’t much to choose +between them, but, generally speaking, I have more respect for the man +who has succeeded in getting something to preserve than for the man who +hasn’t got anything to lose.” + +“If their opportunities were equal.” + +“I say in general. There is not much to choose between the two types; +but there is in my opinion a shade in favor of the conservative on the +score of efficiency, and I am old-fashioned perhaps, but I like +efficiency. If it came to a fight, I should fight on the conservative +side. But this is all beside the point. My objections to your brother, +Mr. Moreton, are not objections to his group or class. They are +personal to him. Damned personal.” + +“You don’t like David?” + +“Why, he’s an attractive young fellow, but, if you’ll forgive my saying +so, Mr. Moreton, I don’t think he’s any good. He’s weak, he’s idle, he +entirely lacks that aggressive will that—whether we have your +revolution or not—is the only bulwark a woman has in this world. Why, +Mr. Moreton, you are evidently a very much more advanced and dangerous +radical than your brother, but I should not have half the objection to +you that I have to him. There is only one thing that makes a difference +in this world—character. Your brother hasn’t got it.” + +For an instant the perfect accuracy of Cord’s statements about David +left Ben silent. Then he pulled himself together and said, with a +firmness he did not wholly feel: + +“You hardly do David justice. He may not have great force, but he has +talent, great sweetness, no vices—” + +“Oh, quite, quite, quite, quite,” said Cord, with a gesture of his long +hand that should somehow have recalled to Ben the motion of a hand he +had recently kissed. + +“However,” said Ben, “there is no use in arguing about our differences. +The point is we are agreed that this marriage ought not to be. Let us +co-operate on that. Where could I find David? I believe if I could see +him I’d have some effect on him.” + +“You mean you could talk him out of marrying the girl he loves?” + +“I might make him see the folly of it.” + +“Well, I haven’t said anything as bad about your brother as that, Mr. +Moreton. But you do him injustice. You couldn’t talk him out of it, and +if you could, she’d talk him right back into it again. But there is one +thing to consider. I understand you make him an allowance. How about +stopping that?” + +“I wouldn’t consider that for a moment,” said Ben, with more temper +than he had so far shown. “I don’t make him that allowance so that I +can force him to do what I think best. I give it to him because he +needs it. I don’t believe in force, Mr. Cord.” + +“Oh yes, you do, Mr. Moreton.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“You were proposing to use a much more pernicious kind of force when +you proposed talking the boy out of his first love. However, to be +candid with you, I must tell you that the issue is dead. They ran off +yesterday and were married in Boston.” + +There was a short silence and then Ben moved toward the door. + +“Won’t you stay to lunch?” said Mr. Cord, politely. + +“Thank you, no,” said Ben. He wanted to be alone. Like all dominating +people who don’t get their own way in an altruistic issue, his feelings +were deeply wounded. He took his hat from the disapproving Tomes, and +went out to the sea to think. He supposed he was going to think about +David’s future and the terrible blow his paper had just received. + +As the door closed behind him, Eddie turned to Mr. Cord with a world of +reproach in his eyes. + +“Well,” he said, “I must say, sir, I think you were unnecessarily +gentle with that fellow.” + +“Seemed to me a fine young fellow,” said Mr. Cord. + +“Asking him to lunch,” said Eddie. + +“I did that for Crystal,” replied Cord, getting up and slapping his +pockets—a gesture which in some subconscious way he hoped would make +Eddie go home. “She’s always so keen to meet new people. If she heard +that the editor of _Liberty_ had been here while she was asleep and +that I had not tried to keep him for her to see—whew!—she would make a +scene.” + +“But she oughtn’t to see people like that,” protested Eddie, as if he +were trying to talk sense in a madhouse. “That was what I was just +explaining to you, Mr. Cord, when—” + +“So you were, Eddie, so you were,” said Mr. Cord. “Stay to lunch and +tell Crystal. Or, rather,” he added, hastily glancing at the clock, +“come back to lunch in an hour. I have to go now and see—” Mr. Cord +hesitated for the fraction of a second—“the gardener. If you don’t see +gardeners now and then and let them scold you about the weather and the +Lord’s arrangement of the seasons, they go mad and beat their wives. +See you later, Eddie,” and Mr. Cord stepped out through the French +window. It was only great crises like these that led him to offer +himself up to the attacks of his employees. + +A severe elderly man with a long, flat upper lip and side whiskers +immediately sprang apparently from the earth and approached him. He had +exactly the manner of resolute gloom that a small boy has when +something has gone wrong at school and he wants his mother to drag it +out of him. + +“Good morning, sir,” he said. + +“Morning, McKellar,” said Cord, gayly. “Everything’s all right, I +suppose.” + +McKellar shook his head. Everything was about as far from all right as +it well could be. The cook was a violent maniac who required peas to be +picked so young that they weren’t worth the picking. Tomes and his +footman were a band of malicious pirates who took pleasure in cutting +for the table the very buds which McKellar was cherishing for the +horticultural show. And as for the season—McKellar could not remember +such a devastatingly dry August since he was a lad at home. + +“Why, McKellar, we had rain two days ago.” + +“You wouldn’t call that little mist rain, sir.” + +“And last week a perfect downpour.” + +“Ah, that’s the kind doesn’t sink into the soil.” Looking up critically +at the heavens, McKellar expressed his settled conviction that in two +weeks’ time hardly a blade or a shrub would be alive in the island at +Newport. + +“Well, that will save us all a lot of trouble, McKellar,” said Mr. +Cord, and presently left his gloomy gardener. He had attained his +object. When he went back into the house, Eddie had gone, and he could +go back to his new driver in peace. + +He was not interrupted until ten minutes past one, when Crystal came +into the room, her eyes shining with exactly the same color that, +beyond the lawn, the sea was displaying. Unlike Eddie, she looked +better than in her fancy dress. She had on flat tennis shoes, a cotton +blouse and a duck skirt, and a russet-colored sweater. Miss Cox would +have rejected every item of her costume except the row of pearls, which +just showed at her throat. + +She kissed her father rapidly, and said: + +“Good morning, dear. Are you ready for breakfast—lunch I mean?” + +She was a little bit flustered for the reason that it seemed to her as +if any one would be able to see that she was an entirely different +Crystal from the one of the evening before, and she was not quite sure +what she was going to answer when her father said, as she felt certain +he must say at any moment, “My dear child, what has come over you?” + +He did not say this, however. He held out his golf-club and said, “Got +a new driver.” + +“Yes, yes, dear, very nice,” said Crystal. “But I want to have lunch +punctually, to-day.” + +Mr. Cord sighed. Crystal wasn’t always very sympathetic. “I’m ready,” +he said, “only Eddie’s coming.” + +“_Eddie!_” exclaimed Crystal, drawing her shoulders up, as if at the +sight of a cobra in her path. “Why is Eddie coming to lunch? I did not +ask him.” + +“No, my dear, I took that liberty,” replied her father. “It seemed the +only way of getting rid of him.” + +“Well, I sha’n’t wait for him,” said Crystal, ringing the bell. “I have +an engagement at a quarter past two.” + +“At the golf club?” asked her father, his eye lighting a little. “You +might drive me out, you know.” + +“No, dear; quite in the other direction—with a man who was at the party +last night.” + +“You enjoyed the party?” + +“No, not a bit.” + +“But you stayed till morning.” + +“I stopped and took a swim.” + +“You enjoyed that, I suppose?” + +His daughter glanced at him and turned crimson; but she did not have to +answer, for at that moment Tomes came, in response to her ring, and she +said: + +“We won’t wait lunch for Mr. Verriman, Tomes.” Then, as he went away, +she asked, “And what was Eddie doing here this morning, anyhow?” + +“He was scolding me,” replied Mr. Cord. “Have you noticed, Crystal, +what a lot of scolding is going on in the world at present? I believe +that that is why no one is getting any work done—everyone is so busy +scolding everybody else. The politicians are scolding, and the +newspapers are scolding, and most of the fellows I know are scolding. I +believe I’ve got hold of a great truth—” + +“And may I ask what Eddie was scolding about?” asked Crystal, no more +interested in great truths than most of us. + +“About you.” + +Crystal moved her head about as if things had now reached a point where +it wasn’t even worth while to be angry. “About me?” + +“It seems you’re a socialist, my dear. Eddie asked me how long it was +since I had taken an inventory of your economic beliefs. I could not +remember that I ever had, but perhaps you will tell them to me now. +That is,” Mr. Cord added, “if you can do it without scolding +me—probably an impossible condition to impose nowadays.” + +“It’s a pity about Eddie,” said Crystal, fiercely. “If only stupid +people would be content to be stupid, instead of trying to run the +world—” + +“Ah, my dear, it’s only stupid people who are under the impression that +they can. Good morning again, Eddie, we were just speaking of you.” + +Mr. Cord added the last sentence without the slightest change of tone +or expression as his guest was ushered in by Tomes, who, catching +Crystal’s eyes for a more important fact than Eddie’s arrival, murmured +that luncheon was served. + +“Well, Eddie,” said Crystal, and there was a sort of gay vibration in +her whole figure, and her tone was like a bright banner of war, “and so +you came round to complain to my father, did you?” + +Mr. Cord laid his hand on her shoulder. “Do you think you could +demolish Eddie just as well at table, my dear?” he said. “If so, +there’s no use in letting the food get cold.” + +“Oh, she can do it anywhere,” replied Eddie, bitterly, and then, +striking his habitual note of warning, he went on, “but, honestly, +Crystal, if you had heard what your father and I heard this morning—” + +“I had a visit from David’s brother this morning,” put in Mr. Cord, +“the editor of your favorite morning paper.” + +“Ben Moreton, here! Oh, _father_, why didn’t you call me? Yes, I know,” +she added, as her father opened his mouth to say that she had left most +particular instructions that she was to be allowed to sleep as late as +she could, “I know, but you must have known I should have wanted to +look David’s brother over. Has he long hair? Does he wear a soft tie? +Did you hate him?” + +“Eddie didn’t take much of a fancy to him.” + +“I should say not. A damned, hollow-eyed fanatic.” + +“Is he as good-looking as David, father? What does he look like?” + +Mr. Cord hesitated. “Well, a little like my engraving of Thomas +Jefferson as a young man.” + +“He looks as if he might have a bomb in his pocket.” + +“Oh, Eddie, do keep quiet, there’s a dear, and let father give me one +of his long, wonderful accounts. Go ahead, father.” + +“Well,” said Mr. Cord, helping himself from a dish that Tomes was +presenting to him, “as I told you, Eddie had dropped in very kindly to +scold me about you, when Tomes announced Mr. Moreton. Tomes thought he +ought to be put straight out of the house. Didn’t you, Tomes?” + +“No, sir,” said Tomes, who was getting used to his employer, although +he did not encourage this sort of thing, particularly before the +footmen. + +“Well, Moreton came in and said, very simply—” + +“Has he good manners, father?” + +“He has no manners at all,” roared Eddie. + +“Oh, how nice,” said Crystal, of whom it might be asserted without +flattery that she now understood in perfection the art of irritating +Eddie. + +“He is very direct and natural,” her father continued. “He has a lot +more punch than your brother-in-law, my dear. In fact, I was rather +impressed with the young fellow until he and Eddie fell to quarreling. +Things did not go so well, then.” + +“You mean,” said Crystal, the gossip rather getting the best of the +reformer in her, “that he lost his temper horribly?” + +“I should say he did,” said Eddie. + +“Well, Eddie, you know you were not perfectly calm,” answered Cord. +“Let us say that they both lost their tempers, which is strange, for as +far as I could see they were agreed on many essentials. They both +believe that one class in the community ought to govern the other. They +both believe the world is in a very bad way; only, according to Eddie, +we are going to have chaos if capital loses its control of the +situation; and according to Moreton we are going to have chaos if labor +doesn’t get control. So, as one or the other seems bound to happen, we +ought to be able to adjust ourselves to chaos. In fact, Crystal, I have +been interviewing McKellar about having a chaos cellar built in the +garden.” + +Eddie pushed back his plate; it was empty, but the gesture suggested +that he could not go on choking down the food of a man who joked about +such serious matters. + +“I must say, Mr. Cord,” he began, “I really must say—” He paused, +surprised to find that he really hadn’t anything that he must say, and +Crystal turned to her father: + +“But you haven’t told me why he came. To see Eugenia, I suppose?” + +“No; he hadn’t heard of the marriage. He came to talk to his brother.” + +“For you must know,” put in Eddie, hastily, “that Mr. Ben Moreton does +not approve of the marriage—oh, dear, no. He would consider such a +connection quite beneath his family. He disapproves of Eugenia as a +sister-in-law.” + +“How could any one disapprove of her?” asked her sister, hotly. + +“Jevver hear such nerve?” said Eddie. + +“It’s not Eugenia; it’s capital Moreton disapproves of,” Mr. Cord went +on, patiently explaining. “You see it never crossed our minds that the +Moretons might object, but of course they do. They regard us as a very +degrading connection. Doubtless it will hurt Ben Moreton with his +readers to be connected with a financial pirate like myself, quite as +much as it will hurt me in the eyes of most of my fellow board members +when it becomes known that my son-in-law’s brother is the editor of +_Liberty_.” + +“The Moretons disapprove,” repeated Crystal, to whom the idea was not +at all agreeable. + +“Disapprove, nonsense!” said Eddie. “I believe he came to blackmail +you. To see what he could get out of you if he offered to stop the +marriage. Well, why not? If these fellows believe all the money ought +to be taken away from the capitalists, why should they care how it’s +done? I can’t see much difference between robbing a man, and +legislating his fortune out of—” + +“Well, I must tell you, father dear,” said Crystal, exactly as if Eddie +had not been speaking, “that I think it was horrid of you not to have +me called when you must have known—” + +“Crystal, you’re scolding me,” wailed her father. “And most unjustly. I +did ask him to lunch just for your sake, although I saw Eddie was +shocked, and I was afraid Tomes would give warning. But I did ask him, +only he wouldn’t stay.” + +Crystal rose from the table with her eye on the clock, and they began +to make their way back to Mr. Cord’s study, as she asked: + +“Why wouldn’t he stay?” + +“I gathered because he didn’t want to. Perhaps he was afraid he’d have +to argue with Eddie about capital and labor all through lunch. And of +course he did not know that I had another beautiful daughter sleeping +off the effects of a late party, or very likely he would have +accepted.” + +Very likely he would. + +Just as they entered the study, the telephone rang. Crystal sprang to +the instrument, brushing away her father’s hand, which had moved toward +it. + +“It’s for me, dear,” she said, and continued, speaking into the +mouthpiece: “Yes, it’s I.” (A pause.) “Where are you?... Oh, yes, I +know the place. I’ll be there in five minutes, in a little blue car.” +She hung up the receiver, sprang up, and looked very much surprised to +see Eddie and her father still there just as before. “Good-by, Eddie,” +she said, “I’m sorry, but I have an engagement. Good-by, father.” + +“You don’t want to run me out to the golf club first?” + +“Not possible, dear. The chauffeur can take you in the big car.” + +“Yes, but he’ll scold me all the way about there not being room enough +in the garage.” + +Crystal was firm. “I’m sorry, but I can’t, dear. This is important. I +may take a job. I’ll tell you all about it this evening.” And she left +the room, with a smile that kept getting entirely beyond her control. + +“What’s this? What’s this?” cried Eddie as the door shut. “A job. You +wouldn’t let Crystal take a job, would you, Mr. Cord?” + +“I haven’t been consulted,” said Mr. Cord, taking out his new driver +again. + +“But didn’t you notice how excited she was. I’m sure it’s decided.” + +“Yes, I noticed, Eddie; but it looked to me more like a man than a job. +How do you think we’d come out if I gave you a stroke and a half a +hole?” + +Eddie was too perturbed even to answer. + +In the meantime, Crystal was spinning along Bellevue Avenue, forgetting +to bow to her friends, and wondering why the car was going so badly +until, her eye falling on the speedometer, she noticed that she was +doing a mild thirty-five miles an hour. Sooner, therefore, than the law +allowed, she reached a small park that surrounds a statue of Perry, and +there she picked up a passenger. + +Ben got in and shut the little door almost before she brought the car +to a standstill. + +“When you were little,” he said, “did you ever imagine something +wonderful that might happen—like the door’s opening and a delegation +coming to elect you captain of the baseball team, or whatever is a +little girl’s equivalent of that—and keep on imagining it and imagining +it, until it seemed as if it really were going to happen? Well, I have +been standing here saying to myself, Wouldn’t it be wonderful if +Crystal should come in a little blue car and take me to drive? And, by +Heaven! you’ll never believe me, but she actually did.” + + +[Illustration: “I’ll Be There in Five Minutes, In a Little Blue Car”] + + +“Tell me everything you’ve done since I saw you,” she answered. + +“I haven’t done anything but think about you. Oh yes, I have, too. I’ve +reappraised the universe. You see, you’ve just made me a present of a +brand-new world, and I’ve been pretty busy, I can tell you, untying the +string and unwrapping the paper, and bless me, Crystal, it looks like a +mighty fine present so far.” + +“Oh,” she said, “I think you talk charmingly.” She had started to say, +“you make love charmingly,” but on second thoughts decided that the +overt statement had better come from him. “Dear me,” she went on, “we +have so much to talk about. There’s my job. Can’t we talk a little +about that?” + +They could and did. Their talk consisted largely in his telling her how +much richer a service she could render his paper through having been +unconsciously steeped in beauty than if she had been merely +intellectually instructed—than if, as she more simply put it, she had +known something. And as he talked, her mind began to expand in the warm +atmosphere of his praise and to give off its perfume like a flower. + +But the idea of her working with him day after day, helping the +development of the paper which had grown as dear as a child to him, was +so desirable that he did not dare to contemplate it unless it promised +realization. + +“Oh,” he broke out, “you won’t really do it. Your family will object, +or something. Probably when I go away to-night, I shall never see you +again.” + +“You are still going away to-night?” + +“I must.” + +She looked at him and slowly shook her head, as a mother shakes her +head at the foolish plans of a child. + +“I thought I was going,” he said, weakly. + +“Why?” + +He groaned, but did not answer. + +She thought, “Oh, dear, I wish when men want to be comforted they would +not make a girl spend so much time and energy getting them to say that +they do want it.” Aloud she said: + +“You must tell me what’s the matter.” + +“It’s a long story.” + +“We have all afternoon.” + +“That’s it—we haven’t all eternity.” + +“Oh, eternity,” said Crystal, dismissing it with the Cord wave of the +hand. “Who wants eternity? ‘Since we must die how bright the starry +track,’ you know.” + +“No; what is that?” + +“I don’t remember.” + +“Oh.” + +After this meeting of minds they drove for some time in silence. Ben +was seeing a new aspect of Newport—bare, rugged country, sandy roads, a +sudden high rock jutting out toward the sea, a rock on which tradition +asserts that Bishop Berkeley once sat and considered the illusion of +matter. They stopped at length at the edge of a sandy beach. Crystal +parked her car neatly with a sharp turn of the wheel, and got out. + +“There’s a tea basket,” she called over her shoulder. + +Ben’s heart bounded at the news—not that he was hungry, but as the hour +was now but little past half after two a tea basket indicated a +prolonged interview. He found it tucked away in the back of the car, +and followed her. They sat down at the edge of the foam. He lit a pipe, +clasped his hands about his knees and stared out to sea; she curled her +feet backward, grasped an ankle in her hand, and, looking at him, said: + +“Now what makes you groan so?” + +“I haven’t meant to be dishonest,” he said, “but I have been obtaining +your friendship—trying to—under false pretenses.” + +“Trying to?” said Crystal. “Now isn’t it silly to put that in.” + +He turned and smiled at her. She was really incredibly sweet. “But, all +the same,” he went on, “there is a barrier, a real, tangible barrier +between us.” + +Crystal’s heart suffered a chill convulsion at these words. “Good +gracious!” she thought. “He’s entangled with another woman—oh +dear!—_marriage_”—But she did not interrupt him, and he continued: + +“I let you think that I was one of the men you might have known—that I +was asked to your party last night, whereas, as a matter of fact, I +only watched you—” + +Crystal’s mind, working with its normal rapidity, invented, faced, and +passed over the fact that he must have been one of the musicians. She +said aloud: + +“I think I ought to tell you that I’m not much of a believer in +barriers—between sensible people who want friendship.” + +“Friendship!” exclaimed Ben, as if that were the last thing he had come +out on a lovely summer afternoon to discuss. + +“There aren’t any real barriers any more,” Crystal continued. +“Differences of position, and religion, and all those things don’t seem +to matter now. Romeo and Juliet wouldn’t have paid any attention to the +little family disagreement if they had lived to-day.” + +“In the case of Romeo and Juliet, if I remember correctly,” said Ben, +“it was not exactly a question of friendship.” + +She colored deeply, but he refused to modify his statement, for, after +all, it was correct. “But difference of opinion _is_ an obstacle,” he +went on. “I have seen husbands and wives parted by differences of +opinion in the late war. And as far as I’m concerned there’s a war on +now—a different war, and I came here to try to prevent my brother +marrying into an enemy influence—” + +“Good Heavens!” cried Crystal. “You are Ben Moreton! Why didn’t I see +it sooner? I’m Crystal Cord,” and, lifting up her chin, she laughed. + +That she could laugh as the gulf opened between them seemed to him +terrible. He turned his head away. + +She stopped laughing. “You don’t think it’s amusing?” (He shook his +head.) “That we’re relations-in-law, when we thought it was all so +unknown and romantic? No wonder I felt at home with you, when I’ve read +so many of your letters to David—such nice letters, too—and I subscribe +to your paper, and read every word of the editorials. And to think that +you would not lunch with me to-day, when my father asked you.” + +“To think that it was you I was being asked to lunch with, and didn’t +know it!” + +“Well, you dine with us to-morrow,” she answered, stating a simple +fact. + +“Crystal,” he said, and put his hand on hers as if this would help him +through his long explanation; but the continuity of his thought was +destroyed and his spirit wounded by her immediately withdrawing it; and +then—so exactly does the spring of love resemble the uncertain glory of +an April day—he was rendered perfectly happy again by perceiving that +her action was due to the publicity of their position and not to +repugnance to the caress. + +Fortunately he was a man not without invention, and so when a few +minutes later she suggested opening the tea basket, he insisted on +moving to a more retired spot on the plea that the teakettle would burn +better out of the wind; and Crystal, who must have known that Tomes +never gave her a teakettle, but made the tea at home and put it in a +thermos bottle, at once agreed to the suggestion. + +They moved back across the road, where irregular rocks sheltered small +plots of grass and wild flowers, and here, instead of an Arcadian duet, +they had, most unsuitably, their first quarrel. + +It began as quarrels are so apt to do, by a complete agreement. Of +course he would stay over the next day, which was Sunday, and not very +busy in the office of _Liberty_. In return he expected her undivided +attention. She at once admitted that this was part of the plan—only +there would have to be one little exception; she was dining out this +evening. Oh, well, that could be broken, couldn’t it? She would like to +break it, but it happened to be one of those engagements that had to be +kept. Ben could not understand that. + +At first she tried to explain it to him: She had chosen her own evening +several weeks ago with these people, who wanted her to meet a friend of +theirs who was motoring down specially from Boston. She felt she must +keep her word. + +“I assure you I don’t want to, but you understand, don’t you?” + +If she had looked at his face she would not have asked the last +question. He did not understand; indeed, he had resolved not to. + +“No,” he said, “I must own, I don’t. If you told me that you _wanted_ +to go, that would be one thing. I shouldn’t have a word to say then.” + +“Oh yes, you would, Ben,” said Crystal, but he did not notice her. + +“I can’t understand your allowing yourself to be dragged there against +your will. You say you despise this life, but you seem to take it +pretty seriously if you can’t break any engagement that you may make.” + +“How absurd you are! Of course I often break engagements.” + +“I see. You do when the inducement is sufficient. Well, that makes it +all perfectly clear.” + +She felt both angry and inclined to cry. She knew that to yield to +either impulse would instantly solve the problem and bring a very +unreasonable young man to reason. She ran over both scenes in her +imagination. Registering anger, she would rise and say that, really, +Mr. Moreton, if he would not listen to her explanation there was no use +in prolonging the discussion. That would be the critical moment. He +would take her in his arms then and there, or else he would let her go, +and they would drive in silence, and part at the little park, where of +course she might say, “Aren’t you silly to leave me like this?”—only +her experience was that it was never very practical to make up with an +angry man in public. + +To burst into tears was a safer method, but she had a natural +repugnance to crying, and perhaps she was subconsciously aware that she +might be left, after the quarrel was apparently made up by this method, +with a slight resentment against the man who had forced her to adopt so +illogical a line of conduct. + +A middle course appealed to her. She laid her hand on Ben’s. A few +minutes before it would have seemed unbelievable to Ben that his own +hand would have remained cold and lifeless under that touch, but such +was now the case. + +“Ben,” she said, “if you go on being disagreeable a second longer you +must make up your mind how you will behave when I burst into tears.” + +“How I should behave?” + +She nodded. + +His hands clasped hers. He told her how he should behave. He even +offered to show her, without putting her to the trouble of tears. + +“You mean,” she said, “that you would forgive me? Well, forgive me, +anyhow. I’m doing what I think is right about this old dinner. Perhaps +I’m wrong about it; perhaps you’re mistaken and I’m not absolutely +perfect, but if I were, think what a lot of fun you would miss in +changing me. And you know I never meant to abandon you for the whole +evening. I’ll get away at half past nine and we’ll take a little turn.” + +So that was settled. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +As they drove back she revealed another plan to him—she was taking him +for a moment to see a friend of hers. He protested. He did not want to +see anyone but herself, but Crystal was firm. He must see this woman; +she was their celebrated parlor Bolshevist. Ben hated parlor +Bolshevists. Did he know any? No. Well, then. Anyhow, Sophia would +never forgive her if she did not bring him. Sophia adored celebrities. +Sophia who? Sophia Dawson. The name seemed dimly familiar to Ben, and +then he remembered. It was the name on the thousand-dollar check for +the strike sufferers that had come in the day before. + +They drove up an avenue of little oaks to a formidable palace built of +gray stone, so smoothly faced that there was not a crevice in the +immense pale façade. Two men in knee-breeches opened the double doors +and they went in between golden grilles and rows of tall white lilies. +They were led through a soundless hall, and up stairs so thickly +carpeted that the feet sank in as in new-fallen snow, and finally they +were ushered through a small painted door into a small painted room, +which had been brought all the way from Sienna, and there they found +Mrs. Dawson—a beautiful, worn, world-weary Mrs. Dawson, with one streak +of gray in the front of her dark hair, her tragic eyes, and her long +violet and black draperies—a perfect Sibyl. + +Crystal did not treat her as a Sibyl, however. “Hullo, Sophie!” she +said. “This is my brother-in-law’s brother, Ben Moreton. He’s crazy to +meet you. You’ll like him. I can’t stay because I’m dining somewhere or +other, but he’s not.” + +“Will he dine with me?” said Mrs. Dawson in a wonderful deep, slow +voice—“just stay on and dine with me alone?” + +Ben began to say that he couldn’t, but Crystal said yes, that he would +be delighted to, and that she would stop for him again about half past +nine, and that it was a wonderful plan, and then she went away. + +Mrs. Dawson seemed to take it all as a matter of course. “Sit down, Mr. +Moreton,” she said. “I have a quarrel with you.” + +Ben could not help feeling a little disturbed by the way he had been +injected into Mrs. Dawson’s evening without her volition. He did not +sit down. + +“You know,” he said, “there isn’t any reason why you should have me to +dine just because Crystal says so. I do want to thank you for the check +you sent in to us for the strike fund. It will do a lot of good.” + +“Oh, that,” replied Mrs. Dawson. “They are fighting all our battles for +us.” + +“It cheered us up in the office. I wanted to tell you, and now I think +I’ll go. I dare say you are dining out, anyhow—” + +Her eyes flashed at him. “Dining out!” she exclaimed, as if the +suggestion insulted her. “You evidently don’t know me. I never dine +out. I have nothing in common with these people. I lead a very lonely +life. You do me a favor by staying. You and I could exchange ideas. +There is no one in Newport whom I can talk to—reactionaries.” + +“Miss Cord is not exactly a reactionary,” said Ben, sitting down. + +Mrs. Dawson smiled. “Crystal is not a reactionary; Crystal is a child,” +she replied. “But what can you expect of William Cord’s daughter? He is +a dangerous and disintegrating force—cold—cynical—he feels not the +slightest public responsibility for his possessions.” Mrs. Dawson laid +her hand on her heart as if it were weighted with all her jewels and +footmen and palaces. “Most Bourbons are cynical about human life, but +he goes farther; he is cynical about his own wealth. And that brings me +to my quarrel with you, Mr. Moreton. How could you let your brother +spend his beautiful vigorous youth as a parasite to Cord’s vapid son? +Was that consistent with your beliefs?” + +This attack on his consistency from a lady whose consistency seemed +even more flagrant amused Ben, but as he listened he was obliged to +admit that there was a great deal of good sense in what she had to say +about David, whom she had met once or twice at the Cords’. Ben was too +candid and eager not to ask her before long the question that was in +his mind—how it was possible for a woman holding her views to be +leading a life so opposed to them. + +She was not at all offended, and even less at a loss for an answer. “I +am not a free agent, Mr. Moreton,” she said. “Unhappily, before I began +to think at all, I had undertaken certain obligations. The law allows a +woman to dispose of everything but her property while she is still a +child. I married at eighteen.” + +It was a story not without interest and Mrs. Dawson told it well. There +does not live a man who would not have been interested. + +They dined, not in the great dining room downstairs, nor even in the +painted room from Sienna, but in a sort of loggia that opened from it, +where, beyond the shaded lights, Ben could watch the moon rise out of +the sea. + +It was a perfect little meal, short, delicious, and quickly served by +three servants. He enjoyed it thoroughly, although he found his hostess +a strangely confusing companion. He would make up his mind that she was +a sincere soul captured by her environment, when a freshly discovered +jewel on her long fingers would shake his faith. And he would just +decide that she was a melodramatic fraud, when she would surprise him +by her scholarly knowledge of social problems. She had read deeply, +knew several languages, and had known many of the European leaders. +Such phrases as “Jaurès wrote me ten days before he died—” were +frequent, but not too frequent, on her lips. + +By the time Crystal stopped for him Ben had begun to feel like a child +who has lost his mother in a museum, or as Dante might have felt if he +had missed Virgil from his side. When he bade Mrs. Dawson good night, +she asked him to come back. + +“Come and spend September here,” she said, as if it were a small thing. +“You can work all day if you like. I sha’n’t disturb you, and you need +never see a soul. It will do you good.” + +He was touched by the invitation, but of course he refused it. He tried +to explain tactfully, but clearly, why it was that he couldn’t do that +sort of thing—that the editor of _Liberty_ did not take his holiday at +Newport. + +She understood, and sighed. “Ah, yes,” she said. “I’m like that man in +mythology whom neither the sky nor the earth would receive. I’m very +lonely, Mr. Moreton.” + +He found himself feeling sorry for her, as he followed a footman +downstairs, his feet sinking into the carpets at each step. Crystal in +the blue car was at the door. She was bareheaded and the wind had been +blowing her hair about. + +“Well,” she said, as he got in, “did you have a good time? I’m sure you +had a good dinner.” + +“Excellent, but confusing. I don’t quite get your friend.” + +“You don’t understand Sophia?” Crystal’s tone expressed surprise. “You +mean her jewels and her footmen? Why, Ben, it’s just like the fathers +of this country who talked about all men being equal and yet were +themselves slaveholders. She sincerely believes those things in a way, +and then it’s such a splendid role to play, and she enjoys that; and +then it teases Freddie Dawson. Freddie is rather sweet if he’s +thoroughly unhappy, and this keeps him unhappy almost all the time. Did +she ask you to stay? I meant her to.” + +“Yes, she did; but of course I couldn’t.” + +“Oh, Ben, why not?” + +This brought them once more to the discussion of the barrier. This time +Ben felt he could make her see. He said that she must look at it this +way—that in a war you could not go and stay in enemy country, however +friendly your personal relations might be. Well, as far as he was +concerned this was a war, a class war. + +They were headed for the Ocean Drive, and Crystal rounded a sharp turn +before she answered seriously: + +“But I thought you didn’t believe in war.” + +“I don’t,” he answered. “I hate it—I hate all violence. We—labor, I +mean—didn’t initiate this, but when men won’t see, when they have power +and won’t stop abusing it, there is only one way to make—” + +“Why, Ben,” said Crystal, “you’re just a pacifist in other people’s +quarrels, but as militaristic as can be in your own. I’m not a +pacifist, but I’m a better one than you, because I don’t believe in +emphasizing any difference between human beings. That’s why I want a +League of Nations. I hate gangs—all women really do. Little girls don’t +form gangs like little boys. Every settlement worker knows that. I +won’t have you say that I belong to the other group. I won’t be +classified. I’m a human being—and I intend to behave as such.” + +Since she had left him she had been immersed again in her old life—her +old friends—and the result had been to make her wonder if her +experience with Ben had been as wonderful as it had seemed. When she +stopped for him she had been almost prepared to find that the wild joy +of their meetings had been something accidental and temporary, and that +only a stimulating and pleasant friendship was left. But as soon as she +saw that he really regarded their differences seriously, all her own +prudence and doubt melted away. She knew she was ready to make any +sacrifices for him, and in view of that all talk of obstacles was +folly. + +She stopped the car on the point of the island, with the open sea on +one hand, the harbor on the other. In front of them the lightship was +moving with a slow, majestic roll, and to the right was the long +festoon of Narragansett lights, and as they stopped the lighted bulk of +the New York boat appeared, making its way toward Point Judith. + +His prolonged silence began to frighten her. + +“Ben,” she said, “do you seriously mean that you believe friendship +between us is impossible?” + +“Friendship, nothing,” answered Moreton. “I love you.” + +He said it as if it had always been understood between them, as of +course it had, but the instant he said it, he gave her a quick, +appealing look to see how she would take so startling an assertion. + +If Crystal had poured out just what was in her mind at that second she +would have answered: “Of course you do. I’ve known that longer than you +have. And can’t you see that if I had had any doubt about its being +true, I’d have taken steps to make it true? But, as I really did not +doubt it, I’ve been able to be quite passive and leave it mostly to +you, which I so much prefer.” + +But rigorous candor is rarely attained, and Crystal did not say this. +In fact, for a few seconds she did not say anything, but merely allowed +her eyes to shine upon him, with the inevitable result that at the end +of precisely six seconds of their benevolent invitation he took her in +his arms and kissed her. It was a very unprotected point, and several +cars were standing not too far away, but Crystal, who had an excellent +sense of proportion, made no objection whatever. She was being proved +right in two important particulars—first, that she was a human being, +and second, that there was no barrier between them. She was very +generous about it. She did not say, “Where’s your barrier now?” or +anything like that; she simply said nothing, and the barrier passed out +of the conversation and was no more seen. + +Very soon, alleging that she must get home at the time at which she +usually did get home from dinners, she took him back; but she soothed +him with the promise of an uninterrupted day to follow. + +Time—the mere knowledge of unbroken hours ahead—is a boon which real +love cannot do without. Minor feelings may flourish on snatched +interviews and stolen meetings, but love demands—and usually +gets—protected leisure. The next day these lovers had it. They spent +the morning, when Mr. Cord was known to be playing golf, at the Cords’ +house, and then when Mr. Cord telephoned that he was staying to +luncheon at the club, if Crystal did not object (and Crystal did not), +she and Ben arranged a picnic—at least Tomes did, and they went off +about one o’clock in the blue car. They went to a pool in the rocks +that Crystal had always known about, with high walls around it, and +here, with a curtain of foam between them and the sea, for the waves +were rising, they ate lunch, as much alone as on a desert island. + +It was here that Ben asked her to marry him, or, to be accurate, it was +here that they first began talking about their life together, and +whether Nora would become reconciled to another woman about the flat. + +The nearest approach to a definite proposal was Ben’s saying: + +“You would not mind my saying something about all this to your father +before I go this evening, would you?” + +And Crystal replied: “Poor father! It will be a blow, I’m afraid.” + +“Well,” said Ben, “he told me himself that he liked me better than +David.” + +“That’s not saying much.” + +At this Ben laughed lightly. + +He might have had his wrong-headed notions about barriers, but he was +not so un-American as to regard a father as an obstacle. + +“But, oh, Crystal,” he added, “suppose you find you do hate being poor. +It is a bore in some ways.” + +Crystal, who had been tucking away the complicated dishes of her +luncheon basket, looked at Ben and lightly sucked one finger to which +some raspberry jam from Tomes’s supernal sandwiches had adhered. + +“I sha’n’t mind it a bit, Ben,” she said, “and for a good +reason—because I’m terribly conceited.” He did not understand at all, +and she went on: “I believe I shall be just as much of a person—perhaps +more—without money. The women who really mind being poor are the +humble-minded ones, who think that they are made by their clothes and +their lovely houses and their maids and their sables. When they lose +them they lose all their personality, and of course that terrifies +them. I don’t think I shall lose mine. Does it shock you to know that I +think such a lot of myself?” + +It appeared it did not shock him at all. + + +[Illustration: “Suppose You Find You Do Hate Being Poor?”] + + +When they reached the house she established him in the drawing-room and +went off to find her father. + +She was a true woman, by which is meant now and always that she +preferred to allow a man to digest his dinner before she tried to bring +him to a rational opinion. But in this case her hands were tied. The +Cords dined at eight—or sometimes a little later, and Ben’s boat left +for New York at half past nine, so that it would be utterly impossible +to postpone the discussion of her future until after dinner. It had to +be done at once. + +Crystal ran up and knocked at his bedroom door. Loud splashings from +the adjoining bathroom were all the answer she got. She sat down on the +stairs and waited. Those are the moments that try men’s and even +women’s souls. For the first time her enterprise seemed to her a little +reckless. For an instant she had the surprising experience of +recognizing the fact that Ben was a total stranger. She looked at the +gray-stone stairway on which she was sitting and thought that her life +had been as safe and sheltered as a cloister, and now, steered by this +total stranger, she proposed to launch herself on an uncharted course +of change. And to this program she was to bring her father’s +consent—for she knew very well that if she couldn’t, Ben wouldn’t be +able to—in the comparatively short time between now and dinner. Then, +the splashing having ceased, the sound of bureau drawers succeeded, and +Crystal sprang up and knocked again. + +“That you, Peters?” said an unencouraging voice. (Peters was Mr. Cord’s +valet.) + +“No, dear, it’s I,” said Crystal. + +“Oh, come in,” said Mr. Cord. He was standing in the middle of the room +in his shirt sleeves and gloomily contemplating the shirt he wore. +“What’s this laundress, anyhow? A Bolshevist or a pastry-cook?” he +said. “Did you ever see anything like this shirt?” + +Crystal approached and studied the shirt. It appeared to her to be +perfectly done up, but she said: “Yes, dear, how terrible! I’ll pack +her off to-morrow, but you always look all right whatever you wear; +that’s some comfort.” She saw that even this hadn’t done much good, +and, going to the heart of the problem, she asked, “How did your golf +go?” + +Mr. Cord’s gloom gathered as he answered, with resignation, “Oh, all +right.” + +His manner was exactly similar to Ben’s in his recent moment of +depression, and not unlike McKellar’s when he had explained what he +suffered under the good Lord’s weather. + +“Is Eddie’s game any better?” asked Crystal, feeling her way. + +“No,” cried her father, contemptuously. “He’s rotten, but I’m worse. +And golf-clubs, Crystal! No one can make a club any more. Have you +noticed that? But the truth of the matter is, I’m getting too old to +play golf.” And Mr. Cord sat down with a good but unconscious imitation +of a broken old man. + +Of course Crystal swept this away. She scolded him a little, pointed +out his recent prowess, and spoke slightingly of all younger athletes, +but she really had not time to do the job thoroughly, for the thought +of Ben, sitting so anxious in the drawing-room alone, hurried her on. + +“Anyhow, dear,” she said, “I’ve come to talk to you about something +terribly important. What would you say, father, if I told you I was +engaged?” + +Mr. Cord was so startled that he said, what was rare for him, the first +thing that came into his head: + +“Not to Eddie?” + +The true diplomatist, we have been told, simply takes advantage of +chance, and Crystal was diplomatic. “And suppose it is?” she replied. + +“I should refuse my consent,” replied her father. + +Crystal looked hurt. “Is there anything against Eddie,” she asked, +“except his golf?” + +“Yes,” answered her father, “there are two of the most serious things +in the world against him—first, that he doesn’t amount to anything; and +second, that you don’t love him.” + +“No,” Crystal admitted, “I don’t, but then—love—father, isn’t love +rather a serious undertaking nowadays? Is it a particularly helpful +adjunct to marriage? Look at poor Eugenia. Isn’t it really more +sensible to marry a nice man who can support one, and then if in time +one does fall in love with another man—” + +“Never let me hear you talk like that again, Crystal,” said her father, +with a severity and vigor he seldom showed outside of board meetings. +“It’s only your ignorance of life that saves you from being actually +revolting. I’m an old man and not sentimental, you’ll grant, but, take +my word for it, love is the only hope of pulling off marriage +successfully, and even then it’s not easy. As for Eugenia, I think +she’s made a fool of herself and is going to be unhappy, but I’d rather +do what she has done than what you’re contemplating. At least she cared +for that fellow—” + +“I’m glad you feel like that, darling,” said Crystal, “because it isn’t +Eddie I’m engaged to, but Ben Moreton. He’s waiting downstairs now.” + +Mr. Cord started up—his eyes shining like black flames. + +“By God! Crystal,” he said, “you sha’n’t marry that +fellow—Eugenia—perhaps—but not you.” + +“But, father, you said yourself, you thought he was a fine—” + +“I don’t care what I said,” replied Mr. Cord, and, striding to the +door, he flung it open and called in a voice that rolled about the +stone hall: “Mr. Moreton, Mr. Moreton! Come up here, will you?” + +Ben came bounding up the stairs like a panther. Cord beckoned him in +with a sharp gesture and shut the door. + +“This won’t do at all, Moreton,” he said. “You can’t have Crystal.” + +Ben did not answer; he looked very steadily at Cord, who went on: + +“You think I can’t stop it—that she’s of age and that you wouldn’t take +a penny of my money, anyhow. That’s the idea, isn’t it?” + +“That’s it,” said Ben. + +Cord turned sharply to Crystal. “Does what I think make any difference +to you?” he asked. + +“A lot, dear,” she answered, “but I don’t understand. You never seemed +so much opposed to the radical doctrine.” + +“No, it’s the radical, not the doctrine, your father objects to,” said +Ben. + +“Exactly,” answered Mr. Cord. “You’ve put it in a nutshell. Crystal, +I’m going to tell you what these radicals really are—they’re +failures—everyone of them. Sincere enough—they want the world changed +because they haven’t been able to get along in it as it is—they want a +new deal because they don’t know how to play their cards; and when they +get a new hand, they’ll play it just as badly. It’s not their theories +I object to, but them themselves. You think if you married Moreton +you’d be going into a great new world of idealism. You wouldn’t. You’d +be going into a world of failure—of the pettiest, most futile quarrels +in the world. The chief characteristic of the man who fails is that he +always believes it’s the other fellow’s fault; and they hate the man +who differs with them by one per cent more than they hate the man who +differs by one hundred. Has there ever been a revolution where they did +not persecute their fellow revolutionists worse than they persecuted +the old order, or where the new rule wasn’t more tyrannical than the +old?” + +“No one would dispute that,” said Ben. “It is the only way to win +through to—” + +“Ah,” said Cord, “I know what you’re going to say, but I tell you, you +win through to liberal practices when, and only when, the conservatives +become converted to your ideas, and put them through for you. That’s +why I say I have no quarrel with radical doctrines—they are coming, +always coming, but”—Cord paused to give his words full weight—“I hate +the radical.” + +There was a little pause. Crystal, who had sunk into a low chair, +raised her eyes to Ben, as if she expected a passionate contradiction +from him, but it did not come. + +“Yes,” he said, after a moment, “that’s all true, Mr. Cord—with +limitations; but, granting it, you’ve put my side, too. What are we to +say of the conservative—the man who has no vision of his own—who has to +go about stealing his beliefs from the other side? He’s very efficient +at putting _them_ into effect—but efficient as a tool, as a servant. +Look at the mess he makes of his own game when he tries to act on his +own ideas. He crushes democracy with an iron efficiency, and he creates +communism. He closes the door to trade-unionism and makes a revolution. +That’s efficiency for you. We radicals are not so damned inefficient, +while we let the conservatives do our work for us.” + +“Well, let it be revolution, then,” said Cord. “I believe you’re right. +It’s coming, but do you want to drag a girl like Crystal into it? Think +of her! Say you take her, as I suppose a young fellow like you can do. +She’d have perhaps ten years of an exciting division of allegiance +between your ideas and the way she had been brought up, and the rest of +her life (for, believe me, as we get older we all return to our early +traditions)—the rest of her life she’d spend regretting the ties and +environment of her youth. On the other hand, if she gives you up she +will have regrets, too, I know, but they won’t wreck her and embitter +her the way the others will.” + +Ben’s face darkened. No man not a colossal egotist could hear such a +prophesy with indifference. He did not at once answer, and then he +turned to Crystal. + +“What do you think of that?” he asked. + +To the surprise of both men, Crystal replied with a laugh. “I was +wondering,” she said, “when either of you would get round to asking +what I thought of it all.” + +“Well, what do you think?” said Cord, almost harshly. + +Crystal rose, and, slipping her arm through his, leaned her head on the +point of her father’s shoulder—he was of a good height. “I think,” she +said, “you both talk beautifully. I was so proud of you both—saying +such profound things so easily, and keeping your tempers so perfectly” +(both brows smoothed out), “and it was all the more wonderful because, +it seemed to me, you were both talking about things you knew nothing +about.” + +“What do you mean?” burst from both men with simultaneous astonishment. + +“Ben, dear, father doesn’t know any radicals—except you, and he’s only +seen you twice. Father dear, I don’t believe Ben ever talked five +minutes with an able, successful conservative until he came here +to-day.” + +“You’re going to throw me over, Crystal?” said Ben, seeing her pose +more clearly than he heard her words. + +“No,” said Mr. Cord, bitterly, “she’s going to throw over an old man in +favor of a young one.” + +“You silly creatures,” said Crystal, with a smile that made the words +affectionate and not rude. “How can I ever throw either of you over? +I’m going to be Ben’s wife, and I am my father’s daughter. I’m going to +be those two things for all my life.” + +Ben took her hand. She puzzled him, but he adored her. “But some day, +Crystal,” he said, “you will be obliged to choose between our +views—mine or your father’s. You must see that.” + +“He’s right,” her father chimed in. “This is not a temporary difference +of opinion, you know, Crystal. This cleavage is as old as mankind—the +radical against the conservative. Time doesn’t reconcile them.” + +Again the idea came to her: “They do love to form gangs, the poor +dears.” Aloud she said: “Yes, but the two types are rarely pure ones. +Why, father, you think Ben is a radical, but he’s the most hidebound +conservative about some things—much worse than you—about free verse, +for instance. I read a long editorial about it not a month ago. He +really thinks anyone who defends it ought to be deported to some poetic +limbo. Ben, you think my father is conservative. But there’s a great +scandal in his mental life. He’s a Baconian—” + +“He thinks Bacon wrote the plays!” exclaimed Ben, really shocked. + +“Certainly I do,” answered Mr. Cord. “Every man who uses his mind must +think so. There is nothing in favor of the Shakespeare theory, except +tradition—” + +He would have talked for several hours upon the subject, but Crystal +interrupted him by turning to Ben and continuing what she had meant to +say: + +“When you said I should have to choose between your ideas, you meant +between your political ideas. Perhaps I shall, but I won’t make my +choice, rest assured, until I have some reason for believing that each +of you knows something—honestly knows something about the other one’s +point of view.” + +“I don’t get it, exactly,” said Ben. + +She addressed Mr. Cord. + +“Father,” she went on, “Ben has a little flat in Charles Street, and an +old servant, and that’s where I’m going to live.” + +Her father, though bitterly wounded, had regained his sardonic calm. +“Perhaps,” he said, “you’ll bring him up to Seventy-ninth Street for +Sunday dinner now and then.” + +Crystal shook her head. “No, dear,” she said. “That isn’t the way it’s +going to be. As soon as I get settled and have time to look about me, I +shall take another little flat for you. You will live with us, for a +few months in the winter, and get to know Ben’s friends—his gang, as +you would say—get to know them not as a philanthropist, or an employer, +or an observer, but just as one of our friends—see if they really are +the way you think they are. And then, in March you shall go off to Palm +Beach or Virginia just as usual.” + +“That’s a fine idea,” said Mr. Cord, sarcastically. “Do you realize +that I shall hardly survive your marriage with the editor of _Liberty_. +I shall be kicked off—requested to resign from half a dozen boards for +having such a son-in-law—” + +“There’s freedom for you,” said Ben. + +“And,” continued Mr. Cord, “if it were known that I consented to the +marriage, and actually consorted with such fellows! You must realize, +Crystal, that most of the most influential men in the country think the +way Eddie does. Half my boards are composed of older Eddies.” + +“You’ll do better to resign from them, then,” said Crystal. + +Ben had been very much struck by Crystal’s suggestion. + +“Really, Mr. Cord,” he said, “I believe that is a great idea of +Crystal’s. I really believe if capital had more idea of the real views +of labor—as you said, you eventually adopt all our ideas, why wouldn’t +an intimate knowledge of individuals hurry that process?” + +“Simply because I should lose all influence with my own people by +merely investigating you in a friendly spirit.” + +“Glory!” exclaimed Ben, with open contempt for such people. “Think of +penalizing the first honest attempt to understand!” + +“You see the point of my plan, don’t you, Ben?” said Crystal. + +“You bet I do.” + +“That’s wonderful,” she answered, “for you’ve only heard half of it. In +July, August, and September, we will come here to Newport, and you will +get to understand father’s—” + +“Hold on,” cried Ben, “just a moment. That is absolutely impossible, +Crystal. You don’t understand. The paper couldn’t keep me a day if I +did that.” + +“Ha!” cried Mr. Cord, coming suddenly to life. “There’s freedom for +you!” + +“That would be very cruel of the owners, Ben, but if they did—” + +“It wouldn’t be cruel at all,” said Moreton. “They wouldn’t have any +choice. I should have lost all influence with my readers, if it were +known—” + +“Glory!” said Mr. Cord. “Think of penalizing the first honest attempt +to understand the capitalistic class!” + +Ben stood silent, caught in the grip of an intellectual dilemma which +he felt every instant would dissolve itself and which didn’t. + +Crystal for the first time moved away from her father. “Those are my +terms,” she said. “I stay with the man who agrees to them, and if you +both decline them—well, I’ll go off and try and open the oyster by +myself.” + +There was a long momentous pause, and then Tomes’s discreet knock on +the door. + +“Mr. Verriman on the telephone, madam.” + +“I can’t come,” said Crystal. “Ask him to send a message.” + +“Don’t you see, Crystal, what your plan would do?” said her father. +“Either it would make Moreton a red revolutionist and me a persecuting +Bourbon, or else it would just ruin us both for either of our +objectives.” + +“It won’t ruin you for my objectives,” said Crystal, “and women are +more human, you know, than men.” + +Another knock at the door. Tomes’s voice again: + +“Mr. Verriman wishes to know if he might dine here this evening?” + +“No,” said Cord, looking at Crystal. + +Crystal raised her voice. “Certainly, Tomes. Say we shall be delighted +to have him—at eight.” + +Both men turned to her. + +“Why did you do that, Crystal? Verriman—here—to-night?” + +Crystal did not answer—the identity of their tones, their words, and +their irritation with her should have told them the answer, but didn’t. + +She knew that only opposition to Eddie and Eddie’s many prototypes +could weld her two men solidly together. + +THE END + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAUTY AND THE BOLSHEVIST *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Beauty and the Bolshevist</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Alice Duer Miller</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 9, 2004 [eBook #13146]<br /> +[Most recently updated: October 30, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Melissa Er-Raqabi, Joshua Hutchinson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAUTY AND THE BOLSHEVIST ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus01"></a> +<img src="images/image1_full.png" width="320" height="229" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">“I Beg Your Pardon. Is This a Private Raft?”</p> +</div> + +<h1>The Beauty and the Bolshevist</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">By ALICE DUER MILLER</h2> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Author of</i> “<i>The Charm School</i>” “<i>Ladies must Live</i>” “<i>Come +out of the Kitchen</i>” <i>etc</i>. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center"> +Illustrated +</p> + +<p class="center"> +Harper & Brothers Publishers<br /> +New York and London +</p> + +<p class="center"> +Printed in the United States of America<br /> +Published October, 1920 +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<p> +<a href="#illus01">“I beg your pardon. Is this a private raft?”</a> +</p> + +<p> +<a href="#illus02">“Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty”</a> +</p> + +<p> +<a href="#illus03">“I’ll be there in five minutes, in a little blue car”</a> +</p> + +<p> +<a href="#illus04">“Suppose you find you do hate being poor?”</a> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">Chapter I</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">Chapter II</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">Chapter III</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>Chapter I</h2> + +<p> +The editor of that much-abused New York daily, <i>Liberty</i>, pushed back his +editorial typewriter and opened one letter in the pile which the +office-boy—no respecter of persons—had just laid upon the desk +while whistling a piercing tune between his teeth. +</p> + +<p> +The letter said: +</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p> +DEAR BEN,—I hate to think what your feelings will be on learning that I +am engaged to be married to a daughter of the capitalistic class. Try to +overcome your prejudices, however, and judge Eugenia as an individual and not +as a member of a class. She has very liberal ideas, reads your paper, and is +content to go with me to Monroe College and lead the life of an instructor’s +wife. You will be glad to know that Mr. Cord disapproves as much as you do, and +will not give his daughter a cent, so that our life will be as hard on the +physical side as you in your most affectionate moments could desire. Mr. Cord +is under the impression that lack of an income will cool my ardor. You see he +could not think worse of me if he were my own brother. +</p> + +<p> +Yours, +</p> + +<p> +DAVID. +</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p> +The fine face of the editor darkened. It was the face of an idealist—the +deep-set, slowly changing eyes, the high cheek bones, but the mouth closed +firmly, almost obstinately, and contradicted the rest of the face with a touch +of aggressiveness, just as in Lincoln’s face the dreamer was contradicted by +the shrewd, practical mouth. He crossed his arms above the elbow so that one +long hand dangled on one side of his knees and one on the other—a +favorite pose of his—and sat thinking. +</p> + +<p> +The editor was often called a Bolshevist—as who is not in these days? For +language is given us not only to conceal thought, but often to prevent it, and +every now and then when the problems of the world become too complex and too +vital, some one stops all thought on a subject by inventing a tag, like “witch” +in the seventeenth century, or “Bolshevist” in the twentieth. +</p> + +<p> +Ben Moreton was not a Bolshevist; indeed, he had written several editorials to +show that, in his opinion, their doctrines were not sound, but of course the +people who denounced him never thought of reading his paper. He was a +socialist, a believer in government ownership, and, however equably he +attempted to examine any dispute between capital and labor, he always found for +labor. He was much denounced by ultraconservatives, and perhaps their instinct +was sound, for he was educated, determined, and possessed of a personality that +attached people warmly, so that he was more dangerous than those whose +doctrines were more militant. He was not wholly trusted by the extreme +radicals. His views were not consistently agreeable to either group. For +instance, he believed that the conscientious objectors were really +conscientious, a creed for which many people thought he ought to be deported. +On the other hand, he doubted that Wall Street had started the war for its own +purposes, a skepticism which made some of his friends think him just fit for a +bomb. +</p> + +<p> +The great problem of his life was how to hold together a body of liberals so +that they could be effective. This problem was going to be immensely +complicated by the marriage of his brother with the daughter of a conspicuous +capitalist like William Cord. +</p> + +<p> +He pushed the buzzer on his desk and wrote out the following telegram: +</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p> +David Moreton, Care William Cord, Newport, R.I. +</p> + +<p> +Am taking boat Newport to-night. Meet me. +</p> + +<p> +Ben. +</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p> +No one answered his buzzer, but presently a boy came in collecting copy, and +Moreton said to him: +</p> + +<p> +“Here, get this sent, and ask Klein to come here. He’s in the composing room.” +</p> + +<p> +And presently Mr. Klein entered, in the characteristic dress of the newspaper +man—namely, shirt sleeves and a green shade over his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Ben!” he exclaimed in some excitement. “Here’s a thousand-dollar +check just come in for the strike fund. How’s that for the second day?” +</p> + +<p> +“Good enough,” said Ben, who would ordinarily have put in a good hour rejoicing +over such unexpected good fortune, but whose mind was now on other things. “I +have to go out of town to-night. You’ll be here, won’t you, to lock the +presses? And, see here, Leo, what is the matter with our book page?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pretty rotten page,” replied Klein. +</p> + +<p> +“I should say it was—all about taxes and strikes and economic crises. I +told Green never to touch those things in the book reviews. Our readers get all +they want of that from us in the news and the editorials—hotter, better +stuff, too. I’ve told him not to touch ’em in the book page, and he runs +nothing else. He ought to be beautiful—ought to talk about fairies, and +poetry, and twelfth-century art. What’s the matter with him?” +</p> + +<p> +“He doesn’t know anything,” said Klein. “That’s his trouble. He’s clever, but +he doesn’t know much. I guess he only began to read books a couple years ago. +They excite him too much. He wouldn’t read a fairy story. He’d think he was +wasting time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Get some one to help him out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who’d I get?” +</p> + +<p> +“Look about. I’ve got to go home and pack a bag. Ask Miss Cox what time that +Newport boat leaves.” +</p> + +<p> +“Newport! Great heavens, Ben! What is this? A little week-end?” +</p> + +<p> +“A little weak brother, Leo.” +</p> + +<p> +“David in trouble again?” +</p> + +<p> +Moreton nodded. “He thinks he’s going to marry William Cord’s daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +Klein, who was Ben’s friend as well as his assistant, blanched at the name. +</p> + +<p> +“Cord’s daughter!” he exclaimed, and if he had said Jack-the-ripper’s, he could +not have expressed more horror. “Now isn’t it queer,” he went on, musingly, +“that David, brought up as he has been, can see anything to attract him in a +girl like that?” +</p> + +<p> +Ben was tidying his desk preparatory to departure—that is to say, he was +pushing all the papers far enough back to enable him to close the roller top, +and he answered, absently: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I suppose they’re all pretty much the same—girls.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what do you mean?” said Leo, reproachfully. “How can a girl who’s been +brought up to be a parasite—to display the wealth of her father and +husband, and has never done a useful thing since she was born—Why, a +woman was telling me the other day—I got caught in a block in the subway +and she was next me—awfully interesting, she was. She sewed in one of +these fashionable dressmaking establishments—and the things she told me +about what those women spend on their clothes—underclothes and furs and +everything. Now there must be something wrong with a woman who can spend money +on those things when she knows the agony of poverty right around her. You can’t +compare that sort of woman with a self-respecting, self-supporting girl—” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment the door opened and Miss Cox entered. She wore a short-sleeved, +low-neck, pink-satin blouse, a white-satin skirt, open-work stockings, and +slippers so high in the heels that her ankles turned inward. Her hair was +treated with henna and piled untidily on the top of her head. She was exactly +what Klein had described—a self-respecting, self-supporting girl, but, on +a superficial acquaintance, men of Cord’s group would have thought quite as +badly of her as Klein did of fashionable women. They would have been mistaken. +Miss Cox supported her mother, and, though only seventeen, denied herself all +forms of enjoyment except dress and an occasional movie. She was conscientious, +hard-working, accurate, and virtuous. She loved Ben, whom she regarded as wise, +beautiful, and generous, but she would have died rather than have him or anyone +know it. +</p> + +<p> +She undulated into the room, dropped one hip lower than the other, placed her +hand upon it and said, with a good deal of enunciation: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you very much, Miss Cox,” said Ben, gravely, and she went out again. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be a terrible thing for Dave to make a marriage like that,” Klein +went on as soon as she had gone, “getting mixed up with those fellows. And it +would be bad for you, Ben—” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mean to get mixed up with them,” said Ben. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I mean having Dave do it. It would kill the paper; it would endanger your +whole position; and as for leadership, you could never hope—” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus02"></a> +<img src="images/image2_full.png" width="468" height="600" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">“Mr. Moreton, the Newport Boat Leaves at Five-thirty”</p> +</div> + +<p> +“Now, look here, Leo. You don’t think I can stop my brother’s marrying because +it might be a poor connection for me? The point is that it wouldn’t be good for +Dave—to be a poorly tolerated hanger-on. That’s why I’m going hot-foot to +Newport. And while I’m away do try to do something about the book page. Get me +a culture-hound—get one of these Pater specialists from Harvard. Or,” he +added, with sudden inspiration when his hand was already on the door, “get a +woman—she’d have a sense of beauty and would know how to jolly Green into +agreeing with her.” And with this the editor was gone. +</p> + +<p> +It was the end of one of those burning weeks in August that New York often +knows. The sun went down as red as blood every evening behind the Palisades, +and before the streets and roofs had ceased to radiate heat the sun was up +again above Long Island Sound, as hot and red as ever. As Ben went uptown in +the Sixth Avenue Elevated he could see pale children hanging over the railings +of fire escapes, and behind them catch glimpses of dark, crowded rooms which +had all the disadvantages of caves without the coolness. But to-day he was too +concentrated on his own problem to notice. +</p> + +<p> +Since Ben’s sixteenth year his brother David had been dependent on him. Their +father had been professor of economics in a college in that part of the United +States which Easterners describe as the “Middle West.” In the gay days when +muck-raking was at its height Professor Moreton had lost his chair because he +had denounced in his lecture room financial operations which to-day would be +against the law. At that time they were well thought of, and even practiced by +the eminent philanthropist who had endowed the very chair which Moreton +occupied. The trustees felt that it was unkind and unnecessary to complicate +their already difficult duties by such tactlessness, and their hearts began to +turn against Moreton, as most of our hearts turn against those who make life +too hard for us. Before long they asked him to resign on account of his +age—he was just sixty and extremely vigorous; but immediately afterward, +having been deeply surprised and hurt, he did what Goldsmith recommends to +lovely woman under not dissimilar circumstances—he died. He left his two +young sons—he had married late in life—absolutely unprovided for. +Ben, the elder of the two, was sixteen, and just ready for college; but he +could not give four precious years to an academic degree. He went to work. With +the background of an educated environment and a very sound knowledge of +economic questions, breathed in from his earliest days, he found a place at +once on a new paper—or, rather, on an old paper just being converted into +a new organ of liberalism—<i>Liberty</i>. It was independent in politics, +and was supposed to be independent in economic questions, but by the time Ben +worked up to the editorship it was well recognized to be an anticapitalist +sheet. The salary of its editor, though not large, was sufficient to enable him +to send his younger brother through college, with the result that David, a +little weak, a little self-indulgent, a little—partly through physical +causes—disinclined to effort, was now a poet, a classicist and an +instructor in a fresh-water college. Ben made him an allowance to enable him to +live—the college not thinking this necessary for its instructors. But +during the war Ben had not been able to manage the allowance, because, to the +surprise of many of his friends, Ben had volunteered early. +</p> + +<p> +Although the reasons for doing this seemed absurdly simple to him, the decision +had been a difficult one. He was a pacifist—saw no virtue in war +whatsoever. He wished to convert others to his opinion—unlike many +reformers who prefer to discuss questions only with those who already agree +with them. He argued that the speeches of a man who had been through war, or, +better still, the posthumous writings of one who has been killed in war, would +have more weight with the public than the best logic of one who had held aloof. +But his radical friends felt that he was using this argument merely as an +excuse for choosing the easy path of conformity, while the few +ultraconservatives who mentioned the matter at all assumed that he had been +drafted against his will. Afterward, when the war was over and his terrible +book, <i>War</i>, appeared, no one was pleased, for the excellent reason that +it was published at a moment when the whole world wanted to forget war +entirely. The pay of a private, however, had not allowed him to continue +David’s allowance, and so David, displaying unusual energy, had found a job for +himself as tutor for the summer to William Cord’s son. Ben had not quite +approved of a life that seemed to him slightly parasitical, but it was healthy +and quiet and, above everything, David had found it for himself, and initiative +was so rare in the younger man that Ben could not bear to crush it with +disapproval. +</p> + +<p> +Increasingly, during the two years he was in France, Ben was displeased by +David’s letters. The Cords were described as kindly, well-educated people, fond +one of another, considerate of the tutor, with old-fashioned traditions of +American liberties. Ben asked himself if he would have been better pleased if +David’s employers had been cruel, vulgar, and blatant, and found the answer was +in the affirmative. It would, he thought, have been a good deal safer for +David’s integrity if he had not been so comfortable. +</p> + +<p> +For two summers Ben had made no protest, but the third summer, when the war was +over and the allowance again possible, he urged David not to go back to +Newport. David flatly refused to yield. He said he saw no reason why he should +go on taking Ben’s money when this simple way of earning a full living was open +to him. Wasn’t Ben’s whole theory that everyone should be self-supporting? Why +not be consistent? +</p> + +<p> +Ignorant people might imagine that two affectionate brothers could not quarrel +over an issue purely affectionate. But the Moretons did quarrel—more +bitterly than ever before, and that is saying a great deal. With the +extraordinary tenacity of memory that develops under strong emotion, they each +contrived to recall and to mention everything which the other had done that was +wrong, ridiculous, or humiliating since their earliest days. They parted with +the impression on David’s part that Ben thought him a self-indulgent grafter, +and on Ben’s side that David thought him a bully solely interested in imposing +his will on those unfortunate enough to be dependent on him. +</p> + +<p> +It was after half past four when, having walked up five flights of stairs, he +let himself into his modest flat on the top floor of an old-fashioned +brownstone house. As he opened the door, he called, +</p> + +<p> +“Nora!” +</p> + +<p> +No beautiful partner of a free-love affair appeared, but an elderly woman in +spectacles who had once been Professor Moreton’s cook, and now, doing all the +housework for Ben, contrived to make him so comfortable that the editor of a +more radical paper than his own had described the flat as “a bourgeois +interior.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nora,” said Ben, “put something in my bag for the night—I’m going to +Newport in a few minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +He had expected a flood of questions, for Nora was no looker-on at life, and he +was surprised by her merely observing that she was glad he was getting away +from the heat. The truth was that she knew far more about David than he did. +She had consistently coddled David since his infancy, and he told her a great +deal. Besides, she took care of his things when he was at Ben’s. She had known +of sachets, photographs, and an engraved locket that he wore on his +watch-chain. She was no radical. She had seen disaster come upon the old +professor and attributed it, not to the narrowness of the trustees, but to the +folly of the professor. She disapproved of most of Ben’s friends, and would +have despised his paper if she ever read it. The only good thing about it in +her estimation was, he seemed to be able “to knock a living out of it”—a +process which Nora regarded with a sort of gay casualness. She did not blame +him for making so little money and thus keeping her housekeeping cramped, but +she never in her own mind doubted that it would be far better if he had more. +The idea that David was about to marry money seemed to her simply the reward of +virtue—her own virtue in bringing David up so well. She knew that Mr. +Cord opposed the marriage, but she supposed that Ben would arrange all that. +She had great confidence in Ben. Still he was very young, very young, so she +gave him a word of advice as she put his bag into his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t take any nonsense. Remember you’re every bit as good as they. Only +don’t, for goodness’ sake, Mr. Ben, talk any of your ideas to them. A rich man +like Mr. Cord wouldn’t like that.” +</p> + +<p> +Ben laughed. “How would you like me to bring you home a lovely heiress of my +own?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She took a thread off his coat. “Only don’t let her come interfering in my +kitchen,” she said, and hurried him away. He had a good deal of courage, but he +had not enough to tell Nora he was going to Newport to stop her darling’s +marriage. +</p> + +<p> +The Newport boat gets to Newport about two o’clock in the morning, and +experienced travelers, if any such choose this method of approach, go on to +Fall River and take a train back to Newport, arriving in time for a comfortable +nine-o’clock breakfast. But Ben was not experienced, and he supposed that when +you took a boat for Newport and reached Newport the thing to do was to get off +the boat. +</p> + +<p> +It had been a wonderful night on the Sound, and Ben had not been to bed, partly +because, applying late on a Friday evening, he had not been able to get a room, +but partly because the moon and the southerly breeze and the silver shores of +Long Island and the red and white lighthouses had been too beautiful to leave. +Besides, he had wanted to think out carefully what he was going to say to his +brother. +</p> + +<p> +To separate a man from the woman he loves, however unwisely, has some of the +same disadvantages as offering a bribe—one respects the other person less +in proportion as one succeeds. What, Ben said to himself, could he urge against +a girl he did not know? Yet, on the other hand, if he had known her, his +objections would have seemed regrettably personal. Either way, it was difficult +to know what to say. He wondered what Cord had said, and smiled to think that +here was one object for which he and Cord were co-operating—only Cord +would never believe it. That was one trouble with capitalists—they always +thought themselves so damned desirable. And Ben did not stop to inquire how it +was that capitalists had gained this impression. +</p> + +<p> +On the pier he looked about for David, but there was no David. Of course the +boy had overslept, or hadn’t received his telegram—Ben said this to +himself, but somehow the vision of David comfortably asleep in a luxurious bed +in the Cords’s house irritated him. +</p> + +<p> +His meditations were broken in upon by a negro boy with an open hack, who +volunteered to “take him up for fifty cents.” It sounded reasonable. Ben got in +and they moved slowly down the narrow pier, the horses’ hoofs clumping lazily +on the wooden pavement. Turning past the alley of Thames Street, still alight +at three o’clock in the morning, Ben stopped at the suggestion of his driver +and left his bag at a hotel, and then they went on up the hill, past the tower +of the Skeleton in Armor, past old houses with tall, pillared porticoes, +reminiscent of the days when the South patronized Newport, and turned into +Bellevue Avenue—past shops with names familiar to Fifth Avenue, past a +villa with bright-eyed owls on the gateposts, past many large, silent houses +and walled gardens. +</p> + +<p> +The air was very cool, and now and then the scent of some flowering bush +trailed like a visible cloud across their path. Then suddenly the whole avenue +was full of little red lights, like the garden in “Faust” when Mephistopheles +performs his magic on it. Here and there the huge headlights of a car shone on +the roadway, magnifying every rut in the asphalt, and bringing out strange, +vivid shades in the grass and the hydrangea bushes. They were passing a +frowning palace set on a piece of velvet turf as small as a pocket +handkerchief—so small that the lighted windows were plainly visible from +the road. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop,” said Ben to his driver. He had suddenly realized how long it must be +before he could rouse the Cord household. +</p> + +<p> +He paid his driver, got out, and made his way up the driveway toward the house. +Groups of chauffeurs were standing about their cars—vigorous, smartly +dressed men, young for the most part. Ben wondered if it were possible that +they were content with the present arrangement, and whether their wives and +children were not stifling in the city at that very moment. He caught a +sentence here and there as he passed. “And, believe me,” one was saying, “as +soon as he got into the box he did not do a thing to that fellar from +Tiverton—” Ben’s footsteps lagged a little. He was a baseball fan. He +almost forgave the chauffeurs for being content. They seemed to him human +beings, after all. +</p> + +<p> +He approached the house, and, walking past a narrow, unroofed piazza, he found +himself opposite a long window. He looked straight into the ballroom. The ball +was a fancy ball—the best of the season. It was called a Balkan Ball, +which gave all the guests the opportunity of dressing pretty much as they +pleased. The wood of the long paneled room was golden, and softened the light +from the crystal appliques along the wall, and set off the bright dresses of +the dancers as a gold bowl sets off the colors of fruit. +</p> + +<p> +Every now and then people stepped out on the piazza, and as they did they +became audible to Ben for a few seconds. First, two middle-aged men, solid, +bronzed, laughing rather wickedly together. Ben drew back, afraid of what he +might overhear, but it turned out to be no very guilty secret. “My dear +fellow,” one was saying, “I gave him a stroke a hole, and he’s twenty years +younger than I am—well, fifteen anyhow. The trouble with these young men +is that they lack—” +</p> + +<p> +Ben never heard what it was that young men lacked. +</p> + +<p> +Next came a boy and a girl, talking eagerly, the girl’s hand gesticulating at +her round, red lips. Ben had no scruples in overhearing them—theirs +appeared to be the universal secret. But here again he was wrong. She was +saying: “Round and round—not up and down. My dentist says that if you +always brush them round and round—” +</p> + +<p> +Then two young men—boys, with cigarettes drooping from their lips; they +were saying, “I haven’t pitched a game since before the war, but he said to go +in and get that Tiverton fellow, and so—” Ben saw that he was in the +presence of the hero of the late game. He forgave him, too. +</p> + +<p> +As a matter of fact, he had never given the fashionable world enough attention +to hate it. He knew that Leo Klein derived a very revivifying antagonism from +reading about it, and often bought himself an entrance to the opera partly +because he loved music, but partly, Ben always thought, because he liked to +look up at the boxes and hate the occupants for their jewels and inattention. +But Ben watched the spectacle with as much detachment as he would have watched +a spring dance among the Indians. +</p> + +<p> +And then suddenly his detachment melted away, for a lovely girl came through +the window—lovely with that particular and specific kind of loveliness +which Ben thought of when he used the word—<i>his</i> kind. He used to +wonder afterward how he had known it at that first glimpse, for, in the dim +light of the piazza, he could not see some of her greatest beauties—the +whiteness of her skin, white as milk where her close, fine, brown hair began, +or the blue of the eyes set at an angle which might have seemed Oriental in +eyes less enchanting turquoise in color. But he could see her slenderness and +grace. She was dressed in clinging blues and greens and she wore a silver +turban. She leaned her hands on the railings—she turned them out along +the railings; they were slender and full of character—not soft. Ben +looked at the one nearest him. With hardly more than a turn of his head he +could have kissed it. The idea appealed to him strongly; he played with it, +just as when he was a child in a college town he had played with the idea of +getting up in church and walking about on the backs of the pews. This would be +pleasanter, and the subsequent getaway even easier. He glanced at the dark lawn +behind him; there appeared to be no obstacle to escape. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps, under the spell of her attraction for him, and the knowledge that he +would never see her again, he might actually have done it, but she broke the +trance by speaking to a tall, stolid young man who was with her. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Eddie,” she said, as if answering something he had said some time ago, “I +really was at home, at just the time I said, only this new butler does hate you +so—” +</p> + +<p> +“You might speak to him about it—you might even get rid of him,” replied +the young man, in the tone of one deeply imposed upon. +</p> + +<p> +“Good butlers are so rare nowadays.” +</p> + +<p> +“And are devoted friends so easy to find?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, but a good deal easier than butlers, Eddie dear.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man gave an exclamation of annoyance. “Let us find some place out of +the way. I want to speak to you seriously—” he began, and they moved out +of earshot—presumably to a secluded spot of Eddie’s choosing. +</p> + +<p> +When they had gone Ben felt distinctly lonely, and, what was more absurd, +slighted, as if Eddie had deliberately taken the girl away from him—out +of reach. How silly, he thought, for Eddie to want to talk to her, when it was +so clear the fellow did not know how to talk to her. How silly to say, in the +sulky tone, “Are devoted friends so easy to find?” Of course they +were—for a girl like that—devoted friends, passionate lovers, and +sentimental idiots undoubtedly blocked her path. +</p> + +<p> +It might have been some comfort to him to know that in the remote spot of his +own choosing, a stone bench under a purple beech, Eddie was simply going from +bad to worse. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Crystal,” he began, with that irritating reasonableness of manner which +implies that the speaker is going to be reasonable for two, “I’ve been thinking +over the situation. I know that you don’t love me, but then I don’t believe you +will ever be deeply in love with any one. I don’t think you are that kind of +woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Eddie, how dreadful!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see that at all. Just as well, perhaps. You don’t want to get yourself +into such a position as poor Eugenia.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do, I would. I’d give anything to be as much in love as Eugenia.” +</p> + +<p> +“What? With a fellow like that! A complete outsider.” +</p> + +<p> +“Outside of what? The human race?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, no,” said Eddie, as if he were yielding a good deal, “but outside of +your traditions and your set.” +</p> + +<p> +“My set! Good for him to be outside of it, I say. What have they ever done to +make anyone want to be inside of it? Why, David is an educated gentleman. To +hear him quote Horace—” +</p> + +<p> +“Horace who?” +</p> + +<p> +“Really, Eddie.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I see. You mean the poet. That’s nothing to laugh at, Crystal. It was a +natural mistake. I thought, of course, you meant some of those anarchists who +want to upset the world.” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal looked at him more honestly and seriously than she had yet done. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, don’t you think there <i>is</i> something wrong with the present +arrangement of things, Eddie?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I don’t, and I hate to hear you talk like a socialist.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am a socialist.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re nothing of the kind.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I know what I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all—not at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I certainly think the rich are too rich, while the poor are so horridly poor.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You’d</i> get on well without your maid and your car and your father’s +charge accounts at all the shops, wouldn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +Though agreeable to talk seriously if you agree, it is correspondingly +dangerous if you disagree. Crystal stood up, trembling with an emotion which +Eddie, although he was rather angry himself, considered utterly unaccountable. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she said, almost proudly, “I <i>am</i> luxurious, I <i>am</i> dependent +on those things. But whose fault is that? It’s the way I was brought +up—it’s all wrong. But, even though I am dependent on them, I believe I +could exist without them. I’d feel like killing myself if I didn’t think so. +Sometimes I want to go away and find out if I couldn’t live and be myself +without all this background of luxury. But at the worst—I’m just one +girl—suppose I were weak and couldn’t get on without them? That wouldn’t +prove that they are right. I’m not so blinded that I can’t see that a system by +which I profit may still be absolutely wrong. But you always seem to think, +Eddie, that it’s part of the Constitution of the United States that you should +have everything you’ve always had.” +</p> + +<p> +Eddie rose, too, with the manner of a man who has allowed things to go far +enough. “Look here, my dear girl,” he said, “I am a man and I’m older than you, +and have seen more of the world. I know you don’t mean any harm, but I must +tell you that this is very wicked, dangerous talk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dangerous, perhaps, Eddie, but I can’t see how it can be wicked to want to +give up your special privileges.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where in the world do you pick up ideas like this?” +</p> + +<p> +“I inherited them from an English ancestor of mine, who gave up all that he had +when he enlisted in Washington’s army.” +</p> + +<p> +“You got that stuff,” said Eddie, brushing this aside, “from David Moreton, and +that infernal seditious paper his brother edits—and that white-livered +book which I haven’t read against war. I’d like to put them all in jail.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a pity,” said Crystal, “that your side can’t think of a better argument +than putting everyone who disagrees with you in jail.” +</p> + +<p> +With this she turned and left him, and, entering the ballroom, flung herself +into the arms of the first partner she met. It was a timid boy, who, startled +by the eagerness with which she chose him, with her bright eyes and quickly +drawn breath, was just coming to the conclusion that a lovely, rich, and +admired lady, had fallen passionately in love with him, when with equal +suddenness she stepped out of his arms and was presently driving her small, +open car down the avenue. +</p> + +<p> +Under the purple beech Eddie, left alone, sank back on the stone bench and +considered, somewhat as the persecutors of Socrates may have done, suitable +punishments for those who put vile, revolutionary ideas into the heads of young +and lovely women. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime Ben, who had enjoyed the party more than most of the invited +guests, and far more than the disconsolate Eddie, had left his vantage point at +the window. He had suddenly become aware of a strange light stealing under the +trees, and, looking up, he saw with surprise that the stars were growing small +and the heavens turning steel-color—in fact, that it was dawn. +</p> + +<p> +Convinced that sunrise was a finer sight than the end of the grandest ball that +ever was given, he made his way down a shabby back lane, and before long came +out on the edge of the cliffs, with the whole panorama of sunrise over the +Atlantic spread out before him. +</p> + +<p> +He stood there a moment, somebody’s close, well-kept lawn under his feet, and a +pale-pink sea sucking in and out on the rocks a hundred feet below. The same +hot, red sun was coming up; there wasn’t a steady breeze, but cool salt puffs +came to him now and then with a breaking wave. It was going to be a hot day, +and Ben liked swimming better than most things in life. He hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +If he had turned to the left, he would have come presently to a public beach +and would have had his swim conventionally and in due time. But some impulse +told him to turn to the right, and he began to wander westward along the edge +of the cliffs—always on his left hand, space and the sea, and on his +right, lawns or gardens or parapets crowned by cactus plants in urns, and +behind these a great variety of houses—French chateaux and marble palaces +and nice little white cottages, and, finally, a frowning Gothic castle. All +alike seemed asleep, with empty piazzas and closed shutters, and the only sign +of life he saw in any of them was one pale housemaid shaking a duster out of a +window in an upper gable. +</p> + +<p> +At last he came to a break in the cliffs—a cove, with a beach in it, a +group of buildings obviously bathing-houses. The sacredness of this pavilion +did not occur to Ben; indeed, there was nothing to suggest it. He entered it +light-heartedly and was discouraged to find the door of every cabin securely +locked. The place was utterly deserted. But Ben was persistent, and presently +he detected a bit of a garment hanging over a door, and, pulling it out, he +found himself in possession of a man’s bathing suit. A little farther on he +discovered a telephone room unlocked. Here he undressed and a minute later was +swimming straight out to sea. +</p> + +<p> +The level rays of the sun were doing to the water just what the headlights of +the motors had done to the road; they were enlarging every ripple and edging +the deep purple-blue with yellow light. Except for a fishing dory chunking out +to its day’s work, Ben had the sea and land to himself. He felt as if they were +all his own, and, for a socialist, was guilty of the sin of pride of +possession. He was enjoying himself so much that it was a long time before he +turned to swim back. +</p> + +<p> +He was swimming with his head under water most of the time so that he did not +at once notice that a raft he had passed on his way out was now occupied. As +soon as he did see it his head came up. It was a female figure, and even from a +distance he could see that she was unconscious of his presence and felt quite +as sure of having the world to herself as he was. She was sitting on the edge +of the raft, kicking a pair of the prettiest legs in the world in and out of +the water. They were clad in the thinnest of blue-silk stockings, the same in +which a few minutes before she had been dancing, but not being able to find any +others in her bathhouse, she had just kept them on, recklessly ignoring the +inevitable problem of what she should wear home. She was leaning back on her +straightened arms, with her head back, looking up into the sky and softly +whistling to herself. Ben saw in a second that she was the girl of the silver +turban. +</p> + +<p> +He stole nearer and nearer, cutting silently through the water, and then, when +he had looked his fill, he put his head down again, splashed a little, and did +not look up until his hand was on the raft, when he allowed an expression of +calm surprise to appear on his face. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” he said. “Is this a private raft?” +</p> + +<p> +The young lady, who had had plenty of time since the splash to arrange her +countenance, looked at him with a blank coldness, and then suddenly smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it was a private world,” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s certainly a very agreeable one,” said Ben, climbing on the raft. “And +what I like particularly about it is the fact that no one is alive but you and +me. Newport appears to be a city of the dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“It always was,” she answered, contemptuously. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come. Not an hour ago you were dancing in blue and green and a silver +turban at a party over there,” and he waved his hand in the direction from +which he had come. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you think it was a good ball?” +</p> + +<p> +“I enjoyed it,” he answered, truthfully. +</p> + +<p> +Her face fell. “How very disappointing,” she said. “I didn’t see you there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Disappointing that you did not see me there?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she replied, and then, less positively; “No; I meant it was disappointing +that you were the kind of man who went to parties—and enjoyed them.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be silly to go if you didn’t enjoy them,” he returned, lightly. +</p> + +<p> +She turned to him very seriously. “You’re right,” she said; “it is +silly—very silly, and it’s just what I do. I consider parties like that +the lowest, emptiest form of human entertainment. They’re dull; they’re +expensive; they keep you from doing intelligent things, like studying; they +keep you from doing simple, healthy things, like sleeping and exercising; they +make you artificial; they make you civil to people you despise—they make +women, at least, for we must have partners—” +</p> + +<p> +“But why do you go, then?” +</p> + +<p> +She was silent, and they looked straight and long at each other. Then she said, +gravely: +</p> + +<p> +“The answer’s very humiliating. I go because I haven’t anything else to do.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not reassure her. “Yes, that’s bad,” he said, after a second. “But of +course you could not expect to have anything else to do when all your time is +taken up like that. ‘When the half gods go,’ you know, ‘the gods arrive.’” +</p> + +<p> +The quotation was not new to Crystal; in fact, she had quoted it to Eddie not +very long before, apropos of another girl to whom he had shown a mild +attention, but it seemed to her as if she took in for the first time its real +meaning. Whether it was the dawn, exhaustion, a stimulating personality, love, +or mere accident, the words now came to her with all the beauty and truth of a +religious conviction. They seemed to shake her and make her over. She felt as +if she could never be sufficiently grateful to the person who had thus made all +life fresh and new to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” she said, very gently, “that’s it. I see. You won’t believe me, but I +assure you from now on I mean to be entirely different.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please, not too different.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, yes, as different as possible. I’ve been so unhappy, and unhappy about +nothing definite—that’s the worst kind, only that I have not liked the +life I was leading.” +</p> + +<p> +She glanced at him appealingly. She had tried to tell this simple story to so +many people, for she had many friends, and yet no one had ever really +understood. Some had told her she was spoiled, more, that there was no use in +trying to change her life because she would soon marry; most of them had +advised her to marry and find out what real trouble was. Now, as she spoke she +saw that this strange young man from the sea not only understood her +discontent, but thought it natural, almost commonplace. +</p> + +<p> +She poured it all out. “Only the worst thing,” she ended, “is that I’m not +really any good. There isn’t anything else that I know how to do.” +</p> + +<p> +“I doubt that,” he answered, and she began to doubt it, too. “I’m sure there +are lots of things you could do if you put your mind on it. Did you ever try to +write?” +</p> + +<p> +Now, indeed, she felt sure that he was gifted with powers more than +mortal—to have guessed this secret which no one else had ever suspected. +She colored deeply. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes,” she answered, “I think I can—a little, only I’ve so little +education.” +</p> + +<p> +“So little education?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I belong to the cultivated classes—three languages and nothing +solid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you know, three languages seem pretty solid to me,” said Ben, who had +wrestled very unsuccessfully with the French tongue. “You speak three +languages, and let me see, you know a good deal about painting and poetry and +jade and Chinese porcelains?” +</p> + +<p> +She shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. “Oh, of course everyone knows about +those things, but what good are they?” +</p> + +<p> +They were a good deal of good to Ben. He pressed on toward his final goal. +“What is your attitude toward fairies?” he asked, and Miss Cox would have heard +in his tone a faint memory of his voice when he engaged a new office-boy. +</p> + +<p> +Her attitude toward fairies was perfectly satisfactory, and he showed so much +appreciation that she went on and told him her great secret in full. She had +once had something published and been paid money for it—fifteen +dollars—and probably never in her life had she spoken of any sum with so +much respect. It had been, well, a sort of a review of a new illustrated +edition of Hans Andersen’s Tales, treating them as if they were modern stories, +commenting on them from the point of view of morals and +probability—making fun of people who couldn’t give themselves up to the +charm of a story unless it tallied with their own horrid little experiences of +life. She told it, she said, very badly, but perhaps he could get the idea. +</p> + +<p> +He got it perfectly. “Good,” he said. “I’ll give you a job. I’m a newspaper +editor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” she exclaimed, “you’re not Mr. Munsey, are you, or Mr. Reid, or Mr. +Ochs?” +</p> + +<p> +Her knowledge of newspaper owners seemed to come to a sudden end. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he answered, smiling, “nor even Mr. Hearst. I did not say I owned a +newspaper. I edit it. I need some one just like you for my book page, only +you’d have to come to New York and work hard, and there wouldn’t be very much +salary. Can you work?” +</p> + +<p> +“Anyone can.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I will.” (It was a vow.) “And now I must go. I have to drive myself +home in an open car, and the tourists do stare at one so—in fancy dress.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but when am I to see you again? I leave Newport to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Telephone me—2079—and we’ll arrange to do something this +afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“And whom shall I ask for?” +</p> + +<p> +“Telephone at two-fifteen to the minute, and I’ll answer the telephone myself.” +</p> + +<p> +She evidently rather enjoyed the mystery of their not knowing each other’s +names. But a black idea occurred to Ben. She had slid off the raft and swum a +few strokes before he shouted to her: +</p> + +<p> +“Look here. Your name isn’t Eugenia, is it?” +</p> + +<p> +She waved her hand. “No, I’m Crystal,” she called back. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-by, Crystal.” +</p> + +<p> +This time she did not wave, but, swimming on her side with long, easy strokes, +she gave him a sweet, reassuring look. +</p> + +<p> +After she had gone he lay down on the raft with his face buried in his arms. A +few moments before he had thought he could never see enough of the sunrise and +the sea, but now he wanted to shut it out in favor of a much finer spectacle +within him. So this was love. Strange that no one had ever been able to prepare +you for it. Strange that poets had never been able to give you a hint of its +stupendous inevitability. He wondered if all miracles were like that—so +simple—so— +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly he heard her voice near him. He lifted his head from his arms. She was +there in the water below him, clinging to the raft with one hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I just came back to tell you something,” she said. “I thought you ought to +know it before things went any farther.” +</p> + +<p> +He thought, “Good God! she’s in love with some one else!” and the horror of the +idea made him look at her severely. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not perhaps just as I seem—I mean my views are rather liberal. In +fact”—she brought it out with an effort—“I’m almost a socialist.” +</p> + +<p> +The relief was so great that Ben couldn’t speak. He bent his head and kissed +the hand that had tempted him a few hours before. +</p> + +<p> +She did not resent his action. Her special technique in such matters was to +pretend that such little incidents hardly came into the realm of her +consciousness. She said, “At two-fifteen, then,” and swam away for good. +</p> + +<p> +Later in the day a gentleman who owned both a bathing house and a bathing suit +on Bailey’s beach was showing the latter possession to a group of friends. +</p> + +<p> +“No one can tell me that Newport isn’t damp,” he said. “I haven’t been in +bathing for twenty-four hours, and yet I can actually wring the water out of my +suit.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<p> +That same morning, about ten o’clock, Mr. William Cord was shut up in the study +of his house—shut up, that is, as far as entrance from the rest of the +house was concerned, but very open as to windows looking out across the grass +to the sea. It was a small room, and the leather chairs which made up most of +its furnishings were worn, and the bookshelves were filled with volumes like +railroad reports and <i>Poor’s Manual</i>, but somehow the total effect of the +room was so agreeable that the family used it more than Mr. Cord liked. +</p> + +<p> +He was an impressive figure, tall, erect, and with that suggestion of unbroken +health which had had something to do with his success in life. His hair must +have been of a sandy brown, for it had turned, not gray nor white, but that +queer no-color that sandy hair does turn, melting into all pale surroundings. +His long face was not vividly colored, either, but was stamped with the +immobility of expression that sensitive people in contact with violent life +almost always acquire. The result was that there seemed to be something dead +about his face until you saw his eyes, dark and fierce, as if all the fire and +energy of the man were concentrated in them. +</p> + +<p> +He was dressed in gray golfing-clothes that smelled more of peat than peat +does, and, though officially supposed to be wrestling with the more secret part +of correspondence which even his own secretary was not allowed to see, he was +actually wiggling a new golf-club over the rug, and toying with the romantic +idea that it would enable him to drive farther than he had ever driven before. +</p> + +<p> +There was a knock at the door. Mr. Cord leaned the driver in a corner, clasped +his hands behind his back, straddled his legs a trifle, so that they seemed to +grow out of the rug as the eternal oak grows out of the sod, and said, “Come +in,” in the tone of a man who, considering the importance of his occupation, +bears interruption exceedingly well. +</p> + +<p> +Tomes, the butler, entered. “Mr. Verriman, sir, to see you.” +</p> + +<p> +“To see <i>me</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Cord just nodded at this, which evidently meant that the visitor was to be +admitted, for Tomes never made a mistake and Verriman presently entered. Mr. +Cord had seen Eddie Verriman the night before at the ball, and had thought him +a very fine figure of a man, so now, putting two and two together, he said to +himself, “Is he here to ask my blessing?” +</p> + +<p> +Aloud he said nothing, but just nodded; it was a belief that had translated +itself into a habit—to let the other man explain first. +</p> + +<p> +“I know I’m interrupting you, Mr. Cord,” Verriman began. Mr. Cord made a +lateral gesture with his hand, as if all he had were at the disposal of his +friends, even his most precious asset—time. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s something very important,” Eddie went on. “I’m worried. I haven’t slept. +Mr. Cord, have you checked up Crystal’s economic beliefs lately?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lately?” said Mr. Cord. “I don’t know that I ever have. Have a cigar?” +</p> + +<p> +Eddie waved the cigar aside as if his host had offered it to him in the midst +of a funeral service. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I have,” he said, as if some one had to do a parent’s duty, “and I’ve +been very much distressed—shocked. I had a long talk with her about it at +the dance last night.” +</p> + +<p> +“About economics?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Eddie, don’t I seem to remember your telling me you were in love with +Crystal?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Mr. Cord, I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what do you want to talk economics for? Or is it done like that +nowadays?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to,” answered Eddie, almost in a wail. “<i>She</i> does. She gets +me going and then we quarrel because she has terrible opinions. She talks +wildly. I have to point out to her that she’s wrong. And last night she told +me”—Eddie glanced about to be sure he was not overheard—“she told +me that she was a socialist.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord had just lit the very cigar which Eddie had waved away, and he took +the first critical puffs at it before he answered: +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ask her what that was?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—no—I didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Missed a trick there, Eddie.” +</p> + +<p> +It was impossible to accuse so masklike a magnate of frivolity, but Eddie was +often dissatisfied with Mr. Cord’s reactions to the serious problems of life. +</p> + +<p> +“But don’t you think it’s terrible,” he went on, eagerly, “for Crystal to be a +socialist? In this age of the world—civilization trembling on the +brink—chaos”—Eddie made a gesture toward the perfectly ordered +shelves containing <i>Poor’s Manual</i>—“staring us in the face? You say +that the half-baked opinions of an immature girl make no difference?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I shouldn’t say that—at least not to Crystal,” murmured her father. +</p> + +<p> +“But the mere fact that she picks up such ideas proves that they are in the air +about us and that terrifies me—terrifies me,” ended Eddie, his voice +rising as he saw that his host intended to remain perfectly calm. +</p> + +<p> +“Which terrifies you, Eddie—Crystal or the revolution?” +</p> + +<p> +“The general discontent—the fact that civilization is tr—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, that,” said Mr. Cord, hastily. “Well, I wouldn’t allow that to terrify +me, Eddie. I should have more sympathy with ou if it had been Crystal. Crystal +is a good deal of a proposition, I grant you. The revolution seems to me +simpler. If a majority of our fellow countrymen really want it, they are going +to get it in spite of you and me; and if they don’t want it, they won’t have it +no matter how Crystal talks to you at parties. So cheer up, Eddie, and have a +cigar.” +</p> + +<p> +“They can, they will,” said Eddie, not even troubling to wave away the cigar +this time. “You don’t appreciate what an organized minority of foreign +agitators can do in this country. Why, they can—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if a minority of foreigners can put over a revolution against the will +of the American people, we ought to shut up shop, Eddie.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not afraid?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean you wouldn’t fight it?” +</p> + +<p> +“You bet your life I’d fight it,” said Mr. Cord, gayly, “but I fight lots of +things without being afraid of them. What’s the use of being afraid? Here I am +sixty-five, conservative and trained to only one game, and yet I feel as if +<i>I</i> could manage to make my own way even under soviet rule. Anyway, I +don’t want to die or emigrate just because my country changes its form of +government. Only it would have to be the wish of the majority, and I don’t +believe it ever will be. In the meantime there is just one thing I <i>am</i> +afraid of—and that’s the thing that you and most of my friends want to do +first—suppressing free speech; if you suppress it, we won’t know who +wants what. Then you really do get an explosion.” +</p> + +<p> +Eddie had got Mr. Cord to be serious now, with the unfortunate result that the +older man was more shocking than ever. +</p> + +<p> +“Free speech doesn’t mean treason and sedition,” Eddie began. +</p> + +<p> +“It means the other man’s opinion.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause during which Eddie became more perturbed and Mr. Cord settled +back to his habitual calm. +</p> + +<p> +“Wouldn’t you suppress <i>anything</i>?” Verriman asked at length, willing to +know the worst. “Not even such a vile sheet as <i>Liberty</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you ever see it, Eddie?” +</p> + +<p> +“Read a rotten paper like that? Certainly not. Do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I subscribe to it.” And, bending down, Mr. Cord unlocked a drawer in his desk +and produced the issue of the preceding day. +</p> + +<p> +“I notice you keep it locked up,” said Eddie, and felt that he had scored. +</p> + +<p> +“I have to,” replied Mr. Cord, “or else Crystal gets hold of it and cuts it all +up into extracts—she must have sent you some—before I get a chance +to read it. Besides, it shocks Tomes. You ought to talk to Tomes, Eddie. He +thinks about as you do—” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment the door opened and Tomes himself entered. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Moreton would like to see you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Even Cord’s calm was a little disturbed by this unexpected news. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Moreton!” he exclaimed. “Not—not—not—not?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir,” said Tomes, always in possession of accurate information. “His +brother, I believe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Show him in here,” said Cord, and added to Eddie, as Tomes left the room: +“Well, here he is—the editor himself, Eddie. You can say it all to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to see such fellows,” Verriman began. +</p> + +<p> +“Stay and protect me, Eddie. He may have a bomb in his pocket.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t really believe that he’s come to—” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Eddie, I don’t. I think he’s come like young Lochinvar—to dance a +little late at the wedding. To try to persuade me to accept that lazy, +good-looking brother of his as a son-in-law. He’ll have quite a job over that.” +Then, as the door opened, Mr. Cord’s eyes concentrated on it and his manner +became a shade sharper. “Ah, Mr. Moreton, good morning. Mr. Verriman—Mr. +Moreton.” +</p> + +<p> +Ben was a good-looking young man, but it was his expression—at once +illuminated and determined—that made him unusual. And the effect of his +night and morning had been to intensify this, so that now, as he stood a moment +in the doorway, he was a very attractive and compelling figure. +</p> + +<p> +“I came to see my brother, Mr. Cord,” he said, simply, “but I hear he’s not +here any more. If I could speak to you alone for a few minutes—” He +glanced at Eddie, whom he instantly recognized as the man who had not known how +to talk to the woman in the world best worth talking to. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you may speak before Mr. Verriman,” said Cord. “He knows the +situation—knows your brother—knows my children—knows about +you. In fact, we were just speaking about your paper when you came in. However, +I must tell you that Mr. Verriman doesn’t approve of <i>Liberty</i>. At least, +I believe I understood you right, Eddie.” And Mr. Cord, having thus assured +himself a few minutes to regain his poise, leaned back comfortably in his +chair. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s wrong with the paper, Mr. Verriman?” said Ben, pleasantly. +</p> + +<p> +Eddie did not love the adventure of mental combat, but he was no coward. “It +seems to me,” he said, “that it preaches such radical changes in our government +that it is seditious. To be frank, Mr. Moreton, I think the government ought to +suppress it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But we don’t break the law. The government can’t suppress us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then the laws ought to be changed so that it can.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all we advocate, Mr. Verriman, the changing of the law. It isn’t any +more seditious for me to say it than for you to, is it?” +</p> + +<p> +Of course in Eddie’s opinion it was—much, much more seditious. Only +somehow it was a difficult point to make clear, if a person was so wrongheaded +he couldn’t see it for himself. The point was that he, Eddie, was right in +wanting the laws changed and Moreton was wrong. Anyone, it seemed to Eddie, +would agree to that, unless he happened to agree with Moreton beforehand, and +those were just the people who ought to be deported, imprisoned, or even +perhaps in rare instances, as examples, strung up to lamp-posts. Only each time +he tried to put these very natural opinions in words, they kept sounding wrong +and tyrannical and narrow—qualities which Eddie knew he was entirely +without. In order to counteract this effect, he tried at first to speak very +temperately and calmly, but, unhappily, this only had the effect of making him +sound patronizing to Ben’s ears. +</p> + +<p> +In short, it was hardly to be expected that the discussion would be amicable, +and it was not. Each man began to be angry in his own way. Eddie shouted a +little, and Ben expressed himself with turns of phrase quite needlessly +insulting. Ben found Verriman’s assumption that the profits of capital were +bound up with patriotism, family life, and the Christian religion almost as +irritating as Verriman found Ben’s assumption that the government of labor as a +class would be entirely without the faults that have always marked every form +of class government. +</p> + +<p> +“And suppose you got socialism,” said Eddie, at last, “suppose you did divide +everything up equally, don’t you suppose that in a few years the clever, +strong, industrious men would have it all in their own hands?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very likely,” said Ben, “but that would be quite a change from the present +arrangement, wouldn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord had a narrow escape from laughing out loud, which would have cost him +the friendship of the man with whom on the whole he really agreed. He thought +it was time to interfere. +</p> + +<p> +“This is very interesting, Mr. Moreton,” he said, “but I fancy it wasn’t about +the general radical propaganda that you came to see me.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Ben, turning slowly. He felt as a dog feels who is dragged out of +the fight just as it begins to get exciting. “No, I came to see you about this +unfortunate engagement of my brother’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Unfortunate?” asked Mr. Cord, without criticism. +</p> + +<p> +“I should consider it so, and I understand you do, too.” +</p> + +<p> +Cord did not move an eyelash; this was an absolutely new form of attack. It had +certainly never crossed his mind that any objection could come from the Moreton +family. +</p> + +<p> +“You consider it unfortunate?” said Eddie, as if it would be mere insolence on +Ben’s part to object to his brother’s marrying anyone. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you give me your reasons for objecting?” said Cord. +</p> + +<p> +Ben smiled. “You ought to understand them,” he said, “for I imagine they’re +pretty much the same as your own. I mean they are both founded on class +consciousness. I feel that it will be destructive to the things I value most in +David to be dependent on, or associated with, the capitalistic group. Just as +you feel it will be destructive to your daughter to be married to a +tutor—a fellow with radical views and a seditious brother—” +</p> + +<p> +“One moment, one moment,” said Cord; “you’ve got this all wrong so far as I’m +concerned. I do most emphatically disagree with the radical propaganda. I think +the radical is usually just a man who hasn’t got something he wants.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the conservative is a man who wants to keep something he’s got,” said Ben, +less hostilely than he had spoken to Eddie. +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly, exactly,” said Cord. “In ideality there isn’t much to choose between +them, but, generally speaking, I have more respect for the man who has +succeeded in getting something to preserve than for the man who hasn’t got +anything to lose.” +</p> + +<p> +“If their opportunities were equal.” +</p> + +<p> +“I say in general. There is not much to choose between the two types; but there +is in my opinion a shade in favor of the conservative on the score of +efficiency, and I am old-fashioned perhaps, but I like efficiency. If it came +to a fight, I should fight on the conservative side. But this is all beside the +point. My objections to your brother, Mr. Moreton, are not objections to his +group or class. They are personal to him. Damned personal.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t like David?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, he’s an attractive young fellow, but, if you’ll forgive my saying so, Mr. +Moreton, I don’t think he’s any good. He’s weak, he’s idle, he entirely lacks +that aggressive will that—whether we have your revolution or not—is +the only bulwark a woman has in this world. Why, Mr. Moreton, you are evidently +a very much more advanced and dangerous radical than your brother, but I should +not have half the objection to you that I have to him. There is only one thing +that makes a difference in this world—character. Your brother hasn’t got +it.” +</p> + +<p> +For an instant the perfect accuracy of Cord’s statements about David left Ben +silent. Then he pulled himself together and said, with a firmness he did not +wholly feel: +</p> + +<p> +“You hardly do David justice. He may not have great force, but he has talent, +great sweetness, no vices—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, quite, quite, quite, quite,” said Cord, with a gesture of his long hand +that should somehow have recalled to Ben the motion of a hand he had recently +kissed. +</p> + +<p> +“However,” said Ben, “there is no use in arguing about our differences. The +point is we are agreed that this marriage ought not to be. Let us co-operate on +that. Where could I find David? I believe if I could see him I’d have some +effect on him.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean you could talk him out of marrying the girl he loves?” +</p> + +<p> +“I might make him see the folly of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I haven’t said anything as bad about your brother as that, Mr. Moreton. +But you do him injustice. You couldn’t talk him out of it, and if you could, +she’d talk him right back into it again. But there is one thing to consider. I +understand you make him an allowance. How about stopping that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t consider that for a moment,” said Ben, with more temper than he had +so far shown. “I don’t make him that allowance so that I can force him to do +what I think best. I give it to him because he needs it. I don’t believe in +force, Mr. Cord.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, you do, Mr. Moreton.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“You were proposing to use a much more pernicious kind of force when you +proposed talking the boy out of his first love. However, to be candid with you, +I must tell you that the issue is dead. They ran off yesterday and were married +in Boston.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a short silence and then Ben moved toward the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you stay to lunch?” said Mr. Cord, politely. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, no,” said Ben. He wanted to be alone. Like all dominating people +who don’t get their own way in an altruistic issue, his feelings were deeply +wounded. He took his hat from the disapproving Tomes, and went out to the sea +to think. He supposed he was going to think about David’s future and the +terrible blow his paper had just received. +</p> + +<p> +As the door closed behind him, Eddie turned to Mr. Cord with a world of +reproach in his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he said, “I must say, sir, I think you were unnecessarily gentle with +that fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Seemed to me a fine young fellow,” said Mr. Cord. +</p> + +<p> +“Asking him to lunch,” said Eddie. +</p> + +<p> +“I did that for Crystal,” replied Cord, getting up and slapping his +pockets—a gesture which in some subconscious way he hoped would make +Eddie go home. “She’s always so keen to meet new people. If she heard that the +editor of <i>Liberty</i> had been here while she was asleep and that I had not +tried to keep him for her to see—whew!—she would make a scene.” +</p> + +<p> +“But she oughtn’t to see people like that,” protested Eddie, as if he were +trying to talk sense in a madhouse. “That was what I was just explaining to +you, Mr. Cord, when—” +</p> + +<p> +“So you were, Eddie, so you were,” said Mr. Cord. “Stay to lunch and tell +Crystal. Or, rather,” he added, hastily glancing at the clock, “come back to +lunch in an hour. I have to go now and see—” Mr. Cord hesitated for the +fraction of a second—“the gardener. If you don’t see gardeners now and +then and let them scold you about the weather and the Lord’s arrangement of the +seasons, they go mad and beat their wives. See you later, Eddie,” and Mr. Cord +stepped out through the French window. It was only great crises like these that +led him to offer himself up to the attacks of his employees. +</p> + +<p> +A severe elderly man with a long, flat upper lip and side whiskers immediately +sprang apparently from the earth and approached him. He had exactly the manner +of resolute gloom that a small boy has when something has gone wrong at school +and he wants his mother to drag it out of him. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, sir,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Morning, McKellar,” said Cord, gayly. “Everything’s all right, I suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +McKellar shook his head. Everything was about as far from all right as it well +could be. The cook was a violent maniac who required peas to be picked so young +that they weren’t worth the picking. Tomes and his footman were a band of +malicious pirates who took pleasure in cutting for the table the very buds +which McKellar was cherishing for the horticultural show. And as for the +season—McKellar could not remember such a devastatingly dry August since +he was a lad at home. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, McKellar, we had rain two days ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“You wouldn’t call that little mist rain, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“And last week a perfect downpour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, that’s the kind doesn’t sink into the soil.” Looking up critically at the +heavens, McKellar expressed his settled conviction that in two weeks’ time +hardly a blade or a shrub would be alive in the island at Newport. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, that will save us all a lot of trouble, McKellar,” said Mr. Cord, and +presently left his gloomy gardener. He had attained his object. When he went +back into the house, Eddie had gone, and he could go back to his new driver in +peace. +</p> + +<p> +He was not interrupted until ten minutes past one, when Crystal came into the +room, her eyes shining with exactly the same color that, beyond the lawn, the +sea was displaying. Unlike Eddie, she looked better than in her fancy dress. +She had on flat tennis shoes, a cotton blouse and a duck skirt, and a +russet-colored sweater. Miss Cox would have rejected every item of her costume +except the row of pearls, which just showed at her throat. +</p> + +<p> +She kissed her father rapidly, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, dear. Are you ready for breakfast—lunch I mean?” +</p> + +<p> +She was a little bit flustered for the reason that it seemed to her as if any +one would be able to see that she was an entirely different Crystal from the +one of the evening before, and she was not quite sure what she was going to +answer when her father said, as she felt certain he must say at any moment, “My +dear child, what has come over you?” +</p> + +<p> +He did not say this, however. He held out his golf-club and said, “Got a new +driver.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, dear, very nice,” said Crystal. “But I want to have lunch +punctually, to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord sighed. Crystal wasn’t always very sympathetic. “I’m ready,” he said, +“only Eddie’s coming.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Eddie!</i>” exclaimed Crystal, drawing her shoulders up, as if at the sight +of a cobra in her path. “Why is Eddie coming to lunch? I did not ask him.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, my dear, I took that liberty,” replied her father. “It seemed the only way +of getting rid of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I sha’n’t wait for him,” said Crystal, ringing the bell. “I have an +engagement at a quarter past two.” +</p> + +<p> +“At the golf club?” asked her father, his eye lighting a little. “You might +drive me out, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, dear; quite in the other direction—with a man who was at the party +last night.” +</p> + +<p> +“You enjoyed the party?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you stayed till morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“I stopped and took a swim.” +</p> + +<p> +“You enjoyed that, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +His daughter glanced at him and turned crimson; but she did not have to answer, +for at that moment Tomes came, in response to her ring, and she said: +</p> + +<p> +“We won’t wait lunch for Mr. Verriman, Tomes.” Then, as he went away, she +asked, “And what was Eddie doing here this morning, anyhow?” +</p> + +<p> +“He was scolding me,” replied Mr. Cord. “Have you noticed, Crystal, what a lot +of scolding is going on in the world at present? I believe that that is why no +one is getting any work done—everyone is so busy scolding everybody else. +The politicians are scolding, and the newspapers are scolding, and most of the +fellows I know are scolding. I believe I’ve got hold of a great truth—” +</p> + +<p> +“And may I ask what Eddie was scolding about?” asked Crystal, no more +interested in great truths than most of us. +</p> + +<p> +“About you.” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal moved her head about as if things had now reached a point where it +wasn’t even worth while to be angry. “About me?” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems you’re a socialist, my dear. Eddie asked me how long it was since I +had taken an inventory of your economic beliefs. I could not remember that I +ever had, but perhaps you will tell them to me now. That is,” Mr. Cord added, +“if you can do it without scolding me—probably an impossible condition to +impose nowadays.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a pity about Eddie,” said Crystal, fiercely. “If only stupid people would +be content to be stupid, instead of trying to run the world—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, my dear, it’s only stupid people who are under the impression that they +can. Good morning again, Eddie, we were just speaking of you.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord added the last sentence without the slightest change of tone or +expression as his guest was ushered in by Tomes, who, catching Crystal’s eyes +for a more important fact than Eddie’s arrival, murmured that luncheon was +served. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Eddie,” said Crystal, and there was a sort of gay vibration in her whole +figure, and her tone was like a bright banner of war, “and so you came round to +complain to my father, did you?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord laid his hand on her shoulder. “Do you think you could demolish Eddie +just as well at table, my dear?” he said. “If so, there’s no use in letting the +food get cold.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, she can do it anywhere,” replied Eddie, bitterly, and then, striking his +habitual note of warning, he went on, “but, honestly, Crystal, if you had heard +what your father and I heard this morning—” +</p> + +<p> +“I had a visit from David’s brother this morning,” put in Mr. Cord, “the editor +of your favorite morning paper.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ben Moreton, here! Oh, <i>father</i>, why didn’t you call me? Yes, I know,” +she added, as her father opened his mouth to say that she had left most +particular instructions that she was to be allowed to sleep as late as she +could, “I know, but you must have known I should have wanted to look David’s +brother over. Has he long hair? Does he wear a soft tie? Did you hate him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Eddie didn’t take much of a fancy to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should say not. A damned, hollow-eyed fanatic.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is he as good-looking as David, father? What does he look like?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord hesitated. “Well, a little like my engraving of Thomas Jefferson as a +young man.” +</p> + +<p> +“He looks as if he might have a bomb in his pocket.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Eddie, do keep quiet, there’s a dear, and let father give me one of his +long, wonderful accounts. Go ahead, father.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mr. Cord, helping himself from a dish that Tomes was presenting to +him, “as I told you, Eddie had dropped in very kindly to scold me about you, +when Tomes announced Mr. Moreton. Tomes thought he ought to be put straight out +of the house. Didn’t you, Tomes?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir,” said Tomes, who was getting used to his employer, although he did +not encourage this sort of thing, particularly before the footmen. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Moreton came in and said, very simply—” +</p> + +<p> +“Has he good manners, father?” +</p> + +<p> +“He has no manners at all,” roared Eddie. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how nice,” said Crystal, of whom it might be asserted without flattery +that she now understood in perfection the art of irritating Eddie. +</p> + +<p> +“He is very direct and natural,” her father continued. “He has a lot more punch +than your brother-in-law, my dear. In fact, I was rather impressed with the +young fellow until he and Eddie fell to quarreling. Things did not go so well, +then.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean,” said Crystal, the gossip rather getting the best of the reformer in +her, “that he lost his temper horribly?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should say he did,” said Eddie. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Eddie, you know you were not perfectly calm,” answered Cord. “Let us say +that they both lost their tempers, which is strange, for as far as I could see +they were agreed on many essentials. They both believe that one class in the +community ought to govern the other. They both believe the world is in a very +bad way; only, according to Eddie, we are going to have chaos if capital loses +its control of the situation; and according to Moreton we are going to have +chaos if labor doesn’t get control. So, as one or the other seems bound to +happen, we ought to be able to adjust ourselves to chaos. In fact, Crystal, I +have been interviewing McKellar about having a chaos cellar built in the +garden.” +</p> + +<p> +Eddie pushed back his plate; it was empty, but the gesture suggested that he +could not go on choking down the food of a man who joked about such serious +matters. +</p> + +<p> +“I must say, Mr. Cord,” he began, “I really must say—” He paused, +surprised to find that he really hadn’t anything that he must say, and Crystal +turned to her father: +</p> + +<p> +“But you haven’t told me why he came. To see Eugenia, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; he hadn’t heard of the marriage. He came to talk to his brother.” +</p> + +<p> +“For you must know,” put in Eddie, hastily, “that Mr. Ben Moreton does not +approve of the marriage—oh, dear, no. He would consider such a connection +quite beneath his family. He disapproves of Eugenia as a sister-in-law.” +</p> + +<p> +“How could any one disapprove of her?” asked her sister, hotly. +</p> + +<p> +“Jevver hear such nerve?” said Eddie. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not Eugenia; it’s capital Moreton disapproves of,” Mr. Cord went on, +patiently explaining. “You see it never crossed our minds that the Moretons +might object, but of course they do. They regard us as a very degrading +connection. Doubtless it will hurt Ben Moreton with his readers to be connected +with a financial pirate like myself, quite as much as it will hurt me in the +eyes of most of my fellow board members when it becomes known that my +son-in-law’s brother is the editor of <i>Liberty</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Moretons disapprove,” repeated Crystal, to whom the idea was not at all +agreeable. +</p> + +<p> +“Disapprove, nonsense!” said Eddie. “I believe he came to blackmail you. To see +what he could get out of you if he offered to stop the marriage. Well, why not? +If these fellows believe all the money ought to be taken away from the +capitalists, why should they care how it’s done? I can’t see much difference +between robbing a man, and legislating his fortune out of—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I must tell you, father dear,” said Crystal, exactly as if Eddie had not +been speaking, “that I think it was horrid of you not to have me called when +you must have known—” +</p> + +<p> +“Crystal, you’re scolding me,” wailed her father. “And most unjustly. I did ask +him to lunch just for your sake, although I saw Eddie was shocked, and I was +afraid Tomes would give warning. But I did ask him, only he wouldn’t stay.” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal rose from the table with her eye on the clock, and they began to make +their way back to Mr. Cord’s study, as she asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Why wouldn’t he stay?” +</p> + +<p> +“I gathered because he didn’t want to. Perhaps he was afraid he’d have to argue +with Eddie about capital and labor all through lunch. And of course he did not +know that I had another beautiful daughter sleeping off the effects of a late +party, or very likely he would have accepted.” +</p> + +<p> +Very likely he would. +</p> + +<p> +Just as they entered the study, the telephone rang. Crystal sprang to the +instrument, brushing away her father’s hand, which had moved toward it. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s for me, dear,” she said, and continued, speaking into the mouthpiece: +“Yes, it’s I.” (A pause.) “Where are you?... Oh, yes, I know the place. I’ll be +there in five minutes, in a little blue car.” She hung up the receiver, sprang +up, and looked very much surprised to see Eddie and her father still there just +as before. “Good-by, Eddie,” she said, “I’m sorry, but I have an engagement. +Good-by, father.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t want to run me out to the golf club first?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not possible, dear. The chauffeur can take you in the big car.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but he’ll scold me all the way about there not being room enough in the +garage.” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal was firm. “I’m sorry, but I can’t, dear. This is important. I may take +a job. I’ll tell you all about it this evening.” And she left the room, with a +smile that kept getting entirely beyond her control. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s this? What’s this?” cried Eddie as the door shut. “A job. You wouldn’t +let Crystal take a job, would you, Mr. Cord?” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t been consulted,” said Mr. Cord, taking out his new driver again. +</p> + +<p> +“But didn’t you notice how excited she was. I’m sure it’s decided.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I noticed, Eddie; but it looked to me more like a man than a job. How do +you think we’d come out if I gave you a stroke and a half a hole?” +</p> + +<p> +Eddie was too perturbed even to answer. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime, Crystal was spinning along Bellevue Avenue, forgetting to bow +to her friends, and wondering why the car was going so badly until, her eye +falling on the speedometer, she noticed that she was doing a mild thirty-five +miles an hour. Sooner, therefore, than the law allowed, she reached a small +park that surrounds a statue of Perry, and there she picked up a passenger. +</p> + +<p> +Ben got in and shut the little door almost before she brought the car to a +standstill. +</p> + +<p> +“When you were little,” he said, “did you ever imagine something wonderful that +might happen—like the door’s opening and a delegation coming to elect you +captain of the baseball team, or whatever is a little girl’s equivalent of +that—and keep on imagining it and imagining it, until it seemed as if it +really were going to happen? Well, I have been standing here saying to myself, +Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Crystal should come in a little blue car and take +me to drive? And, by Heaven! you’ll never believe me, but she actually did.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus03"></a> +<img src="images/image3_full.png" width="600" height="536" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">“I’ll Be There in Five Minutes, In a Little Blue Car”</p> +</div> + +<p> +“Tell me everything you’ve done since I saw you,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t done anything but think about you. Oh yes, I have, too. I’ve +reappraised the universe. You see, you’ve just made me a present of a brand-new +world, and I’ve been pretty busy, I can tell you, untying the string and +unwrapping the paper, and bless me, Crystal, it looks like a mighty fine +present so far.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” she said, “I think you talk charmingly.” She had started to say, “you +make love charmingly,” but on second thoughts decided that the overt statement +had better come from him. “Dear me,” she went on, “we have so much to talk +about. There’s my job. Can’t we talk a little about that?” +</p> + +<p> +They could and did. Their talk consisted largely in his telling her how much +richer a service she could render his paper through having been unconsciously +steeped in beauty than if she had been merely intellectually +instructed—than if, as she more simply put it, she had known something. +And as he talked, her mind began to expand in the warm atmosphere of his praise +and to give off its perfume like a flower. +</p> + +<p> +But the idea of her working with him day after day, helping the development of +the paper which had grown as dear as a child to him, was so desirable that he +did not dare to contemplate it unless it promised realization. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” he broke out, “you won’t really do it. Your family will object, or +something. Probably when I go away to-night, I shall never see you again.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are still going away to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +“I must.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him and slowly shook her head, as a mother shakes her head at the +foolish plans of a child. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought I was going,” he said, weakly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +He groaned, but did not answer. +</p> + +<p> +She thought, “Oh, dear, I wish when men want to be comforted they would not +make a girl spend so much time and energy getting them to say that they do want +it.” Aloud she said: +</p> + +<p> +“You must tell me what’s the matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a long story.” +</p> + +<p> +“We have all afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it—we haven’t all eternity.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, eternity,” said Crystal, dismissing it with the Cord wave of the hand. +“Who wants eternity? ‘Since we must die how bright the starry track,’ you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“No; what is that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t remember.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh.” +</p> + +<p> +After this meeting of minds they drove for some time in silence. Ben was seeing +a new aspect of Newport—bare, rugged country, sandy roads, a sudden high +rock jutting out toward the sea, a rock on which tradition asserts that Bishop +Berkeley once sat and considered the illusion of matter. They stopped at length +at the edge of a sandy beach. Crystal parked her car neatly with a sharp turn +of the wheel, and got out. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a tea basket,” she called over her shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +Ben’s heart bounded at the news—not that he was hungry, but as the hour +was now but little past half after two a tea basket indicated a prolonged +interview. He found it tucked away in the back of the car, and followed her. +They sat down at the edge of the foam. He lit a pipe, clasped his hands about +his knees and stared out to sea; she curled her feet backward, grasped an ankle +in her hand, and, looking at him, said: +</p> + +<p> +“Now what makes you groan so?” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t meant to be dishonest,” he said, “but I have been obtaining your +friendship—trying to—under false pretenses.” +</p> + +<p> +“Trying to?” said Crystal. “Now isn’t it silly to put that in.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned and smiled at her. She was really incredibly sweet. “But, all the +same,” he went on, “there is a barrier, a real, tangible barrier between us.” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal’s heart suffered a chill convulsion at these words. “Good gracious!” +she thought. “He’s entangled with another woman—oh +dear!—<i>marriage</i>”—But she did not interrupt him, and he +continued: +</p> + +<p> +“I let you think that I was one of the men you might have known—that I +was asked to your party last night, whereas, as a matter of fact, I only +watched you—” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal’s mind, working with its normal rapidity, invented, faced, and passed +over the fact that he must have been one of the musicians. She said aloud: +</p> + +<p> +“I think I ought to tell you that I’m not much of a believer in +barriers—between sensible people who want friendship.” +</p> + +<p> +“Friendship!” exclaimed Ben, as if that were the last thing he had come out on +a lovely summer afternoon to discuss. +</p> + +<p> +“There aren’t any real barriers any more,” Crystal continued. “Differences of +position, and religion, and all those things don’t seem to matter now. Romeo +and Juliet wouldn’t have paid any attention to the little family disagreement +if they had lived to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“In the case of Romeo and Juliet, if I remember correctly,” said Ben, “it was +not exactly a question of friendship.” +</p> + +<p> +She colored deeply, but he refused to modify his statement, for, after all, it +was correct. “But difference of opinion <i>is</i> an obstacle,” he went on. “I +have seen husbands and wives parted by differences of opinion in the late war. +And as far as I’m concerned there’s a war on now—a different war, and I +came here to try to prevent my brother marrying into an enemy influence—” +</p> + +<p> +“Good Heavens!” cried Crystal. “You are Ben Moreton! Why didn’t I see it +sooner? I’m Crystal Cord,” and, lifting up her chin, she laughed. +</p> + +<p> +That she could laugh as the gulf opened between them seemed to him terrible. He +turned his head away. +</p> + +<p> +She stopped laughing. “You don’t think it’s amusing?” (He shook his head.) +“That we’re relations-in-law, when we thought it was all so unknown and +romantic? No wonder I felt at home with you, when I’ve read so many of your +letters to David—such nice letters, too—and I subscribe to your +paper, and read every word of the editorials. And to think that you would not +lunch with me to-day, when my father asked you.” +</p> + +<p> +“To think that it was you I was being asked to lunch with, and didn’t know it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you dine with us to-morrow,” she answered, stating a simple fact. +</p> + +<p> +“Crystal,” he said, and put his hand on hers as if this would help him through +his long explanation; but the continuity of his thought was destroyed and his +spirit wounded by her immediately withdrawing it; and then—so exactly +does the spring of love resemble the uncertain glory of an April day—he +was rendered perfectly happy again by perceiving that her action was due to the +publicity of their position and not to repugnance to the caress. +</p> + +<p> +Fortunately he was a man not without invention, and so when a few minutes later +she suggested opening the tea basket, he insisted on moving to a more retired +spot on the plea that the teakettle would burn better out of the wind; and +Crystal, who must have known that Tomes never gave her a teakettle, but made +the tea at home and put it in a thermos bottle, at once agreed to the +suggestion. +</p> + +<p> +They moved back across the road, where irregular rocks sheltered small plots of +grass and wild flowers, and here, instead of an Arcadian duet, they had, most +unsuitably, their first quarrel. +</p> + +<p> +It began as quarrels are so apt to do, by a complete agreement. Of course he +would stay over the next day, which was Sunday, and not very busy in the office +of <i>Liberty</i>. In return he expected her undivided attention. She at once +admitted that this was part of the plan—only there would have to be one +little exception; she was dining out this evening. Oh, well, that could be +broken, couldn’t it? She would like to break it, but it happened to be one of +those engagements that had to be kept. Ben could not understand that. +</p> + +<p> +At first she tried to explain it to him: She had chosen her own evening several +weeks ago with these people, who wanted her to meet a friend of theirs who was +motoring down specially from Boston. She felt she must keep her word. +</p> + +<p> +“I assure you I don’t want to, but you understand, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +If she had looked at his face she would not have asked the last question. He +did not understand; indeed, he had resolved not to. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said, “I must own, I don’t. If you told me that you <i>wanted</i> to +go, that would be one thing. I shouldn’t have a word to say then.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, you would, Ben,” said Crystal, but he did not notice her. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t understand your allowing yourself to be dragged there against your +will. You say you despise this life, but you seem to take it pretty seriously +if you can’t break any engagement that you may make.” +</p> + +<p> +“How absurd you are! Of course I often break engagements.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see. You do when the inducement is sufficient. Well, that makes it all +perfectly clear.” +</p> + +<p> +She felt both angry and inclined to cry. She knew that to yield to either +impulse would instantly solve the problem and bring a very unreasonable young +man to reason. She ran over both scenes in her imagination. Registering anger, +she would rise and say that, really, Mr. Moreton, if he would not listen to her +explanation there was no use in prolonging the discussion. That would be the +critical moment. He would take her in his arms then and there, or else he would +let her go, and they would drive in silence, and part at the little park, where +of course she might say, “Aren’t you silly to leave me like this?”—only +her experience was that it was never very practical to make up with an angry +man in public. +</p> + +<p> +To burst into tears was a safer method, but she had a natural repugnance to +crying, and perhaps she was subconsciously aware that she might be left, after +the quarrel was apparently made up by this method, with a slight resentment +against the man who had forced her to adopt so illogical a line of conduct. +</p> + +<p> +A middle course appealed to her. She laid her hand on Ben’s. A few minutes +before it would have seemed unbelievable to Ben that his own hand would have +remained cold and lifeless under that touch, but such was now the case. +</p> + +<p> +“Ben,” she said, “if you go on being disagreeable a second longer you must make +up your mind how you will behave when I burst into tears.” +</p> + +<p> +“How I should behave?” +</p> + +<p> +She nodded. +</p> + +<p> +His hands clasped hers. He told her how he should behave. He even offered to +show her, without putting her to the trouble of tears. +</p> + +<p> +“You mean,” she said, “that you would forgive me? Well, forgive me, anyhow. I’m +doing what I think is right about this old dinner. Perhaps I’m wrong about it; +perhaps you’re mistaken and I’m not absolutely perfect, but if I were, think +what a lot of fun you would miss in changing me. And you know I never meant to +abandon you for the whole evening. I’ll get away at half past nine and we’ll +take a little turn.” +</p> + +<p> +So that was settled. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<p> +As they drove back she revealed another plan to him—she was taking him +for a moment to see a friend of hers. He protested. He did not want to see +anyone but herself, but Crystal was firm. He must see this woman; she was their +celebrated parlor Bolshevist. Ben hated parlor Bolshevists. Did he know any? +No. Well, then. Anyhow, Sophia would never forgive her if she did not bring +him. Sophia adored celebrities. Sophia who? Sophia Dawson. The name seemed +dimly familiar to Ben, and then he remembered. It was the name on the +thousand-dollar check for the strike sufferers that had come in the day before. +</p> + +<p> +They drove up an avenue of little oaks to a formidable palace built of gray +stone, so smoothly faced that there was not a crevice in the immense pale +façade. Two men in knee-breeches opened the double doors and they went +in between golden grilles and rows of tall white lilies. They were led through +a soundless hall, and up stairs so thickly carpeted that the feet sank in as in +new-fallen snow, and finally they were ushered through a small painted door +into a small painted room, which had been brought all the way from Sienna, and +there they found Mrs. Dawson—a beautiful, worn, world-weary Mrs. Dawson, +with one streak of gray in the front of her dark hair, her tragic eyes, and her +long violet and black draperies—a perfect Sibyl. +</p> + +<p> +Crystal did not treat her as a Sibyl, however. “Hullo, Sophie!” she said. “This +is my brother-in-law’s brother, Ben Moreton. He’s crazy to meet you. You’ll +like him. I can’t stay because I’m dining somewhere or other, but he’s not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will he dine with me?” said Mrs. Dawson in a wonderful deep, slow +voice—“just stay on and dine with me alone?” +</p> + +<p> +Ben began to say that he couldn’t, but Crystal said yes, that he would be +delighted to, and that she would stop for him again about half past nine, and +that it was a wonderful plan, and then she went away. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Dawson seemed to take it all as a matter of course. “Sit down, Mr. +Moreton,” she said. “I have a quarrel with you.” +</p> + +<p> +Ben could not help feeling a little disturbed by the way he had been injected +into Mrs. Dawson’s evening without her volition. He did not sit down. +</p> + +<p> +“You know,” he said, “there isn’t any reason why you should have me to dine +just because Crystal says so. I do want to thank you for the check you sent in +to us for the strike fund. It will do a lot of good.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that,” replied Mrs. Dawson. “They are fighting all our battles for us.” +</p> + +<p> +“It cheered us up in the office. I wanted to tell you, and now I think I’ll go. +I dare say you are dining out, anyhow—” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes flashed at him. “Dining out!” she exclaimed, as if the suggestion +insulted her. “You evidently don’t know me. I never dine out. I have nothing in +common with these people. I lead a very lonely life. You do me a favor by +staying. You and I could exchange ideas. There is no one in Newport whom I can +talk to—reactionaries.” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Cord is not exactly a reactionary,” said Ben, sitting down. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Dawson smiled. “Crystal is not a reactionary; Crystal is a child,” she +replied. “But what can you expect of William Cord’s daughter? He is a dangerous +and disintegrating force—cold—cynical—he feels not the +slightest public responsibility for his possessions.” Mrs. Dawson laid her hand +on her heart as if it were weighted with all her jewels and footmen and +palaces. “Most Bourbons are cynical about human life, but he goes farther; he +is cynical about his own wealth. And that brings me to my quarrel with you, Mr. +Moreton. How could you let your brother spend his beautiful vigorous youth as a +parasite to Cord’s vapid son? Was that consistent with your beliefs?” +</p> + +<p> +This attack on his consistency from a lady whose consistency seemed even more +flagrant amused Ben, but as he listened he was obliged to admit that there was +a great deal of good sense in what she had to say about David, whom she had met +once or twice at the Cords’. Ben was too candid and eager not to ask her before +long the question that was in his mind—how it was possible for a woman +holding her views to be leading a life so opposed to them. +</p> + +<p> +She was not at all offended, and even less at a loss for an answer. “I am not a +free agent, Mr. Moreton,” she said. “Unhappily, before I began to think at all, +I had undertaken certain obligations. The law allows a woman to dispose of +everything but her property while she is still a child. I married at eighteen.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a story not without interest and Mrs. Dawson told it well. There does +not live a man who would not have been interested. +</p> + +<p> +They dined, not in the great dining room downstairs, nor even in the painted +room from Sienna, but in a sort of loggia that opened from it, where, beyond +the shaded lights, Ben could watch the moon rise out of the sea. +</p> + +<p> +It was a perfect little meal, short, delicious, and quickly served by three +servants. He enjoyed it thoroughly, although he found his hostess a strangely +confusing companion. He would make up his mind that she was a sincere soul +captured by her environment, when a freshly discovered jewel on her long +fingers would shake his faith. And he would just decide that she was a +melodramatic fraud, when she would surprise him by her scholarly knowledge of +social problems. She had read deeply, knew several languages, and had known +many of the European leaders. Such phrases as “Jaurès wrote me ten days +before he died—” were frequent, but not too frequent, on her lips. +</p> + +<p> +By the time Crystal stopped for him Ben had begun to feel like a child who has +lost his mother in a museum, or as Dante might have felt if he had missed +Virgil from his side. When he bade Mrs. Dawson good night, she asked him to +come back. +</p> + +<p> +“Come and spend September here,” she said, as if it were a small thing. “You +can work all day if you like. I sha’n’t disturb you, and you need never see a +soul. It will do you good.” +</p> + +<p> +He was touched by the invitation, but of course he refused it. He tried to +explain tactfully, but clearly, why it was that he couldn’t do that sort of +thing—that the editor of <i>Liberty</i> did not take his holiday at +Newport. +</p> + +<p> +She understood, and sighed. “Ah, yes,” she said. “I’m like that man in +mythology whom neither the sky nor the earth would receive. I’m very lonely, +Mr. Moreton.” +</p> + +<p> +He found himself feeling sorry for her, as he followed a footman downstairs, +his feet sinking into the carpets at each step. Crystal in the blue car was at +the door. She was bareheaded and the wind had been blowing her hair about. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” she said, as he got in, “did you have a good time? I’m sure you had a +good dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +“Excellent, but confusing. I don’t quite get your friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t understand Sophia?” Crystal’s tone expressed surprise. “You mean her +jewels and her footmen? Why, Ben, it’s just like the fathers of this country +who talked about all men being equal and yet were themselves slaveholders. She +sincerely believes those things in a way, and then it’s such a splendid role to +play, and she enjoys that; and then it teases Freddie Dawson. Freddie is rather +sweet if he’s thoroughly unhappy, and this keeps him unhappy almost all the +time. Did she ask you to stay? I meant her to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, she did; but of course I couldn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Ben, why not?” +</p> + +<p> +This brought them once more to the discussion of the barrier. This time Ben +felt he could make her see. He said that she must look at it this +way—that in a war you could not go and stay in enemy country, however +friendly your personal relations might be. Well, as far as he was concerned +this was a war, a class war. +</p> + +<p> +They were headed for the Ocean Drive, and Crystal rounded a sharp turn before +she answered seriously: +</p> + +<p> +“But I thought you didn’t believe in war.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t,” he answered. “I hate it—I hate all violence. We—labor, I +mean—didn’t initiate this, but when men won’t see, when they have power +and won’t stop abusing it, there is only one way to make—” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Ben,” said Crystal, “you’re just a pacifist in other people’s quarrels, +but as militaristic as can be in your own. I’m not a pacifist, but I’m a better +one than you, because I don’t believe in emphasizing any difference between +human beings. That’s why I want a League of Nations. I hate gangs—all +women really do. Little girls don’t form gangs like little boys. Every +settlement worker knows that. I won’t have you say that I belong to the other +group. I won’t be classified. I’m a human being—and I intend to behave as +such.” +</p> + +<p> +Since she had left him she had been immersed again in her old life—her +old friends—and the result had been to make her wonder if her experience +with Ben had been as wonderful as it had seemed. When she stopped for him she +had been almost prepared to find that the wild joy of their meetings had been +something accidental and temporary, and that only a stimulating and pleasant +friendship was left. But as soon as she saw that he really regarded their +differences seriously, all her own prudence and doubt melted away. She knew she +was ready to make any sacrifices for him, and in view of that all talk of +obstacles was folly. +</p> + +<p> +She stopped the car on the point of the island, with the open sea on one hand, +the harbor on the other. In front of them the lightship was moving with a slow, +majestic roll, and to the right was the long festoon of Narragansett lights, +and as they stopped the lighted bulk of the New York boat appeared, making its +way toward Point Judith. +</p> + +<p> +His prolonged silence began to frighten her. +</p> + +<p> +“Ben,” she said, “do you seriously mean that you believe friendship between us +is impossible?” +</p> + +<p> +“Friendship, nothing,” answered Moreton. “I love you.” +</p> + +<p> +He said it as if it had always been understood between them, as of course it +had, but the instant he said it, he gave her a quick, appealing look to see how +she would take so startling an assertion. +</p> + +<p> +If Crystal had poured out just what was in her mind at that second she would +have answered: “Of course you do. I’ve known that longer than you have. And +can’t you see that if I had had any doubt about its being true, I’d have taken +steps to make it true? But, as I really did not doubt it, I’ve been able to be +quite passive and leave it mostly to you, which I so much prefer.” +</p> + +<p> +But rigorous candor is rarely attained, and Crystal did not say this. In fact, +for a few seconds she did not say anything, but merely allowed her eyes to +shine upon him, with the inevitable result that at the end of precisely six +seconds of their benevolent invitation he took her in his arms and kissed her. +It was a very unprotected point, and several cars were standing not too far +away, but Crystal, who had an excellent sense of proportion, made no objection +whatever. She was being proved right in two important particulars—first, +that she was a human being, and second, that there was no barrier between them. +She was very generous about it. She did not say, “Where’s your barrier now?” or +anything like that; she simply said nothing, and the barrier passed out of the +conversation and was no more seen. +</p> + +<p> +Very soon, alleging that she must get home at the time at which she usually did +get home from dinners, she took him back; but she soothed him with the promise +of an uninterrupted day to follow. +</p> + +<p> +Time—the mere knowledge of unbroken hours ahead—is a boon which +real love cannot do without. Minor feelings may flourish on snatched interviews +and stolen meetings, but love demands—and usually gets—protected +leisure. The next day these lovers had it. They spent the morning, when Mr. +Cord was known to be playing golf, at the Cords’ house, and then when Mr. Cord +telephoned that he was staying to luncheon at the club, if Crystal did not +object (and Crystal did not), she and Ben arranged a picnic—at least +Tomes did, and they went off about one o’clock in the blue car. They went to a +pool in the rocks that Crystal had always known about, with high walls around +it, and here, with a curtain of foam between them and the sea, for the waves +were rising, they ate lunch, as much alone as on a desert island. +</p> + +<p> +It was here that Ben asked her to marry him, or, to be accurate, it was here +that they first began talking about their life together, and whether Nora would +become reconciled to another woman about the flat. +</p> + +<p> +The nearest approach to a definite proposal was Ben’s saying: +</p> + +<p> +“You would not mind my saying something about all this to your father before I +go this evening, would you?” +</p> + +<p> +And Crystal replied: “Poor father! It will be a blow, I’m afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Ben, “he told me himself that he liked me better than David.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not saying much.” +</p> + +<p> +At this Ben laughed lightly. +</p> + +<p> +He might have had his wrong-headed notions about barriers, but he was not so +un-American as to regard a father as an obstacle. +</p> + +<p> +“But, oh, Crystal,” he added, “suppose you find you do hate being poor. It is a +bore in some ways.” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal, who had been tucking away the complicated dishes of her luncheon +basket, looked at Ben and lightly sucked one finger to which some raspberry jam +from Tomes’s supernal sandwiches had adhered. +</p> + +<p> +“I sha’n’t mind it a bit, Ben,” she said, “and for a good reason—because +I’m terribly conceited.” He did not understand at all, and she went on: “I +believe I shall be just as much of a person—perhaps more—without +money. The women who really mind being poor are the humble-minded ones, who +think that they are made by their clothes and their lovely houses and their +maids and their sables. When they lose them they lose all their personality, +and of course that terrifies them. I don’t think I shall lose mine. Does it +shock you to know that I think such a lot of myself?” +</p> + +<p> +It appeared it did not shock him at all. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="illus04"></a> +<img src="images/image4_full.png" width="600" height="402" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">“Suppose You Find You Do Hate Being Poor?”</p> +</div> + +<p> +When they reached the house she established him in the drawing-room and went +off to find her father. +</p> + +<p> +She was a true woman, by which is meant now and always that she preferred to +allow a man to digest his dinner before she tried to bring him to a rational +opinion. But in this case her hands were tied. The Cords dined at +eight—or sometimes a little later, and Ben’s boat left for New York at +half past nine, so that it would be utterly impossible to postpone the +discussion of her future until after dinner. It had to be done at once. +</p> + +<p> +Crystal ran up and knocked at his bedroom door. Loud splashings from the +adjoining bathroom were all the answer she got. She sat down on the stairs and +waited. Those are the moments that try men’s and even women’s souls. For the +first time her enterprise seemed to her a little reckless. For an instant she +had the surprising experience of recognizing the fact that Ben was a total +stranger. She looked at the gray-stone stairway on which she was sitting and +thought that her life had been as safe and sheltered as a cloister, and now, +steered by this total stranger, she proposed to launch herself on an uncharted +course of change. And to this program she was to bring her father’s +consent—for she knew very well that if she couldn’t, Ben wouldn’t be able +to—in the comparatively short time between now and dinner. Then, the +splashing having ceased, the sound of bureau drawers succeeded, and Crystal +sprang up and knocked again. +</p> + +<p> +“That you, Peters?” said an unencouraging voice. (Peters was Mr. Cord’s valet.) +</p> + +<p> +“No, dear, it’s I,” said Crystal. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come in,” said Mr. Cord. He was standing in the middle of the room in his +shirt sleeves and gloomily contemplating the shirt he wore. “What’s this +laundress, anyhow? A Bolshevist or a pastry-cook?” he said. “Did you ever see +anything like this shirt?” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal approached and studied the shirt. It appeared to her to be perfectly +done up, but she said: “Yes, dear, how terrible! I’ll pack her off to-morrow, +but you always look all right whatever you wear; that’s some comfort.” She saw +that even this hadn’t done much good, and, going to the heart of the problem, +she asked, “How did your golf go?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord’s gloom gathered as he answered, with resignation, “Oh, all right.” +</p> + +<p> +His manner was exactly similar to Ben’s in his recent moment of depression, and +not unlike McKellar’s when he had explained what he suffered under the good +Lord’s weather. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Eddie’s game any better?” asked Crystal, feeling her way. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” cried her father, contemptuously. “He’s rotten, but I’m worse. And +golf-clubs, Crystal! No one can make a club any more. Have you noticed that? +But the truth of the matter is, I’m getting too old to play golf.” And Mr. Cord +sat down with a good but unconscious imitation of a broken old man. +</p> + +<p> +Of course Crystal swept this away. She scolded him a little, pointed out his +recent prowess, and spoke slightingly of all younger athletes, but she really +had not time to do the job thoroughly, for the thought of Ben, sitting so +anxious in the drawing-room alone, hurried her on. +</p> + +<p> +“Anyhow, dear,” she said, “I’ve come to talk to you about something terribly +important. What would you say, father, if I told you I was engaged?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord was so startled that he said, what was rare for him, the first thing +that came into his head: +</p> + +<p> +“Not to Eddie?” +</p> + +<p> +The true diplomatist, we have been told, simply takes advantage of chance, and +Crystal was diplomatic. “And suppose it is?” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +“I should refuse my consent,” replied her father. +</p> + +<p> +Crystal looked hurt. “Is there anything against Eddie,” she asked, “except his +golf?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” answered her father, “there are two of the most serious things in the +world against him—first, that he doesn’t amount to anything; and second, +that you don’t love him.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” Crystal admitted, “I don’t, but then—love—father, isn’t love +rather a serious undertaking nowadays? Is it a particularly helpful adjunct to +marriage? Look at poor Eugenia. Isn’t it really more sensible to marry a nice +man who can support one, and then if in time one does fall in love with another +man—” +</p> + +<p> +“Never let me hear you talk like that again, Crystal,” said her father, with a +severity and vigor he seldom showed outside of board meetings. “It’s only your +ignorance of life that saves you from being actually revolting. I’m an old man +and not sentimental, you’ll grant, but, take my word for it, love is the only +hope of pulling off marriage successfully, and even then it’s not easy. As for +Eugenia, I think she’s made a fool of herself and is going to be unhappy, but +I’d rather do what she has done than what you’re contemplating. At least she +cared for that fellow—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad you feel like that, darling,” said Crystal, “because it isn’t Eddie +I’m engaged to, but Ben Moreton. He’s waiting downstairs now.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Cord started up—his eyes shining like black flames. +</p> + +<p> +“By God! Crystal,” he said, “you sha’n’t marry that +fellow—Eugenia—perhaps—but not you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, father, you said yourself, you thought he was a fine—” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care what I said,” replied Mr. Cord, and, striding to the door, he +flung it open and called in a voice that rolled about the stone hall: “Mr. +Moreton, Mr. Moreton! Come up here, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +Ben came bounding up the stairs like a panther. Cord beckoned him in with a +sharp gesture and shut the door. +</p> + +<p> +“This won’t do at all, Moreton,” he said. “You can’t have Crystal.” +</p> + +<p> +Ben did not answer; he looked very steadily at Cord, who went on: +</p> + +<p> +“You think I can’t stop it—that she’s of age and that you wouldn’t take a +penny of my money, anyhow. That’s the idea, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it,” said Ben. +</p> + +<p> +Cord turned sharply to Crystal. “Does what I think make any difference to you?” +he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“A lot, dear,” she answered, “but I don’t understand. You never seemed so much +opposed to the radical doctrine.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it’s the radical, not the doctrine, your father objects to,” said Ben. +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly,” answered Mr. Cord. “You’ve put it in a nutshell. Crystal, I’m going +to tell you what these radicals really are—they’re +failures—everyone of them. Sincere enough—they want the world +changed because they haven’t been able to get along in it as it is—they +want a new deal because they don’t know how to play their cards; and when they +get a new hand, they’ll play it just as badly. It’s not their theories I object +to, but them themselves. You think if you married Moreton you’d be going into a +great new world of idealism. You wouldn’t. You’d be going into a world of +failure—of the pettiest, most futile quarrels in the world. The chief +characteristic of the man who fails is that he always believes it’s the other +fellow’s fault; and they hate the man who differs with them by one per cent +more than they hate the man who differs by one hundred. Has there ever been a +revolution where they did not persecute their fellow revolutionists worse than +they persecuted the old order, or where the new rule wasn’t more tyrannical +than the old?” +</p> + +<p> +“No one would dispute that,” said Ben. “It is the only way to win through +to—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said Cord, “I know what you’re going to say, but I tell you, you win +through to liberal practices when, and only when, the conservatives become +converted to your ideas, and put them through for you. That’s why I say I have +no quarrel with radical doctrines—they are coming, always coming, +but”—Cord paused to give his words full weight—“I hate the +radical.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a little pause. Crystal, who had sunk into a low chair, raised her +eyes to Ben, as if she expected a passionate contradiction from him, but it did +not come. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said, after a moment, “that’s all true, Mr. Cord—with +limitations; but, granting it, you’ve put my side, too. What are we to say of +the conservative—the man who has no vision of his own—who has to go +about stealing his beliefs from the other side? He’s very efficient at putting +<i>them</i> into effect—but efficient as a tool, as a servant. Look at +the mess he makes of his own game when he tries to act on his own ideas. He +crushes democracy with an iron efficiency, and he creates communism. He closes +the door to trade-unionism and makes a revolution. That’s efficiency for you. +We radicals are not so damned inefficient, while we let the conservatives do +our work for us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, let it be revolution, then,” said Cord. “I believe you’re right. It’s +coming, but do you want to drag a girl like Crystal into it? Think of her! Say +you take her, as I suppose a young fellow like you can do. She’d have perhaps +ten years of an exciting division of allegiance between your ideas and the way +she had been brought up, and the rest of her life (for, believe me, as we get +older we all return to our early traditions)—the rest of her life she’d +spend regretting the ties and environment of her youth. On the other hand, if +she gives you up she will have regrets, too, I know, but they won’t wreck her +and embitter her the way the others will.” +</p> + +<p> +Ben’s face darkened. No man not a colossal egotist could hear such a prophesy +with indifference. He did not at once answer, and then he turned to Crystal. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think of that?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +To the surprise of both men, Crystal replied with a laugh. “I was wondering,” +she said, “when either of you would get round to asking what I thought of it +all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what do you think?” said Cord, almost harshly. +</p> + +<p> +Crystal rose, and, slipping her arm through his, leaned her head on the point +of her father’s shoulder—he was of a good height. “I think,” she said, +“you both talk beautifully. I was so proud of you both—saying such +profound things so easily, and keeping your tempers so perfectly” (both brows +smoothed out), “and it was all the more wonderful because, it seemed to me, you +were both talking about things you knew nothing about.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” burst from both men with simultaneous astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“Ben, dear, father doesn’t know any radicals—except you, and he’s only +seen you twice. Father dear, I don’t believe Ben ever talked five minutes with +an able, successful conservative until he came here to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re going to throw me over, Crystal?” said Ben, seeing her pose more +clearly than he heard her words. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Mr. Cord, bitterly, “she’s going to throw over an old man in favor +of a young one.” +</p> + +<p> +“You silly creatures,” said Crystal, with a smile that made the words +affectionate and not rude. “How can I ever throw either of you over? I’m going +to be Ben’s wife, and I am my father’s daughter. I’m going to be those two +things for all my life.” +</p> + +<p> +Ben took her hand. She puzzled him, but he adored her. “But some day, Crystal,” +he said, “you will be obliged to choose between our views—mine or your +father’s. You must see that.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s right,” her father chimed in. “This is not a temporary difference of +opinion, you know, Crystal. This cleavage is as old as mankind—the +radical against the conservative. Time doesn’t reconcile them.” +</p> + +<p> +Again the idea came to her: “They do love to form gangs, the poor dears.” Aloud +she said: “Yes, but the two types are rarely pure ones. Why, father, you think +Ben is a radical, but he’s the most hidebound conservative about some +things—much worse than you—about free verse, for instance. I read a +long editorial about it not a month ago. He really thinks anyone who defends it +ought to be deported to some poetic limbo. Ben, you think my father is +conservative. But there’s a great scandal in his mental life. He’s a +Baconian—” +</p> + +<p> +“He thinks Bacon wrote the plays!” exclaimed Ben, really shocked. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly I do,” answered Mr. Cord. “Every man who uses his mind must think +so. There is nothing in favor of the Shakespeare theory, except +tradition—” +</p> + +<p> +He would have talked for several hours upon the subject, but Crystal +interrupted him by turning to Ben and continuing what she had meant to say: +</p> + +<p> +“When you said I should have to choose between your ideas, you meant between +your political ideas. Perhaps I shall, but I won’t make my choice, rest +assured, until I have some reason for believing that each of you knows +something—honestly knows something about the other one’s point of view.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t get it, exactly,” said Ben. +</p> + +<p> +She addressed Mr. Cord. +</p> + +<p> +“Father,” she went on, “Ben has a little flat in Charles Street, and an old +servant, and that’s where I’m going to live.” +</p> + +<p> +Her father, though bitterly wounded, had regained his sardonic calm. “Perhaps,” +he said, “you’ll bring him up to Seventy-ninth Street for Sunday dinner now and +then.” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal shook her head. “No, dear,” she said. “That isn’t the way it’s going to +be. As soon as I get settled and have time to look about me, I shall take +another little flat for you. You will live with us, for a few months in the +winter, and get to know Ben’s friends—his gang, as you would +say—get to know them not as a philanthropist, or an employer, or an +observer, but just as one of our friends—see if they really are the way +you think they are. And then, in March you shall go off to Palm Beach or +Virginia just as usual.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a fine idea,” said Mr. Cord, sarcastically. “Do you realize that I +shall hardly survive your marriage with the editor of <i>Liberty</i>. I shall +be kicked off—requested to resign from half a dozen boards for having +such a son-in-law—” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s freedom for you,” said Ben. +</p> + +<p> +“And,” continued Mr. Cord, “if it were known that I consented to the marriage, +and actually consorted with such fellows! You must realize, Crystal, that most +of the most influential men in the country think the way Eddie does. Half my +boards are composed of older Eddies.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll do better to resign from them, then,” said Crystal. +</p> + +<p> +Ben had been very much struck by Crystal’s suggestion. +</p> + +<p> +“Really, Mr. Cord,” he said, “I believe that is a great idea of Crystal’s. I +really believe if capital had more idea of the real views of labor—as you +said, you eventually adopt all our ideas, why wouldn’t an intimate knowledge of +individuals hurry that process?” +</p> + +<p> +“Simply because I should lose all influence with my own people by merely +investigating you in a friendly spirit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Glory!” exclaimed Ben, with open contempt for such people. “Think of +penalizing the first honest attempt to understand!” +</p> + +<p> +“You see the point of my plan, don’t you, Ben?” said Crystal. +</p> + +<p> +“You bet I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s wonderful,” she answered, “for you’ve only heard half of it. In July, +August, and September, we will come here to Newport, and you will get to +understand father’s—” +</p> + +<p> +“Hold on,” cried Ben, “just a moment. That is absolutely impossible, Crystal. +You don’t understand. The paper couldn’t keep me a day if I did that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ha!” cried Mr. Cord, coming suddenly to life. “There’s freedom for you!” +</p> + +<p> +“That would be very cruel of the owners, Ben, but if they did—” +</p> + +<p> +“It wouldn’t be cruel at all,” said Moreton. “They wouldn’t have any choice. I +should have lost all influence with my readers, if it were known—” +</p> + +<p> +“Glory!” said Mr. Cord. “Think of penalizing the first honest attempt to +understand the capitalistic class!” +</p> + +<p> +Ben stood silent, caught in the grip of an intellectual dilemma which he felt +every instant would dissolve itself and which didn’t. +</p> + +<p> +Crystal for the first time moved away from her father. “Those are my terms,” +she said. “I stay with the man who agrees to them, and if you both decline +them—well, I’ll go off and try and open the oyster by myself.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a long momentous pause, and then Tomes’s discreet knock on the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Verriman on the telephone, madam.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t come,” said Crystal. “Ask him to send a message.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you see, Crystal, what your plan would do?” said her father. “Either it +would make Moreton a red revolutionist and me a persecuting Bourbon, or else it +would just ruin us both for either of our objectives.” +</p> + +<p> +“It won’t ruin you for my objectives,” said Crystal, “and women are more human, +you know, than men.” +</p> + +<p> +Another knock at the door. Tomes’s voice again: +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Verriman wishes to know if he might dine here this evening?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Cord, looking at Crystal. +</p> + +<p> +Crystal raised her voice. “Certainly, Tomes. Say we shall be delighted to have +him—at eight.” +</p> + +<p> +Both men turned to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you do that, Crystal? Verriman—here—to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +Crystal did not answer—the identity of their tones, their words, and +their irritation with her should have told them the answer, but didn’t. +</p> + +<p> +She knew that only opposition to Eddie and Eddie’s many prototypes could weld +her two men solidly together. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE END +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAUTY AND THE BOLSHEVIST ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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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 Beauty and the Bolshevist + +Author: Alice Duer Miller + +Release Date: August 9, 2004 [EBook #13146] +[Date last updated: October 5, 2004] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAUTY AND THE BOLSHEVIST *** + + + + +Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Joshua Hutchinson and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +[Illustration: "I beg your pardon. Is this a private raft?"] + +THE BEAUTY AND THE BOLSHEVIST + +By ALICE DUER MILLER +_Author of_ +"_ The Charm School_" +"_Ladies must Live_" +"_Come out of the Kitchen_" +_etc_. + +Illustrated + +1920 + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + "I beg your pardon. Is this a private raft?" + "Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty" + "I'll be there in five minutes, in a little blue car" + "Suppose you find you do hate being poor?" + + + + +THE BEAUTY AND THE BOLSHEVIST + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +The editor of that much-abused New York daily, _Liberty_, pushed back +his editorial typewriter and opened one letter in the pile which the +office-boy--no respecter of persons--had just laid upon the desk while +whistling a piercing tune between his teeth. + +The letter said: + + DEAR BEN,--I hate to think what your feelings will be on + learning that I am engaged to be married to a daughter of the + capitalistic class. Try to overcome your prejudices, however, + and judge Eugenia as an individual and not as a member of a + class. She has very liberal ideas, reads your paper, and is + content to go with me to Monroe College and lead the life of + an instructor's wife. You will be glad to know that Mr. Cord + disapproves as much as you do, and will not give his daughter + a cent, so that our life will be as hard on the physical side + as you in your most affectionate moments could desire. Mr. + Cord is under the impression that lack of an income will cool + my ardor. You see he could not think worse of me if he were my + own brother. + + Yours, + + DAVID. + +The fine face of the editor darkened. It was the face of an +idealist--the deep-set, slowly changing eyes, the high cheek bones, +but the mouth closed firmly, almost obstinately, and contradicted the +rest of the face with a touch of aggressiveness, just as in Lincoln's +face the dreamer was contradicted by the shrewd, practical mouth. He +crossed his arms above the elbow so that one long hand dangled on one +side of his knees and one on the other--a favorite pose of his--and +sat thinking. + +The editor was often called a Bolshevist--as who is not in these days? +For language is given us not only to conceal thought, but often to +prevent it, and every now and then when the problems of the world +become too complex and too vital, some one stops all thought on a +subject by inventing a tag, like "witch" in the seventeenth century, +or "Bolshevist" in the twentieth. + +Ben Moreton was not a Bolshevist; indeed, he had written several +editorials to show that, in his opinion, their doctrines were not +sound, but of course the people who denounced him never thought +of reading his paper. He was a socialist, a believer in government +ownership, and, however equably he attempted to examine any dispute +between capital and labor, he always found for labor. He was much +denounced by ultraconservatives, and perhaps their instinct was sound, +for he was educated, determined, and possessed of a personality that +attached people warmly, so that he was more dangerous than those whose +doctrines were more militant. He was not wholly trusted by the extreme +radicals. His views were not consistently agreeable to either group. +For instance, he believed that the conscientious objectors were really +conscientious, a creed for which many people thought he ought to be +deported. On the other hand, he doubted that Wall Street had started +the war for its own purposes, a skepticism which made some of his +friends think him just fit for a bomb. + +The great problem of his life was how to hold together a body of +liberals so that they could be effective. This problem was going to be +immensely complicated by the marriage of his brother with the daughter +of a conspicuous capitalist like William Cord. + +He pushed the buzzer on his desk and wrote out the following telegram: + + David Moreton, Care William Cord, Newport, R.I. + + Am taking boat Newport to-night. Meet me. + + Ben. + +No one answered his buzzer, but presently a boy came in collecting +copy, and Moreton said to him: + +"Here, get this sent, and ask Klein to come here. He's in the +composing room." + +And presently Mr. Klein entered, in the characteristic dress of the +newspaper man--namely, shirt sleeves and a green shade over his eyes. + +"Look here, Ben!" he exclaimed in some excitement. "Here's a +thousand-dollar check just come in for the strike fund. How's that for +the second day?" + +"Good enough," said Ben, who would ordinarily have put in a good hour +rejoicing over such unexpected good fortune, but whose mind was now +on other things. "I have to go out of town to-night. You'll be here, +won't you, to lock the presses? And, see here, Leo, what is the matter +with our book page?" + +"Pretty rotten page," replied Klein. + +"I should say it was--all about taxes and strikes and economic crises. +I told Green never to touch those things in the book reviews. +Our readers get all they want of that from us in the news and the +editorials--hotter, better stuff, too. I've told him not to touch +'em in the book page, and he runs nothing else. He ought to +be beautiful--ought to talk about fairies, and poetry, and +twelfth-century art. What's the matter with him?" + +"He doesn't know anything," said Klein. "That's his trouble. He's +clever, but he doesn't know much. I guess he only began to read books +a couple years ago. They excite him too much. He wouldn't read a fairy +story. He'd think he was wasting time." + +"Get some one to help him out." + +"Who'd I get?" + +"Look about. I've got to go home and pack a bag. Ask Miss Cox what +time that Newport boat leaves." + +"Newport! Great heavens, Ben! What is this? A little week-end?" + +"A little weak brother, Leo." + +"David in trouble again?" + +Moreton nodded. "He thinks he's going to marry William Cord's +daughter." + +Klein, who was Ben's friend as well as his assistant, blanched at the +name. + +"Cord's daughter!" he exclaimed, and if he had said Jack-the-ripper's, +he could not have expressed more horror. "Now isn't it queer," he went +on, musingly, "that David, brought up as he has been, can see anything +to attract him in a girl like that?" + +Ben was tidying his desk preparatory to departure--that is to say, he +was pushing all the papers far enough back to enable him to close the +roller top, and he answered, absently: + +"Oh, I suppose they're all pretty much the same--girls." + +"Why, what do you mean?" said Leo, reproachfully. "How can a girl +who's been brought up to be a parasite--to display the wealth of her +father and husband, and has never done a useful thing since she was +born--Why, a woman was telling me the other day--I got caught in a +block in the subway and she was next me--awfully interesting, she was. +She sewed in one of these fashionable dressmaking establishments--and +the things she told me about what those women spend on their +clothes--underclothes and furs and everything. Now there must be +something wrong with a woman who can spend money on those things when +she knows the agony of poverty right around her. You can't compare +that sort of woman with a self-respecting, self-supporting girl--" + +At this moment the door opened and Miss Cox entered. She wore a +short-sleeved, low-neck, pink-satin blouse, a white-satin skirt, +open-work stockings, and slippers so high in the heels that her ankles +turned inward. Her hair was treated with henna and piled untidily +on the top of her head. She was exactly what Klein had described--a +self-respecting, self-supporting girl, but, on a superficial +acquaintance, men of Cord's group would have thought quite as badly of +her as Klein did of fashionable women. They would have been mistaken. +Miss Cox supported her mother, and, though only seventeen, denied +herself all forms of enjoyment except dress and an occasional movie. +She was conscientious, hard-working, accurate, and virtuous. She loved +Ben, whom she regarded as wise, beautiful, and generous, but she would +have died rather than have him or anyone know it. + +She undulated into the room, dropped one hip lower than the other, +placed her hand upon it and said, with a good deal of enunciation: + +"Oh, Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty." + +"Thank you very much, Miss Cox," said Ben, gravely, and she went out +again. + +[Illustration: "Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty"] + +"It would be a terrible thing for Dave to make a marriage like that," +Klein went on as soon as she had gone, "getting mixed up with those +fellows. And it would be bad for you, Ben--" + +"I don't mean to get mixed up with them," said Ben. + +"No, I mean having Dave do it. It would kill the paper; it would +endanger your whole position; and as for leadership, you could never +hope--" + +"Now, look here, Leo. You don't think I can stop my brother's marrying +because it might be a poor connection for me? The point is that it +wouldn't be good for Dave--to be a poorly tolerated hanger-on. That's +why I'm going hot-foot to Newport. And while I'm away do try to do +something about the book page. Get me a culture-hound--get one of +these Pater specialists from Harvard. Or," he added, with sudden +inspiration when his hand was already on the door, "get a woman--she'd +have a sense of beauty and would know how to jolly Green into agreeing +with her." And with this the editor was gone. + +It was the end of one of those burning weeks in August that New York +often knows. The sun went down as red as blood every evening behind +the Palisades, and before the streets and roofs had ceased to radiate +heat the sun was up again above Long Island Sound, as hot and red as +ever. As Ben went uptown in the Sixth Avenue Elevated he could see +pale children hanging over the railings of fire escapes, and +behind them catch glimpses of dark, crowded rooms which had all the +disadvantages of caves without the coolness. But to-day he was too +concentrated on his own problem to notice. + +Since Ben's sixteenth year his brother David had been dependent on +him. Their father had been professor of economics in a college in that +part of the United States which Easterners describe as the "Middle +West." In the gay days when muck-raking was at its height Professor +Moreton had lost his chair because he had denounced in his lecture +room financial operations which to-day would be against the law. At +that time they were well thought of, and even practiced by the eminent +philanthropist who had endowed the very chair which Moreton occupied. +The trustees felt that it was unkind and unnecessary to complicate +their already difficult duties by such tactlessness, and their hearts +began to turn against Moreton, as most of our hearts turn against +those who make life too hard for us. Before long they asked him +to resign on account of his age--he was just sixty and extremely +vigorous; but immediately afterward, having been deeply surprised +and hurt, he did what Goldsmith recommends to lovely woman under not +dissimilar circumstances--he died. He left his two young sons--he had +married late in life--absolutely unprovided for. Ben, the elder of the +two, was sixteen, and just ready for college; but he could not give +four precious years to an academic degree. He went to work. With the +background of an educated environment and a very sound knowledge of +economic questions, breathed in from his earliest days, he found a +place at once on a new paper--or, rather, on an old paper just +being converted into a new organ of liberalism--_Liberty_. It was +independent in politics, and was supposed to be independent in +economic questions, but by the time Ben worked up to the editorship it +was well recognized to be an anticapitalist sheet. The salary of its +editor, though not large, was sufficient to enable him to send his +younger brother through college, with the result that David, a little +weak, a little self-indulgent, a little--partly through physical +causes--disinclined to effort, was now a poet, a classicist and an +instructor in a fresh-water college. Ben made him an allowance to +enable him to live--the college not thinking this necessary for its +instructors. But during the war Ben had not been able to manage the +allowance, because, to the surprise of many of his friends, Ben had +volunteered early. + +Although the reasons for doing this seemed absurdly simple to him, the +decision had been a difficult one. He was a pacifist--saw no virtue +in war whatsoever. He wished to convert others to his opinion--unlike +many reformers who prefer to discuss questions only with those who +already agree with them. He argued that the speeches of a man who had +been through war, or, better still, the posthumous writings of one who +has been killed in war, would have more weight with the public than +the best logic of one who had held aloof. But his radical friends felt +that he was using this argument merely as an excuse for choosing +the easy path of conformity, while the few ultraconservatives who +mentioned the matter at all assumed that he had been drafted against +his will. Afterward, when the war was over and his terrible book, +_War_, appeared, no one was pleased, for the excellent reason that it +was published at a moment when the whole world wanted to forget +war entirely. The pay of a private, however, had not allowed him to +continue David's allowance, and so David, displaying unusual energy, +had found a job for himself as tutor for the summer to William Cord's +son. Ben had not quite approved of a life that seemed to him slightly +parasitical, but it was healthy and quiet and, above everything, David +had found it for himself, and initiative was so rare in the younger +man that Ben could not bear to crush it with disapproval. + +Increasingly, during the two years he was in France, Ben was +displeased by David's letters. The Cords were described as kindly, +well-educated people, fond one of another, considerate of the tutor, +with old-fashioned traditions of American liberties. Ben asked himself +if he would have been better pleased if David's employers had +been cruel, vulgar, and blatant, and found the answer was in the +affirmative. It would, he thought, have been a good deal safer for +David's integrity if he had not been so comfortable. + +For two summers Ben had made no protest, but the third summer, when +the war was over and the allowance again possible, he urged David not +to go back to Newport. David flatly refused to yield. He said he saw +no reason why he should go on taking Ben's money when this simple way +of earning a full living was open to him. Wasn't Ben's whole theory +that everyone should be self-supporting? Why not be consistent? + +Ignorant people might imagine that two affectionate brothers could +not quarrel over an issue purely affectionate. But the Moretons did +quarrel--more bitterly than ever before, and that is saying a great +deal. With the extraordinary tenacity of memory that develops +under strong emotion, they each contrived to recall and to mention +everything which the other had done that was wrong, ridiculous, or +humiliating since their earliest days. They parted with the impression +on David's part that Ben thought him a self-indulgent grafter, and +on Ben's side that David thought him a bully solely interested in +imposing his will on those unfortunate enough to be dependent on him. + +It was after half past four when, having walked up five flights of +stairs, he let himself into his modest flat on the top floor of an +old-fashioned brownstone house. As he opened the door, he called, + +"Nora!" + +No beautiful partner of a free-love affair appeared, but an elderly +woman in spectacles who had once been Professor Moreton's cook, +and now, doing all the housework for Ben, contrived to make him so +comfortable that the editor of a more radical paper than his own had +described the flat as "a bourgeois interior." + +"Nora," said Ben, "put something in my bag for the night--I'm going to +Newport in a few minutes." + +He had expected a flood of questions, for Nora was no looker-on at +life, and he was surprised by her merely observing that she was glad +he was getting away from the heat. The truth was that she knew far +more about David than he did. She had consistently coddled David since +his infancy, and he told her a great deal. Besides, she took care +of his things when he was at Ben's. She had known of sachets, +photographs, and an engraved locket that he wore on his watch-chain. +She was no radical. She had seen disaster come upon the old professor +and attributed it, not to the narrowness of the trustees, but to the +folly of the professor. She disapproved of most of Ben's friends, and +would have despised his paper if she ever read it. The only good +thing about it in her estimation was, he seemed to be able "to knock +a living out of it"--a process which Nora regarded with a sort of gay +casualness. She did not blame him for making so little money and +thus keeping her housekeeping cramped, but she never in her own mind +doubted that it would be far better if he had more. The idea that +David was about to marry money seemed to her simply the reward of +virtue--her own virtue in bringing David up so well. She knew that Mr. +Cord opposed the marriage, but she supposed that Ben would arrange all +that. She had great confidence in Ben. Still he was very young, very +young, so she gave him a word of advice as she put his bag into his +hand. + +"Don't take any nonsense. Remember you're every bit as good as they. +Only don't, for goodness' sake, Mr. Ben, talk any of your ideas to +them. A rich man like Mr. Cord wouldn't like that." + +Ben laughed. "How would you like me to bring you home a lovely heiress +of my own?" he said. + +She took a thread off his coat. "Only don't let her come interfering +in my kitchen," she said, and hurried him away. He had a good deal of +courage, but he had not enough to tell Nora he was going to Newport to +stop her darling's marriage. + +The Newport boat gets to Newport about two o'clock in the morning, and +experienced travelers, if any such choose this method of approach, go +on to Fall River and take a train back to Newport, arriving in time +for a comfortable nine-o'clock breakfast. But Ben was not experienced, +and he supposed that when you took a boat for Newport and reached +Newport the thing to do was to get off the boat. + +It had been a wonderful night on the Sound, and Ben had not been to +bed, partly because, applying late on a Friday evening, he had not +been able to get a room, but partly because the moon and the southerly +breeze and the silver shores of Long Island and the red and white +lighthouses had been too beautiful to leave. Besides, he had wanted to +think out carefully what he was going to say to his brother. + +To separate a man from the woman he loves, however unwisely, has some +of the same disadvantages as offering a bribe--one respects the other +person less in proportion as one succeeds. What, Ben said to himself, +could he urge against a girl he did not know? Yet, on the other hand, +if he had known her, his objections would have seemed regrettably +personal. Either way, it was difficult to know what to say. He +wondered what Cord had said, and smiled to think that here was one +object for which he and Cord were co-operating--only Cord would never +believe it. That was one trouble with capitalists--they always thought +themselves so damned desirable. And Ben did not stop to inquire how it +was that capitalists had gained this impression. + +On the pier he looked about for David, but there was no David. Of +course the boy had overslept, or hadn't received his telegram--Ben +said this to himself, but somehow the vision of David comfortably +asleep in a luxurious bed in the Cords's house irritated him. + +His meditations were broken in upon by a negro boy with an open +hack, who volunteered to "take him up for fifty cents." It sounded +reasonable. Ben got in and they moved slowly down the narrow pier, the +horses' hoofs clumping lazily on the wooden pavement. Turning past the +alley of Thames Street, still alight at three o'clock in the morning, +Ben stopped at the suggestion of his driver and left his bag at +a hotel, and then they went on up the hill, past the tower of the +Skeleton in Armor, past old houses with tall, pillared porticoes, +reminiscent of the days when the South patronized Newport, and turned +into Bellevue Avenue--past shops with names familiar to Fifth Avenue, +past a villa with bright-eyed owls on the gateposts, past many large, +silent houses and walled gardens. + +The air was very cool, and now and then the scent of some flowering +bush trailed like a visible cloud across their path. Then suddenly the +whole avenue was full of little red lights, like the garden in "Faust" +when Mephistopheles performs his magic on it. Here and there the huge +headlights of a car shone on the roadway, magnifying every rut in the +asphalt, and bringing out strange, vivid shades in the grass and the +hydrangea bushes. They were passing a frowning palace set on a piece +of velvet turf as small as a pocket handkerchief--so small that the +lighted windows were plainly visible from the road. + +"Stop," said Ben to his driver. He had suddenly realized how long it +must be before he could rouse the Cord household. + +He paid his driver, got out, and made his way up the driveway +toward the house. Groups of chauffeurs were standing about their +cars--vigorous, smartly dressed men, young for the most part. Ben +wondered if it were possible that they were content with the present +arrangement, and whether their wives and children were not stifling in +the city at that very moment. He caught a sentence here and there as +he passed. "And, believe me," one was saying, "as soon as he got into +the box he did not do a thing to that fellar from Tiverton--" Ben's +footsteps lagged a little. He was a baseball fan. He almost forgave +the chauffeurs for being content. They seemed to him human beings, +after all. + +He approached the house, and, walking past a narrow, unroofed piazza, +he found himself opposite a long window. He looked straight into the +ballroom. The ball was a fancy ball--the best of the season. It was +called a Balkan Ball, which gave all the guests the opportunity of +dressing pretty much as they pleased. The wood of the long paneled +room was golden, and softened the light from the crystal appliques +along the wall, and set off the bright dresses of the dancers as a +gold bowl sets off the colors of fruit. + +Every now and then people stepped out on the piazza, and as they did +they became audible to Ben for a few seconds. First, two middle-aged +men, solid, bronzed, laughing rather wickedly together. Ben drew back, +afraid of what he might overhear, but it turned out to be no very +guilty secret. "My dear fellow," one was saying, "I gave him a stroke +a hole, and he's twenty years younger than I am--well, fifteen anyhow. +The trouble with these young men is that they lack--" + +Ben never heard what it was that young men lacked. + +Next came a boy and a girl, talking eagerly, the girl's hand +gesticulating at her round, red lips. Ben had no scruples in +overhearing them--theirs appeared to be the universal secret. But here +again he was wrong. She was saying: "Round and round--not up and down. +My dentist says that if you always brush them round and round--" + +Then two young men--boys, with cigarettes drooping from their lips; +they were saying, "I haven't pitched a game since before the war, but +he said to go in and get that Tiverton fellow, and so--" Ben saw that +he was in the presence of the hero of the late game. He forgave him, +too. + +As a matter of fact, he had never given the fashionable world +enough attention to hate it. He knew that Leo Klein derived a very +revivifying antagonism from reading about it, and often bought himself +an entrance to the opera partly because he loved music, but partly, +Ben always thought, because he liked to look up at the boxes and hate +the occupants for their jewels and inattention. But Ben watched the +spectacle with as much detachment as he would have watched a spring +dance among the Indians. + +And then suddenly his detachment melted away, for a lovely girl came +through the window--lovely with that particular and specific kind of +loveliness which Ben thought of when he used the word--_his_ kind. He +used to wonder afterward how he had known it at that first glimpse, +for, in the dim light of the piazza, he could not see some of her +greatest beauties--the whiteness of her skin, white as milk where her +close, fine, brown hair began, or the blue of the eyes set at an angle +which might have seemed Oriental in eyes less enchanting turquoise in +color. But he could see her slenderness and grace. She was dressed in +clinging blues and greens and she wore a silver turban. She leaned her +hands on the railings--she turned them out along the railings; they +were slender and full of character--not soft. Ben looked at the one +nearest him. With hardly more than a turn of his head he could have +kissed it. The idea appealed to him strongly; he played with it, just +as when he was a child in a college town he had played with the idea +of getting up in church and walking about on the backs of the pews. +This would be pleasanter, and the subsequent getaway even easier. He +glanced at the dark lawn behind him; there appeared to be no obstacle +to escape. + +Perhaps, under the spell of her attraction for him, and the knowledge +that he would never see her again, he might actually have done it, but +she broke the trance by speaking to a tall, stolid young man who was +with her. + +"No, Eddie," she said, as if answering something he had said some time +ago, "I really was at home, at just the time I said, only this new +butler does hate you so--" + +"You might speak to him about it--you might even get rid of him," +replied the young man, in the tone of one deeply imposed upon. + +"Good butlers are so rare nowadays." + +"And are devoted friends so easy to find?" + +"No, but a good deal easier than butlers, Eddie dear." + +The young man gave an exclamation of annoyance. "Let us find some +place out of the way. I want to speak to you seriously--" he began, +and they moved out of earshot--presumably to a secluded spot of +Eddie's choosing. + +When they had gone Ben felt distinctly lonely, and, what was more +absurd, slighted, as if Eddie had deliberately taken the girl away +from him--out of reach. How silly, he thought, for Eddie to want to +talk to her, when it was so clear the fellow did not know how to talk +to her. How silly to say, in the sulky tone, "Are devoted friends +so easy to find?" Of course they were--for a girl like that--devoted +friends, passionate lovers, and sentimental idiots undoubtedly blocked +her path. + +It might have been some comfort to him to know that in the remote spot +of his own choosing, a stone bench under a purple beech, Eddie was +simply going from bad to worse. + +"Dear Crystal," he began, with that irritating reasonableness of +manner which implies that the speaker is going to be reasonable for +two, "I've been thinking over the situation. I know that you don't +love me, but then I don't believe you will ever be deeply in love with +any one. I don't think you are that kind of woman." + +"Oh, Eddie, how dreadful!" + +"I don't see that at all. Just as well, perhaps. You don't want to get +yourself into such a position as poor Eugenia." + +"I do, I would. I'd give anything to be as much in love as Eugenia." + +"What? With a fellow like that! A complete outsider." + +"Outside of what? The human race?" + +"Well, no," said Eddie, as if he were yielding a good deal, "but +outside of your traditions and your set." + +"My set! Good for him to be outside of it, I say. What have they ever +done to make anyone want to be inside of it? Why, David is an educated +gentleman. To hear him quote Horace--" + +"Horace who?" + +"Really, Eddie." + +"Oh, I see. You mean the poet. That's nothing to laugh at, Crystal. It +was a natural mistake. I thought, of course, you meant some of those +anarchists who want to upset the world." + +Crystal looked at him more honestly and seriously than she had yet +done. + +"Well, don't you think there _is_ something wrong with the present +arrangement of things, Eddie?" + +"No, I don't, and I hate to hear you talk like a socialist." + +"I am a socialist." + +"You're nothing of the kind." + +"I suppose I know what I am." + +"Not at all--not at all." + +"I certainly think the rich are too rich, while the poor are so +horridly poor." + +"_You'd_ get on well without your maid and your car and your father's +charge accounts at all the shops, wouldn't you?" + +Though agreeable to talk seriously if you agree, it is correspondingly +dangerous if you disagree. Crystal stood up, trembling with an emotion +which Eddie, although he was rather angry himself, considered utterly +unaccountable. + +"Yes," she said, almost proudly, "I _am_ luxurious, I _am_ dependent +on those things. But whose fault is that? It's the way I was brought +up--it's all wrong. But, even though I am dependent on them, I believe +I could exist without them. I'd feel like killing myself if I didn't +think so. Sometimes I want to go away and find out if I couldn't +live and be myself without all this background of luxury. But at the +worst--I'm just one girl--suppose I were weak and couldn't get on +without them? That wouldn't prove that they are right. I'm not so +blinded that I can't see that a system by which I profit may still be +absolutely wrong. But you always seem to think, Eddie, that it's +part of the Constitution of the United States that you should have +everything you've always had." + +Eddie rose, too, with the manner of a man who has allowed things to +go far enough. "Look here, my dear girl," he said, "I am a man and I'm +older than you, and have seen more of the world. I know you don't +mean any harm, but I must tell you that this is very wicked, dangerous +talk." + +"Dangerous, perhaps, Eddie, but I can't see how it can be wicked to +want to give up your special privileges." + +"Where in the world do you pick up ideas like this?" + +"I inherited them from an English ancestor of mine, who gave up all +that he had when he enlisted in Washington's army." + +"You got that stuff," said Eddie, brushing this aside, "from David +Moreton, and that infernal seditious paper his brother edits--and that +white-livered book which I haven't read against war. I'd like to put +them all in jail." + +"It's a pity," said Crystal, "that your side can't think of a better +argument than putting everyone who disagrees with you in jail." + +With this she turned and left him, and, entering the ballroom, flung +herself into the arms of the first partner she met. It was a timid +boy, who, startled by the eagerness with which she chose him, with +her bright eyes and quickly drawn breath, was just coming to +the conclusion that a lovely, rich, and admired lady, had fallen +passionately in love with him, when with equal suddenness she stepped +out of his arms and was presently driving her small, open car down the +avenue. + +Under the purple beech Eddie, left alone, sank back on the stone bench +and considered, somewhat as the persecutors of Socrates may have done, +suitable punishments for those who put vile, revolutionary ideas into +the heads of young and lovely women. + +In the meantime Ben, who had enjoyed the party more than most of the +invited guests, and far more than the disconsolate Eddie, had left his +vantage point at the window. He had suddenly become aware of a strange +light stealing under the trees, and, looking up, he saw with +surprise that the stars were growing small and the heavens turning +steel-color--in fact, that it was dawn. + +Convinced that sunrise was a finer sight than the end of the grandest +ball that ever was given, he made his way down a shabby back lane, +and before long came out on the edge of the cliffs, with the whole +panorama of sunrise over the Atlantic spread out before him. + +He stood there a moment, somebody's close, well-kept lawn under his +feet, and a pale-pink sea sucking in and out on the rocks a hundred +feet below. The same hot, red sun was coming up; there wasn't a steady +breeze, but cool salt puffs came to him now and then with a breaking +wave. It was going to be a hot day, and Ben liked swimming better than +most things in life. He hesitated. + +If he had turned to the left, he would have come presently to a public +beach and would have had his swim conventionally and in due time. But +some impulse told him to turn to the right, and he began to wander +westward along the edge of the cliffs--always on his left hand, space +and the sea, and on his right, lawns or gardens or parapets crowned +by cactus plants in urns, and behind these a great variety of +houses--French chateaux and marble palaces and nice little white +cottages, and, finally, a frowning Gothic castle. All alike seemed +asleep, with empty piazzas and closed shutters, and the only sign of +life he saw in any of them was one pale housemaid shaking a duster out +of a window in an upper gable. + +At last he came to a break in the cliffs--a cove, with a beach in it, +a group of buildings obviously bathing-houses. The sacredness of this +pavilion did not occur to Ben; indeed, there was nothing to suggest +it. He entered it light-heartedly and was discouraged to find the door +of every cabin securely locked. The place was utterly deserted. But +Ben was persistent, and presently he detected a bit of a garment +hanging over a door, and, pulling it out, he found himself in +possession of a man's bathing suit. A little farther on he discovered +a telephone room unlocked. Here he undressed and a minute later was +swimming straight out to sea. + +The level rays of the sun were doing to the water just what the +headlights of the motors had done to the road; they were enlarging +every ripple and edging the deep purple-blue with yellow light. Except +for a fishing dory chunking out to its day's work, Ben had the sea +and land to himself. He felt as if they were all his own, and, for +a socialist, was guilty of the sin of pride of possession. He was +enjoying himself so much that it was a long time before he turned to +swim back. + +He was swimming with his head under water most of the time so that he +did not at once notice that a raft he had passed on his way out was +now occupied. As soon as he did see it his head came up. It was a +female figure, and even from a distance he could see that she was +unconscious of his presence and felt quite as sure of having the world +to herself as he was. She was sitting on the edge of the raft, kicking +a pair of the prettiest legs in the world in and out of the water. +They were clad in the thinnest of blue-silk stockings, the same in +which a few minutes before she had been dancing, but not being able +to find any others in her bathhouse, she had just kept them on, +recklessly ignoring the inevitable problem of what she should wear +home. She was leaning back on her straightened arms, with her head +back, looking up into the sky and softly whistling to herself. Ben saw +in a second that she was the girl of the silver turban. + +He stole nearer and nearer, cutting silently through the water, +and then, when he had looked his fill, he put his head down again, +splashed a little, and did not look up until his hand was on the raft, +when he allowed an expression of calm surprise to appear on his face. + +"I beg your pardon," he said. "Is this a private raft?" + +The young lady, who had had plenty of time since the splash to +arrange her countenance, looked at him with a blank coldness, and then +suddenly smiled. + +"I thought it was a private world," she replied. + +"It's certainly a very agreeable one," said Ben, climbing on the raft. +"And what I like particularly about it is the fact that no one is +alive but you and me. Newport appears to be a city of the dead." + +"It always was," she answered, contemptuously. + +"Oh, come. Not an hour ago you were dancing in blue and green and a +silver turban at a party over there," and he waved his hand in the +direction from which he had come. + +"Did you think it was a good ball?" + +"I enjoyed it," he answered, truthfully. + +Her face fell. "How very disappointing," she said. "I didn't see you +there." + +"Disappointing that you did not see me there?" + +"No," she replied, and then, less positively; "No; I meant it was +disappointing that you were the kind of man who went to parties--and +enjoyed them." + +"It would be silly to go if you didn't enjoy them," he returned, +lightly. + +She turned to him very seriously. "You're right," she said; "it is +silly--very silly, and it's just what I do. I consider parties like +that the lowest, emptiest form of human entertainment. They're dull; +they're expensive; they keep you from doing intelligent things, +like studying; they keep you from doing simple, healthy things, like +sleeping and exercising; they make you artificial; they make you civil +to people you despise--they make women, at least, for we must have +partners--" + +"But why do you go, then?" + +She was silent, and they looked straight and long at each other. Then +she said, gravely: + +"The answer's very humiliating. I go because I haven't anything else +to do." + +He did not reassure her. "Yes, that's bad," he said, after a second. +"But of course you could not expect to have anything else to do when +all your time is taken up like that. 'When the half gods go,' you +know, 'the gods arrive.'" + +The quotation was not new to Crystal; in fact, she had quoted it to +Eddie not very long before, apropos of another girl to whom he had +shown a mild attention, but it seemed to her as if she took in for the +first time its real meaning. Whether it was the dawn, exhaustion, a +stimulating personality, love, or mere accident, the words now came +to her with all the beauty and truth of a religious conviction. They +seemed to shake her and make her over. She felt as if she could never +be sufficiently grateful to the person who had thus made all life +fresh and new to her. + +"Ah," she said, very gently, "that's it. I see. You won't believe me, +but I assure you from now on I mean to be entirely different." + +"Please, not too different." + +"Oh yes, yes, as different as possible. I've been so unhappy, and +unhappy about nothing definite--that's the worst kind, only that I +have not liked the life I was leading." + +She glanced at him appealingly. She had tried to tell this simple +story to so many people, for she had many friends, and yet no one had +ever really understood. Some had told her she was spoiled, more, that +there was no use in trying to change her life because she would soon +marry; most of them had advised her to marry and find out what real +trouble was. Now, as she spoke she saw that this strange young man +from the sea not only understood her discontent, but thought it +natural, almost commonplace. + +She poured it all out. "Only the worst thing," she ended, "is that I'm +not really any good. There isn't anything else that I know how to do." + +"I doubt that," he answered, and she began to doubt it, too. "I'm sure +there are lots of things you could do if you put your mind on it. Did +you ever try to write?" + +Now, indeed, she felt sure that he was gifted with powers more +than mortal--to have guessed this secret which no one else had ever +suspected. She colored deeply. + +"Why, yes," she answered, "I think I can--a little, only I've so +little education." + +"So little education?" + +"Yes, I belong to the cultivated classes--three languages and nothing +solid." + +"Well, you know, three languages seem pretty solid to me," said Ben, +who had wrestled very unsuccessfully with the French tongue. "You +speak three languages, and let me see, you know a good deal about +painting and poetry and jade and Chinese porcelains?" + +She shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. "Oh, of course everyone +knows about those things, but what good are they?" + +They were a good deal of good to Ben. He pressed on toward his final +goal. "What is your attitude toward fairies?" he asked, and Miss +Cox would have heard in his tone a faint memory of his voice when he +engaged a new office-boy. + +Her attitude toward fairies was perfectly satisfactory, and he showed +so much appreciation that she went on and told him her great secret +in full. She had once had something published and been paid money for +it--fifteen dollars--and probably never in her life had she spoken of +any sum with so much respect. It had been, well, a sort of a review of +a new illustrated edition of Hans Andersen's Tales, treating them as +if they were modern stories, commenting on them from the point of +view of morals and probability--making fun of people who couldn't give +themselves up to the charm of a story unless it tallied with their own +horrid little experiences of life. She told it, she said, very badly, +but perhaps he could get the idea. + +He got it perfectly. "Good," he said. "I'll give you a job. I'm a +newspaper editor." + +"Oh," she exclaimed, "you're not Mr. Munsey, are you, or Mr. Reid, or +Mr. Ochs?" + +Her knowledge of newspaper owners seemed to come to a sudden end. + +"No," he answered, smiling, "nor even Mr. Hearst. I did not say I +owned a newspaper. I edit it. I need some one just like you for my +book page, only you'd have to come to New York and work hard, and +there wouldn't be very much salary. Can you work?" + +"Anyone can." + +"Well, will you?" + +"Indeed I will." (It was a vow.) "And now I must go. I have to drive +myself home in an open car, and the tourists do stare at one so--in +fancy dress." + +"Yes, but when am I to see you again? I leave Newport to-night." + +"Telephone me--2079--and we'll arrange to do something this +afternoon." + +"And whom shall I ask for?" + +"Telephone at two-fifteen to the minute, and I'll answer the telephone +myself." + +She evidently rather enjoyed the mystery of their not knowing each +other's names. But a black idea occurred to Ben. She had slid off the +raft and swum a few strokes before he shouted to her: + +"Look here. Your name isn't Eugenia, is it?" + +She waved her hand. "No, I'm Crystal," she called back. + +"Good-by, Crystal." + +This time she did not wave, but, swimming on her side with long, easy +strokes, she gave him a sweet, reassuring look. + +After she had gone he lay down on the raft with his face buried in his +arms. A few moments before he had thought he could never see enough of +the sunrise and the sea, but now he wanted to shut it out in favor of +a much finer spectacle within him. So this was love. Strange that no +one had ever been able to prepare you for it. Strange that poets had +never been able to give you a hint of its stupendous inevitability. He +wondered if all miracles were like that--so simple--so-- + +Suddenly he heard her voice near him. He lifted his head from his +arms. She was there in the water below him, clinging to the raft with +one hand. + +"I just came back to tell you something," she said. "I thought you +ought to know it before things went any farther." + +He thought, "Good God! she's in love with some one else!" and the +horror of the idea made him look at her severely. + +"I'm not perhaps just as I seem--I mean my views are rather liberal. +In fact"--she brought it out with an effort--"I'm almost a socialist." + +The relief was so great that Ben couldn't speak. He bent his head and +kissed the hand that had tempted him a few hours before. + +She did not resent his action. Her special technique in such matters +was to pretend that such little incidents hardly came into the realm +of her consciousness. She said, "At two-fifteen, then," and swam away +for good. + +Later in the day a gentleman who owned both a bathing house and a +bathing suit on Bailey's beach was showing the latter possession to a +group of friends. + +"No one can tell me that Newport isn't damp," he said. "I haven't been +in bathing for twenty-four hours, and yet I can actually wring the +water out of my suit." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +That same morning, about ten o'clock, Mr. William Cord was shut up in +the study of his house--shut up, that is, as far as entrance from the +rest of the house was concerned, but very open as to windows looking +out across the grass to the sea. It was a small room, and the leather +chairs which made up most of its furnishings were worn, and the +bookshelves were filled with volumes like railroad reports and _Poor's +Manual_, but somehow the total effect of the room was so agreeable +that the family used it more than Mr. Cord liked. + +He was an impressive figure, tall, erect, and with that suggestion +of unbroken health which had had something to do with his success in +life. His hair must have been of a sandy brown, for it had turned, +not gray nor white, but that queer no-color that sandy hair does turn, +melting into all pale surroundings. His long face was not vividly +colored, either, but was stamped with the immobility of expression +that sensitive people in contact with violent life almost always +acquire. The result was that there seemed to be something dead about +his face until you saw his eyes, dark and fierce, as if all the fire +and energy of the man were concentrated in them. + +He was dressed in gray golfing-clothes that smelled more of peat than +peat does, and, though officially supposed to be wrestling with the +more secret part of correspondence which even his own secretary was +not allowed to see, he was actually wiggling a new golf-club over the +rug, and toying with the romantic idea that it would enable him to +drive farther than he had ever driven before. + +There was a knock at the door. Mr. Cord leaned the driver in a corner, +clasped his hands behind his back, straddled his legs a trifle, so +that they seemed to grow out of the rug as the eternal oak grows out +of the sod, and said, "Come in," in the tone of a man who, considering +the importance of his occupation, bears interruption exceedingly well. + +Tomes, the butler, entered. "Mr. Verriman, sir, to see you." + +"To see _me_?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Cord just nodded at this, which evidently meant that the visitor was +to be admitted, for Tomes never made a mistake and Verriman presently +entered. Mr. Cord had seen Eddie Verriman the night before at the +ball, and had thought him a very fine figure of a man, so now, putting +two and two together, he said to himself, "Is he here to ask my +blessing?" + +Aloud he said nothing, but just nodded; it was a belief that had +translated itself into a habit--to let the other man explain first. + +"I know I'm interrupting you, Mr. Cord," Verriman began. Mr. Cord made +a lateral gesture with his hand, as if all he had were at the disposal +of his friends, even his most precious asset--time. + +"It's something very important," Eddie went on. "I'm worried. I +haven't slept. Mr. Cord, have you checked up Crystal's economic +beliefs lately?" + +"Lately?" said Mr. Cord. "I don't know that I ever have. Have a +cigar?" + +Eddie waved the cigar aside as if his host had offered it to him in +the midst of a funeral service. + +"Well, I have," he said, as if some one had to do a parent's duty, +"and I've been very much distressed--shocked. I had a long talk with +her about it at the dance last night." + +"About economics?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Why, Eddie, don't I seem to remember your telling me you were in love +with Crystal?" + +"Yes, Mr. Cord, I am." + +"Then what do you want to talk economics for? Or is it done like that +nowadays?" + +"I don't want to," answered Eddie, almost in a wail. "_She_ does. She +gets me going and then we quarrel because she has terrible opinions. +She talks wildly. I have to point out to her that she's wrong. And +last night she told me"--Eddie glanced about to be sure he was not +overheard--"she told me that she was a socialist." + +Mr. Cord had just lit the very cigar which Eddie had waved away, and +he took the first critical puffs at it before he answered: + +"Did you ask her what that was?" + +"No--no--I didn't." + +"Missed a trick there, Eddie." + +It was impossible to accuse so masklike a magnate of frivolity, but +Eddie was often dissatisfied with Mr. Cord's reactions to the serious +problems of life. + +"But don't you think it's terrible," he went on, eagerly, "for Crystal +to be a socialist? In this age of the world--civilization trembling on +the brink--chaos"--Eddie made a gesture toward the perfectly ordered +shelves containing _Poor's Manual_--"staring us in the face? You say +that the half-baked opinions of an immature girl make no difference?" + +"No, I shouldn't say that--at least not to Crystal," murmured her +father. + +"But the mere fact that she picks up such ideas proves that they are +in the air about us and that terrifies me--terrifies me," ended Eddie, +his voice rising as he saw that his host intended to remain perfectly +calm. + +"Which terrifies you, Eddie--Crystal or the revolution?" + +"The general discontent--the fact that civilization is tr--" + +"Oh yes, that," said Mr. Cord, hastily. "Well, I wouldn't allow that +to terrify me, Eddie. I should have more sympathy with you if it had +been Crystal. Crystal is a good deal of a proposition, I grant you. +The revolution seems to me simpler. If a majority of our fellow +countrymen really want it, they are going to get it in spite of you +and me; and if they don't want it, they won't have it no matter +how Crystal talks to you at parties. So cheer up, Eddie, and have a +cigar." + +"They can, they will," said Eddie, not even troubling to wave away the +cigar this time. "You don't appreciate what an organized minority of +foreign agitators can do in this country. Why, they can--" + +"Well, if a minority of foreigners can put over a revolution against +the will of the American people, we ought to shut up shop, Eddie." + +"You're not afraid?" + +"No." + +"You mean you wouldn't fight it?" + +"You bet your life I'd fight it," said Mr. Cord, gayly, "but I fight +lots of things without being afraid of them. What's the use of being +afraid? Here I am sixty-five, conservative and trained to only one +game, and yet I feel as if I could manage to make my own way even +under soviet rule. Anyway, I don't want to die or emigrate just +because my country changes its form of government. Only it would have +to be the wish of the majority, and I don't believe it ever will be. +In the meantime there is just one thing I _am_ afraid of--and +that's the thing that you and most of my friends want to do +first--suppressing free speech; if you suppress it, we won't know who +wants what. Then you really do get an explosion." + +Eddie had got Mr. Cord to be serious now, with the unfortunate result +that the older man was more shocking than ever. + +"Free speech doesn't mean treason and sedition," Eddie began. + +"It means the other man's opinion." + +There was a pause during which Eddie became more perturbed and Mr. +Cord settled back to his habitual calm. + +"Wouldn't you suppress _anything_?" Verriman asked at length, willing +to know the worst. "Not even such a vile sheet as _Liberty_?" + +"Do you ever see it, Eddie?" + +"Read a rotten paper like that? Certainly not. Do you?" + +"I subscribe to it." And, bending down, Mr. Cord unlocked a drawer in +his desk and produced the issue of the preceding day. + +"I notice you keep it locked up," said Eddie, and felt that he had +scored. + +"I have to," replied Mr. Cord, "or else Crystal gets hold of it and +cuts it all up into extracts--she must have sent you some--before I +get a chance to read it. Besides, it shocks Tomes. You ought to talk +to Tomes, Eddie. He thinks about as you do--" + +At this moment the door opened and Tomes himself entered. + +"Mr. Moreton would like to see you, sir." + +Even Cord's calm was a little disturbed by this unexpected news. + +"Mr. Moreton!" he exclaimed. "Not--not--not--not?" + +"No, sir," said Tomes, always in possession of accurate information. +"His brother, I believe." + +"Show him in here," said Cord, and added to Eddie, as Tomes left the +room: "Well, here he is--the editor himself, Eddie. You can say it all +to him." + +"I don't want to see such fellows," Verriman began. + +"Stay and protect me, Eddie. He may have a bomb in his pocket." + +"You don't really believe that he's come to--" + +"No, Eddie, I don't. I think he's come like young Lochinvar--to dance +a little late at the wedding. To try to persuade me to accept that +lazy, good-looking brother of his as a son-in-law. He'll have quite a +job over that." Then, as the door opened, Mr. Cord's eyes concentrated +on it and his manner became a shade sharper. "Ah, Mr. Moreton, good +morning. Mr. Verriman--Mr. Moreton." + +Ben was a good-looking young man, but it was his expression--at once +illuminated and determined--that made him unusual. And the effect of +his night and morning had been to intensify this, so that now, as he +stood a moment in the doorway, he was a very attractive and compelling +figure. + +"I came to see my brother, Mr. Cord," he said, simply, "but I hear +he's not here any more. If I could speak to you alone for a few +minutes--" He glanced at Eddie, whom he instantly recognized as the +man who had not known how to talk to the woman in the world best worth +talking to. + +"Oh, you may speak before Mr. Verriman," said Cord. "He knows the +situation--knows your brother--knows my children--knows about you. +In fact, we were just speaking about your paper when you came +in. However, I must tell you that Mr. Verriman doesn't approve of +_Liberty_. At least, I believe I understood you right, Eddie." And Mr. +Cord, having thus assured himself a few minutes to regain his poise, +leaned back comfortably in his chair. + +"What's wrong with the paper, Mr. Verriman?" said Ben, pleasantly. + +Eddie did not love the adventure of mental combat, but he was no +coward. "It seems to me," he said, "that it preaches such radical +changes in our government that it is seditious. To be frank, Mr. +Moreton, I think the government ought to suppress it." + +"But we don't break the law. The government can't suppress us." + +"Then the laws ought to be changed so that it can." + +"That's all we advocate, Mr. Verriman, the changing of the law. It +isn't any more seditious for me to say it than for you to, is it?" + +Of course in Eddie's opinion it was--much, much more seditious. Only +somehow it was a difficult point to make clear, if a person was so +wrongheaded he couldn't see it for himself. The point was that he, +Eddie, was right in wanting the laws changed and Moreton was wrong. +Anyone, it seemed to Eddie, would agree to that, unless he happened +to agree with Moreton beforehand, and those were just the people who +ought to be deported, imprisoned, or even perhaps in rare instances, +as examples, strung up to lamp-posts. Only each time he tried to put +these very natural opinions in words, they kept sounding wrong and +tyrannical and narrow--qualities which Eddie knew he was entirely +without. In order to counteract this effect, he tried at first to +speak very temperately and calmly, but, unhappily, this only had the +effect of making him sound patronizing to Ben's ears. + +In short, it was hardly to be expected that the discussion would be +amicable, and it was not. Each man began to be angry in his own way. +Eddie shouted a little, and Ben expressed himself with turns of phrase +quite needlessly insulting. Ben found Verriman's assumption that the +profits of capital were bound up with patriotism, family life, and +the Christian religion almost as irritating as Verriman found Ben's +assumption that the government of labor as a class would be entirely +without the faults that have always marked every form of class +government. + +"And suppose you got socialism," said Eddie, at last, "suppose you did +divide everything up equally, don't you suppose that in a few years +the clever, strong, industrious men would have it all in their own +hands?" + +"Very likely," said Ben, "but that would be quite a change from the +present arrangement, wouldn't it?" + +Mr. Cord had a narrow escape from laughing out loud, which would have +cost him the friendship of the man with whom on the whole he really +agreed. He thought it was time to interfere. + +"This is very interesting, Mr. Moreton," he said, "but I fancy it +wasn't about the general radical propaganda that you came to see me." + +"No," said Ben, turning slowly. He felt as a dog feels who is dragged +out of the fight just as it begins to get exciting. "No, I came to see +you about this unfortunate engagement of my brother's." + +"Unfortunate?" asked Mr. Cord, without criticism. + +"I should consider it so, and I understand you do, too." + +Cord did not move an eyelash; this was an absolutely new form of +attack. It had certainly never crossed his mind that any objection +could come from the Moreton family. + +"You consider it unfortunate?" said Eddie, as if it would be mere +insolence on Ben's part to object to his brother's marrying anyone. + +"Will you give me your reasons for objecting?" said Cord. + +Ben smiled. "You ought to understand them," he said, "for I imagine +they're pretty much the same as your own. I mean they are both founded +on class consciousness. I feel that it will be destructive to the +things I value most in David to be dependent on, or associated with, +the capitalistic group. Just as you feel it will be destructive to +your daughter to be married to a tutor--a fellow with radical views +and a seditious brother--" + +"One moment, one moment," said Cord; "you've got this all wrong so +far as I'm concerned. I do most emphatically disagree with the radical +propaganda. I think the radical is usually just a man who hasn't got +something he wants." + +"And the conservative is a man who wants to keep something he's got," +said Ben, less hostilely than he had spoken to Eddie. + +"Exactly, exactly," said Cord. "In ideality there isn't much to choose +between them, but, generally speaking, I have more respect for the man +who has succeeded in getting something to preserve than for the man +who hasn't got anything to lose." + +"If their opportunities were equal." + +"I say in general. There is not much to choose between the two types; +but there is in my opinion a shade in favor of the conservative on +the score of efficiency, and I am old-fashioned perhaps, but I like +efficiency. If it came to a fight, I should fight on the conservative +side. But this is all beside the point. My objections to your brother, +Mr. Moreton, are not objections to his group or class. They are +personal to him. Damned personal." + +"You don't like David?" + +"Why, he's an attractive young fellow, but, if you'll forgive my +saying so, Mr. Moreton, I don't think he's any good. He's weak, he's +idle, he entirely lacks that aggressive will that--whether we have +your revolution or not--is the only bulwark a woman has in this world. +Why, Mr. Moreton, you are evidently a very much more advanced and +dangerous radical than your brother, but I should not have half the +objection to you that I have to him. There is only one thing that +makes a difference in this world--character. Your brother hasn't got +it." + +For an instant the perfect accuracy of Cord's statements about David +left Ben silent. Then he pulled himself together and said, with a +firmness he did not wholly feel: + +"You hardly do David justice. He may not have great force, but he has +talent, great sweetness, no vices--" + +"Oh, quite, quite, quite, quite," said Cord, with a gesture of his +long hand that should somehow have recalled to Ben the motion of a +hand he had recently kissed. + +"However," said Ben, "there is no use in arguing about our +differences. The point is we are agreed that this marriage ought not +to be. Let us co-operate on that. Where could I find David? I believe +if I could see him I'd have some effect on him." + +"You mean you could talk him out of marrying the girl he loves?" + +"I might make him see the folly of it." + +"Well, I haven't said anything as bad about your brother as that, Mr. +Moreton. But you do him injustice. You couldn't talk him out of it, +and if you could, she'd talk him right back into it again. But there +is one thing to consider. I understand you make him an allowance. How +about stopping that?" + +"I wouldn't consider that for a moment," said Ben, with more temper +than he had so far shown. "I don't make him that allowance so that +I can force him to do what I think best. I give it to him because he +needs it. I don't believe in force, Mr. Cord." + +"Oh yes, you do, Mr. Moreton." + +"What do you mean?" + +"You were proposing to use a much more pernicious kind of force when +you proposed talking the boy out of his first love. However, to be +candid with you, I must tell you that the issue is dead. They ran off +yesterday and were married in Boston." + +There was a short silence and then Ben moved toward the door. + +"Won't you stay to lunch?" said Mr. Cord, politely. + +"Thank you, no," said Ben. He wanted to be alone. Like all dominating +people who don't get their own way in an altruistic issue, his +feelings were deeply wounded. He took his hat from the disapproving +Tomes, and went out to the sea to think. He supposed he was going to +think about David's future and the terrible blow his paper had just +received. + +As the door closed behind him, Eddie turned to Mr. Cord with a world +of reproach in his eyes. + +"Well," he said, "I must say, sir, I think you were unnecessarily +gentle with that fellow." + +"Seemed to me a fine young fellow," said Mr. Cord. + +"Asking him to lunch," said Eddie. + +"I did that for Crystal," replied Cord, getting up and slapping his +pockets--a gesture which in some subconscious way he hoped would make +Eddie go home. "She's always so keen to meet new people. If she heard +that the editor of _Liberty_ had been here while she was asleep and +that I had not tried to keep him for her to see--whew!--she would make +a scene." + +"But she oughtn't to see people like that," protested Eddie, as if +he were trying to talk sense in a madhouse. "That was what I was just +explaining to you, Mr. Cord, when--" + +"So you were, Eddie, so you were," said Mr. Cord. "Stay to lunch and +tell Crystal. Or, rather," he added, hastily glancing at the clock, +"come back to lunch in an hour. I have to go now and see--" Mr. Cord +hesitated for the fraction of a second--"the gardener. If you don't +see gardeners now and then and let them scold you about the weather +and the Lord's arrangement of the seasons, they go mad and beat their +wives. See you later, Eddie," and Mr. Cord stepped out through the +French window. It was only great crises like these that led him to +offer himself up to the attacks of his employees. + +A severe elderly man with a long, flat upper lip and side whiskers +immediately sprang apparently from the earth and approached him. He +had exactly the manner of resolute gloom that a small boy has when +something has gone wrong at school and he wants his mother to drag it +out of him. + +"Good morning, sir," he said. + +"Morning, McKellar," said Cord, gayly. "Everything's all right, I +suppose." + +McKellar shook his head. Everything was about as far from all right as +it well could be. The cook was a violent maniac who required peas to +be picked so young that they weren't worth the picking. Tomes and his +footman were a band of malicious pirates who took pleasure in cutting +for the table the very buds which McKellar was cherishing for the +horticultural show. And as for the season--McKellar could not remember +such a devastatingly dry August since he was a lad at home. + +"Why, McKellar, we had rain two days ago." + +"You wouldn't call that little mist rain, sir." + +"And last week a perfect downpour." + +"Ah, that's the kind doesn't sink into the soil." Looking up +critically at the heavens, McKellar expressed his settled conviction +that in two weeks' time hardly a blade or a shrub would be alive in +the island at Newport. + +"Well, that will save us all a lot of trouble, McKellar," said Mr. +Cord, and presently left his gloomy gardener. He had attained his +object. When he went back into the house, Eddie had gone, and he could +go back to his new driver in peace. + +He was not interrupted until ten minutes past one, when Crystal came +into the room, her eyes shining with exactly the same color that, +beyond the lawn, the sea was displaying. Unlike Eddie, she looked +better than in her fancy dress. She had on flat tennis shoes, a cotton +blouse and a duck skirt, and a russet-colored sweater. Miss Cox would +have rejected every item of her costume except the row of pearls, +which just showed at her throat. + +She kissed her father rapidly, and said: + +"Good morning, dear. Are you ready for breakfast--lunch I mean?" + +She was a little bit flustered for the reason that it seemed to her +as if any one would be able to see that she was an entirely different +Crystal from the one of the evening before, and she was not quite sure +what she was going to answer when her father said, as she felt certain +he must say at any moment, "My dear child, what has come over you?" + +He did not say this, however. He held out his golf-club and said, "Got +a new driver." + +"Yes, yes, dear, very nice," said Crystal. "But I want to have lunch +punctually, to-day." + +Mr. Cord sighed. Crystal wasn't always very sympathetic. "I'm ready," +he said, "only Eddie's coming." + +"_Eddie!_" exclaimed Crystal, drawing her shoulders up, as if at the +sight of a cobra in her path. "Why is Eddie coming to lunch? I did not +ask him." + +"No, my dear, I took that liberty," replied her father. "It seemed the +only way of getting rid of him." + +"Well, I sha'n't wait for him," said Crystal, ringing the bell. "I +have an engagement at a quarter past two." + +"At the golf club?" asked her father, his eye lighting a little. "You +might drive me out, you know." + +"No, dear; quite in the other direction--with a man who was at the +party last night." + +"You enjoyed the party?" + +"No, not a bit." + +"But you stayed till morning." + +"I stopped and took a swim." + +"You enjoyed that, I suppose?" + +His daughter glanced at him and turned crimson; but she did not have +to answer, for at that moment Tomes came, in response to her ring, and +she said: + +"We won't wait lunch for Mr. Verriman, Tomes." Then, as he went away, +she asked, "And what was Eddie doing here this morning, anyhow?" + +"He was scolding me," replied Mr. Cord. "Have you noticed, Crystal, +what a lot of scolding is going on in the world at present? I believe +that that is why no one is getting any work done--everyone is so +busy scolding everybody else. The politicians are scolding, and the +newspapers are scolding, and most of the fellows I know are scolding. +I believe I've got hold of a great truth--" + +"And may I ask what Eddie was scolding about?" asked Crystal, no more +interested in great truths than most of us. + +"About you." + +Crystal moved her head about as if things had now reached a point +where it wasn't even worth while to be angry. "About me?" + +"It seems you're a socialist, my dear. Eddie asked me how long it was +since I had taken an inventory of your economic beliefs. I could not +remember that I ever had, but perhaps you will tell them to me +now. That is," Mr. Cord added, "if you can do it without scolding +me--probably an impossible condition to impose nowadays." + +"It's a pity about Eddie," said Crystal, fiercely. "If only stupid +people would be content to be stupid, instead of trying to run the +world--" + +"Ah, my dear, it's only stupid people who are under the impression +that they can. Good morning again, Eddie, we were just speaking of +you." + +Mr. Cord added the last sentence without the slightest change of tone +or expression as his guest was ushered in by Tomes, who, catching +Crystal's eyes for a more important fact than Eddie's arrival, +murmured that luncheon was served. + +"Well, Eddie," said Crystal, and there was a sort of gay vibration in +her whole figure, and her tone was like a bright banner of war, "and +so you came round to complain to my father, did you?" + +Mr. Cord laid his hand on her shoulder. "Do you think you could +demolish Eddie just as well at table, my dear?" he said. "If so, +there's no use in letting the food get cold." + +"Oh, she can do it anywhere," replied Eddie, bitterly, and then, +striking his habitual note of warning, he went on, "but, honestly, +Crystal, if you had heard what your father and I heard this morning--" + +"I had a visit from David's brother this morning," put in Mr. Cord, +"the editor of your favorite morning paper." + +"Ben Moreton, here! Oh, _father_, why didn't you call me? Yes, I +know," she added, as her father opened his mouth to say that she had +left most particular instructions that she was to be allowed to sleep +as late as she could, "I know, but you must have known I should have +wanted to look David's brother over. Has he long hair? Does he wear a +soft tie? Did you hate him?" + +"Eddie didn't take much of a fancy to him." + +"I should say not. A damned, hollow-eyed fanatic." + +"Is he as good-looking as David, father? What does he look like?" + +Mr. Cord hesitated. "Well, a little like my engraving of Thomas +Jefferson as a young man." + +"He looks as if he might have a bomb in his pocket." + +"Oh, Eddie, do keep quiet, there's a dear, and let father give me one +of his long, wonderful accounts. Go ahead, father." + +"Well," said Mr. Cord, helping himself from a dish that Tomes was +presenting to him, "as I told you, Eddie had dropped in very kindly to +scold me about you, when Tomes announced Mr. Moreton. Tomes thought he +ought to be put straight out of the house. Didn't you, Tomes?" + +"No, sir," said Tomes, who was getting used to his employer, although +he did not encourage this sort of thing, particularly before the +footmen. + +"Well, Moreton came in and said, very simply--" + +"Has he good manners, father?" + +"He has no manners at all," roared Eddie. + +"Oh, how nice," said Crystal, of whom it might be asserted without +flattery that she now understood in perfection the art of irritating +Eddie. + +"He is very direct and natural," her father continued. "He has a lot +more punch than your brother-in-law, my dear. In fact, I was rather +impressed with the young fellow until he and Eddie fell to quarreling. +Things did not go so well, then." + +"You mean," said Crystal, the gossip rather getting the best of the +reformer in her, "that he lost his temper horribly?" + +"I should say he did," said Eddie. + +"Well, Eddie, you know you were not perfectly calm," answered Cord. +"Let us say that they both lost their tempers, which is strange, for +as far as I could see they were agreed on many essentials. They both +believe that one class in the community ought to govern the other. +They both believe the world is in a very bad way; only, according to +Eddie, we are going to have chaos if capital loses its control of +the situation; and according to Moreton we are going to have chaos +if labor doesn't get control. So, as one or the other seems bound to +happen, we ought to be able to adjust ourselves to chaos. In fact, +Crystal, I have been interviewing McKellar about having a chaos cellar +built in the garden." + +Eddie pushed back his plate; it was empty, but the gesture suggested +that he could not go on choking down the food of a man who joked about +such serious matters. + +"I must say, Mr. Cord," he began, "I really must say--" He paused, +surprised to find that he really hadn't anything that he must say, and +Crystal turned to her father: + +"But you haven't told me why he came. To see Eugenia, I suppose?" + +"No; he hadn't heard of the marriage. He came to talk to his brother." + +"For you must know," put in Eddie, hastily, "that Mr. Ben Moreton does +not approve of the marriage--oh, dear, no. He would consider such a +connection quite beneath his family. He disapproves of Eugenia as a +sister-in-law." + +"How could any one disapprove of her?" asked her sister, hotly. + +"Jevver hear such nerve?" said Eddie. + +"It's not Eugenia; it's capital Moreton disapproves of," Mr. Cord went +on, patiently explaining. "You see it never crossed our minds that the +Moretons might object, but of course they do. They regard us as a +very degrading connection. Doubtless it will hurt Ben Moreton with his +readers to be connected with a financial pirate like myself, quite as +much as it will hurt me in the eyes of most of my fellow board members +when it becomes known that my son-in-law's brother is the editor of +_Liberty_." + +"The Moretons disapprove," repeated Crystal, to whom the idea was not +at all agreeable. + +"Disapprove, nonsense!" said Eddie. "I believe he came to blackmail +you. To see what he could get out of you if he offered to stop the +marriage. Well, why not? If these fellows believe all the money ought +to be taken away from the capitalists, why should they care how +it's done? I can't see much difference between robbing a man, and +legislating his fortune out of--" + +"Well, I must tell you, father dear," said Crystal, exactly as if +Eddie had not been speaking, "that I think it was horrid of you not to +have me called when you must have known--" + +"Crystal, you're scolding me," wailed her father. "And most unjustly. +I did ask him to lunch just for your sake, although I saw Eddie was +shocked, and I was afraid Tomes would give warning. But I did ask him, +only he wouldn't stay." + +Crystal rose from the table with her eye on the clock, and they began +to make their way back to Mr. Cord's study, as she asked: + +"Why wouldn't he stay?" + +"I gathered because he didn't want to. Perhaps he was afraid he'd have +to argue with Eddie about capital and labor all through lunch. And of +course he did not know that I had another beautiful daughter sleeping +off the effects of a late party, or very likely he would have +accepted." + +Very likely he would. + +Just as they entered the study, the telephone rang. Crystal sprang +to the instrument, brushing away her father's hand, which had moved +toward it. + +"It's for me, dear," she said, and continued, speaking into the +mouthpiece: "Yes, it's I." (A pause.) "Where are you?... Oh, yes, I +know the place. I'll be there in five minutes, in a little blue car." +She hung up the receiver, sprang up, and looked very much surprised to +see Eddie and her father still there just as before. "Good-by, Eddie," +she said, "I'm sorry, but I have an engagement. Good-by, father." + +"You don't want to run me out to the golf club first?" + +"Not possible, dear. The chauffeur can take you in the big car." + +"Yes, but he'll scold me all the way about there not being room enough +in the garage." + +Crystal was firm. "I'm sorry, but I can't, dear. This is important. I +may take a job. I'll tell you all about it this evening." And she left +the room, with a smile that kept getting entirely beyond her control. + +"What's this? What's this?" cried Eddie as the door shut. "A job. You +wouldn't let Crystal take a job, would you, Mr. Cord?" + +"I haven't been consulted," said Mr. Cord, taking out his new driver +again. + +"But didn't you notice how excited she was. I'm sure it's decided." + +"Yes, I noticed, Eddie; but it looked to me more like a man than a +job. How do you think we'd come out if I gave you a stroke and a half +a hole?" + +Eddie was too perturbed even to answer. + +In the meantime, Crystal was spinning along Bellevue Avenue, +forgetting to bow to her friends, and wondering why the car was going +so badly until, her eye falling on the speedometer, she noticed that +she was doing a mild thirty-five miles an hour. Sooner, therefore, +than the law allowed, she reached a small park that surrounds a statue +of Perry, and there she picked up a passenger. + +Ben got in and shut the little door almost before she brought the car +to a standstill. + +[Illustration: "I'll be there in five minutes, in a little blue car"] + +"When you were little," he said, "did you ever imagine something +wonderful that might happen--like the door's opening and a delegation +coming to elect you captain of the baseball team, or whatever is +a little girl's equivalent of that--and keep on imagining it and +imagining it, until it seemed as if it really were going to happen? +Well, I have been standing here saying to myself, Wouldn't it be +wonderful if Crystal should come in a little blue car and take me to +drive? And, by Heaven! you'll never believe me, but she actually did." + +"Tell me everything you've done since I saw you," she answered. + +"I haven't done anything but think about you. Oh yes, I have, too. +I've reappraised the universe. You see, you've just made me a present +of a brand-new world, and I've been pretty busy, I can tell you, +untying the string and unwrapping the paper, and bless me, Crystal, it +looks like a mighty fine present so far." + +"Oh," she said, "I think you talk charmingly." She had started to say, +"you make love charmingly," but on second thoughts decided that the +overt statement had better come from him. "Dear me," she went on, "we +have so much to talk about. There's my job. Can't we talk a little +about that?" + +They could and did. Their talk consisted largely in his telling her +how much richer a service she could render his paper through having +been unconsciously steeped in beauty than if she had been merely +intellectually instructed--than if, as she more simply put it, she +had known something. And as he talked, her mind began to expand in +the warm atmosphere of his praise and to give off its perfume like a +flower. + +But the idea of her working with him day after day, helping the +development of the paper which had grown as dear as a child to him, +was so desirable that he did not dare to contemplate it unless it +promised realization. + +"Oh," he broke out, "you won't really do it. Your family will object, +or something. Probably when I go away to-night, I shall never see you +again." + +"You are still going away to-night?" + +"I must." + +She looked at him and slowly shook her head, as a mother shakes her +head at the foolish plans of a child. + +"I thought I was going," he said, weakly. + +"Why?" + +He groaned, but did not answer. + +She thought, "Oh, dear, I wish when men want to be comforted they +would not make a girl spend so much time and energy getting them to +say that they do want it." Aloud she said: + +"You must tell me what's the matter." + +"It's a long story." + +"We have all afternoon." + +"That's it--we haven't all eternity." + +"Oh, eternity," said Crystal, dismissing it with the Cord wave of the +hand. "Who wants eternity? 'Since we must die how bright the starry +track,' you know." + +"No; what is that?" + +"I don't remember." + +"Oh." + +After this meeting of minds they drove for some time in silence. Ben +was seeing a new aspect of Newport--bare, rugged country, sandy +roads, a sudden high rock jutting out toward the sea, a rock on which +tradition asserts that Bishop Berkeley once sat and considered the +illusion of matter. They stopped at length at the edge of a sandy +beach. Crystal parked her car neatly with a sharp turn of the wheel, +and got out. + +"There's a tea basket," she called over her shoulder. + +Ben's heart bounded at the news--not that he was hungry, but as the +hour was now but little past half after two a tea basket indicated a +prolonged interview. He found it tucked away in the back of the car, +and followed her. They sat down at the edge of the foam. He lit a +pipe, clasped his hands about his knees and stared out to sea; she +curled her feet backward, grasped an ankle in her hand, and, looking +at him, said: + +"Now what makes you groan so?" + +"I haven't meant to be dishonest," he said, "but I have been obtaining +your friendship--trying to--under false pretenses." + +"Trying to?" said Crystal. "Now isn't it silly to put that in." + +He turned and smiled at her. She was really incredibly sweet. "But, +all the same," he went on, "there is a barrier, a real, tangible +barrier between us." + +Crystal's heart suffered a chill convulsion at these words. "Good +gracious!" she thought. "He's entangled with another woman--oh +dear!--_marriage_"--But she did not interrupt him, and he continued: + +"I let you think that I was one of the men you might have known--that +I was asked to your party last night, whereas, as a matter of fact, I +only watched you--" + +Crystal's mind, working with its normal rapidity, invented, faced, and +passed over the fact that he must have been one of the musicians. She +said aloud: + +"I think I ought to tell you that I'm not much of a believer in +barriers--between sensible people who want friendship." + +"Friendship!" exclaimed Ben, as if that were the last thing he had +come out on a lovely summer afternoon to discuss. + +"There aren't any real barriers any more," Crystal continued. +"Differences of position, and religion, and all those things don't +seem to matter now. Romeo and Juliet wouldn't have paid any attention +to the little family disagreement if they had lived to-day." + +"In the case of Romeo and Juliet, if I remember correctly," said Ben, +"it was not exactly a question of friendship." + +She colored deeply, but he refused to modify his statement, for, after +all, it was correct. "But difference of opinion _is_ an obstacle," +he went on. "I have seen husbands and wives parted by differences of +opinion in the late war. And as far as I'm concerned there's a war +on now--a different war, and I came here to try to prevent my brother +marrying into an enemy influence--" + +"Good Heavens!" cried Crystal. "You are Ben Moreton! Why didn't I see +it sooner? I'm Crystal Cord," and, lifting up her chin, she laughed. + +That she could laugh as the gulf opened between them seemed to him +terrible. He turned his head away. + +She stopped laughing. "You don't think it's amusing?" (He shook his +head.) "That we're relations-in-law, when we thought it was all so +unknown and romantic? No wonder I felt at home with you, when I've +read so many of your letters to David--such nice letters, too--and I +subscribe to your paper, and read every word of the editorials. And +to think that you would not lunch with me to-day, when my father asked +you." + +"To think that it was you I was being asked to lunch with, and didn't +know it!" + +"Well, you dine with us to-morrow," she answered, stating a simple +fact. + +"Crystal," he said, and put his hand on hers as if this would help him +through his long explanation; but the continuity of his thought was +destroyed and his spirit wounded by her immediately withdrawing it; +and then--so exactly does the spring of love resemble the uncertain +glory of an April day--he was rendered perfectly happy again by +perceiving that her action was due to the publicity of their position +and not to repugnance to the caress. + +Fortunately he was a man not without invention, and so when a few +minutes later she suggested opening the tea basket, he insisted on +moving to a more retired spot on the plea that the teakettle would +burn better out of the wind; and Crystal, who must have known that +Tomes never gave her a teakettle, but made the tea at home and put it +in a thermos bottle, at once agreed to the suggestion. + +They moved back across the road, where irregular rocks sheltered small +plots of grass and wild flowers, and here, instead of an Arcadian +duet, they had, most unsuitably, their first quarrel. + +It began as quarrels are so apt to do, by a complete agreement. Of +course he would stay over the next day, which was Sunday, and not very +busy in the office of _Liberty_. In return he expected her undivided +attention. She at once admitted that this was part of the plan--only +there would have to be one little exception; she was dining out this +evening. Oh, well, that could be broken, couldn't it? She would like +to break it, but it happened to be one of those engagements that had +to be kept. Ben could not understand that. + +At first she tried to explain it to him: She had chosen her own +evening several weeks ago with these people, who wanted her to meet a +friend of theirs who was motoring down specially from Boston. She felt +she must keep her word. + +"I assure you I don't want to, but you understand, don't you?" + +If she had looked at his face she would not have asked the last +question. He did not understand; indeed, he had resolved not to. + +"No," he said, "I must own, I don't. If you told me that you _wanted_ +to go, that would be one thing. I shouldn't have a word to say then." + +"Oh yes, you would, Ben," said Crystal, but he did not notice her. + +"I can't understand your allowing yourself to be dragged there against +your will. You say you despise this life, but you seem to take it +pretty seriously if you can't break any engagement that you may make." + +"How absurd you are! Of course I often break engagements." + +"I see. You do when the inducement is sufficient. Well, that makes it +all perfectly clear." + +She felt both angry and inclined to cry. She knew that to yield to +either impulse would instantly solve the problem and bring a very +unreasonable young man to reason. She ran over both scenes in her +imagination. Registering anger, she would rise and say that, really, +Mr. Moreton, if he would not listen to her explanation there was no +use in prolonging the discussion. That would be the critical moment. +He would take her in his arms then and there, or else he would let +her go, and they would drive in silence, and part at the little park, +where of course she might say, "Aren't you silly to leave me like +this?"--only her experience was that it was never very practical to +make up with an angry man in public. + +To burst into tears was a safer method, but she had a natural +repugnance to crying, and perhaps she was subconsciously aware that +she might be left, after the quarrel was apparently made up by this +method, with a slight resentment against the man who had forced her to +adopt so illogical a line of conduct. + +A middle course appealed to her. She laid her hand on Ben's. A few +minutes before it would have seemed unbelievable to Ben that his own +hand would have remained cold and lifeless under that touch, but such +was now the case. + +"Ben," she said, "if you go on being disagreeable a second longer you +must make up your mind how you will behave when I burst into tears." + +"How I should behave?" + +She nodded. + +His hands clasped hers. He told her how he should behave. He even +offered to show her, without putting her to the trouble of tears. + +"You mean," she said, "that you would forgive me? Well, forgive me, +anyhow. I'm doing what I think is right about this old dinner. Perhaps +I'm wrong about it; perhaps you're mistaken and I'm not absolutely +perfect, but if I were, think what a lot of fun you would miss in +changing me. And you know I never meant to abandon you for the whole +evening. I'll get away at half past nine and we'll take a little +turn." + +So that was settled. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +As they drove back she revealed another plan to him--she was taking +him for a moment to see a friend of hers. He protested. He did not +want to see anyone but herself, but Crystal was firm. He must see this +woman; she was their celebrated parlor Bolshevist. Ben hated parlor +Bolshevists. Did he know any? No. Well, then. Anyhow, Sophia would +never forgive her if she did not bring him. Sophia adored celebrities. +Sophia who? Sophia Dawson. The name seemed dimly familiar to Ben, and +then he remembered. It was the name on the thousand-dollar check for +the strike sufferers that had come in the day before. + +They drove up an avenue of little oaks to a formidable palace built +of gray stone, so smoothly faced that there was not a crevice in the +immense pale faade. Two men in knee-breeches opened the double doors +and they went in between golden grilles and rows of tall white lilies. +They were led through a soundless hall, and up stairs so thickly +carpeted that the feet sank in as in new-fallen snow, and finally they +were ushered through a small painted door into a small painted room, +which had been brought all the way from Sienna, and there they found +Mrs. Dawson--a beautiful, worn, world-weary Mrs. Dawson, with one +streak of gray in the front of her dark hair, her tragic eyes, and her +long violet and black draperies--a perfect Sibyl. + +Crystal did not treat her as a Sibyl, however. "Hullo, Sophie!" she +said. "This is my brother-in-law's brother, Ben Moreton. He's crazy to +meet you. You'll like him. I can't stay because I'm dining somewhere +or other, but he's not." + +"Will he dine with me?" said Mrs. Dawson in a wonderful deep, slow +voice--"just stay on and dine with me alone?" + +Ben began to say that he couldn't, but Crystal said yes, that he would +be delighted to, and that she would stop for him again about half past +nine, and that it was a wonderful plan, and then she went away. + +Mrs. Dawson seemed to take it all as a matter of course. "Sit down, +Mr. Moreton," she said. "I have a quarrel with you." + +Ben could not help feeling a little disturbed by the way he had been +injected into Mrs. Dawson's evening without her volition. He did not +sit down. + +"You know," he said, "there isn't any reason why you should have me +to dine just because Crystal says so. I do want to thank you for +the check you sent in to us for the strike fund. It will do a lot of +good." + +"Oh, that," replied Mrs. Dawson. "They are fighting all our battles +for us." + +"It cheered us up in the office. I wanted to tell you, and now I think +I'll go. I dare say you are dining out, anyhow--" + +Her eyes flashed at him. "Dining out!" she exclaimed, as if the +suggestion insulted her. "You evidently don't know me. I never dine +out. I have nothing in common with these people. I lead a very lonely +life. You do me a favor by staying. You and I could exchange ideas. +There is no one in Newport whom I can talk to--reactionaries." + +"Miss Cord is not exactly a reactionary," said Ben, sitting down. + +Mrs. Dawson smiled. "Crystal is not a reactionary; Crystal is a +child," she replied. "But what can you expect of William +Cord's daughter? He is a dangerous and disintegrating +force--cold--cynical--he feels not the slightest public responsibility +for his possessions." Mrs. Dawson laid her hand on her heart as if +it were weighted with all her jewels and footmen and palaces. "Most +Bourbons are cynical about human life, but he goes farther; he is +cynical about his own wealth. And that brings me to my quarrel with +you, Mr. Moreton. How could you let your brother spend his beautiful +vigorous youth as a parasite to Cord's vapid son? Was that consistent +with your beliefs?" + +This attack on his consistency from a lady whose consistency seemed +even more flagrant amused Ben, but as he listened he was obliged to +admit that there was a great deal of good sense in what she had to say +about David, whom she had met once or twice at the Cords'. Ben was too +candid and eager not to ask her before long the question that was +in his mind--how it was possible for a woman holding her views to be +leading a life so opposed to them. + +She was not at all offended, and even less at a loss for an answer. +"I am not a free agent, Mr. Moreton," she said. "Unhappily, before I +began to think at all, I had undertaken certain obligations. The law +allows a woman to dispose of everything but her property while she is +still a child. I married at eighteen." + +It was a story not without interest and Mrs. Dawson told it well. +There does not live a man who would not have been interested. + +They dined, not in the great dining room downstairs, nor even in the +painted room from Sienna, but in a sort of loggia that opened from it, +where, beyond the shaded lights, Ben could watch the moon rise out of +the sea. + +It was a perfect little meal, short, delicious, and quickly served +by three servants. He enjoyed it thoroughly, although he found his +hostess a strangely confusing companion. He would make up his mind +that she was a sincere soul captured by her environment, when a +freshly discovered jewel on her long fingers would shake his faith. +And he would just decide that she was a melodramatic fraud, when she +would surprise him by her scholarly knowledge of social problems. She +had read deeply, knew several languages, and had known many of the +European leaders. Such phrases as "Jaurs wrote me ten days before he +died--" were frequent, but not too frequent, on her lips. + +By the time Crystal stopped for him Ben had begun to feel like a child +who has lost his mother in a museum, or as Dante might have felt if he +had missed Virgil from his side. When he bade Mrs. Dawson good night, +she asked him to come back. + +"Come and spend September here," she said, as if it were a small +thing. "You can work all day if you like. I sha'n't disturb you, and +you need never see a soul. It will do you good." + +He was touched by the invitation, but of course he refused it. He +tried to explain tactfully, but clearly, why it was that he couldn't +do that sort of thing--that the editor of _Liberty_ did not take his +holiday at Newport. + +She understood, and sighed. "Ah, yes," she said. "I'm like that man in +mythology whom neither the sky nor the earth would receive. I'm very +lonely, Mr. Moreton." + +He found himself feeling sorry for her, as he followed a footman +downstairs, his feet sinking into the carpets at each step. Crystal in +the blue car was at the door. She was bareheaded and the wind had been +blowing her hair about. + +"Well," she said, as he got in, "did you have a good time? I'm sure +you had a good dinner." + +"Excellent, but confusing. I don't quite get your friend." + +"You don't understand Sophia?" Crystal's tone expressed surprise. "You +mean her jewels and her footmen? Why, Ben, it's just like the fathers +of this country who talked about all men being equal and yet were +themselves slaveholders. She sincerely believes those things in a way, +and then it's such a splendid role to play, and she enjoys that; +and then it teases Freddie Dawson. Freddie is rather sweet if he's +thoroughly unhappy, and this keeps him unhappy almost all the time. +Did she ask you to stay? I meant her to." + +"Yes, she did; but of course I couldn't." + +"Oh, Ben, why not?" + +This brought them once more to the discussion of the barrier. This +time Ben felt he could make her see. He said that she must look at it +this way--that in a war you could not go and stay in enemy country, +however friendly your personal relations might be. Well, as far as he +was concerned this was a war, a class war. + +They were headed for the Ocean Drive, and Crystal rounded a sharp turn +before she answered seriously: + +"But I thought you didn't believe in war." + +"I don't," he answered. "I hate it--I hate all violence. We--labor, +I mean--didn't initiate this, but when men won't see, when they have +power and won't stop abusing it, there is only one way to make--" + +"Why, Ben," said Crystal, "you're just a pacifist in other people's +quarrels, but as militaristic as can be in your own. I'm not a +pacifist, but I'm a better one than you, because I don't believe in +emphasizing any difference between human beings. That's why I want +a League of Nations. I hate gangs--all women really do. Little girls +don't form gangs like little boys. Every settlement worker knows that. +I won't have you say that I belong to the other group. I won't be +classified. I'm a human being--and I intend to behave as such." + +Since she had left him she had been immersed again in her old +life--her old friends--and the result had been to make her wonder if +her experience with Ben had been as wonderful as it had seemed. When +she stopped for him she had been almost prepared to find that the wild +joy of their meetings had been something accidental and temporary, and +that only a stimulating and pleasant friendship was left. But as soon +as she saw that he really regarded their differences seriously, all +her own prudence and doubt melted away. She knew she was ready to make +any sacrifices for him, and in view of that all talk of obstacles was +folly. + +She stopped the car on the point of the island, with the open sea on +one hand, the harbor on the other. In front of them the lightship +was moving with a slow, majestic roll, and to the right was the long +festoon of Narragansett lights, and as they stopped the lighted bulk +of the New York boat appeared, making its way toward Point Judith. + +His prolonged silence began to frighten her. + +"Ben," she said, "do you seriously mean that you believe friendship +between us is impossible?" + +"Friendship, nothing," answered Moreton. "I love you." + +He said it as if it had always been understood between them, as +of course it had, but the instant he said it, he gave her a quick, +appealing look to see how she would take so startling an assertion. + +If Crystal had poured out just what was in her mind at that second she +would have answered: "Of course you do. I've known that longer than +you have. And can't you see that if I had had any doubt about its +being true, I'd have taken steps to make it true? But, as I really did +not doubt it, I've been able to be quite passive and leave it mostly +to you, which I so much prefer." + +But rigorous candor is rarely attained, and Crystal did not say +this. In fact, for a few seconds she did not say anything, but merely +allowed her eyes to shine upon him, with the inevitable result that +at the end of precisely six seconds of their benevolent invitation he +took her in his arms and kissed her. It was a very unprotected point, +and several cars were standing not too far away, but Crystal, who had +an excellent sense of proportion, made no objection whatever. She was +being proved right in two important particulars--first, that she was +a human being, and second, that there was no barrier between them. +She was very generous about it. She did not say, "Where's your barrier +now?" or anything like that; she simply said nothing, and the barrier +passed out of the conversation and was no more seen. + +Very soon, alleging that she must get home at the time at which she +usually did get home from dinners, she took him back; but she soothed +him with the promise of an uninterrupted day to follow. + +Time--the mere knowledge of unbroken hours ahead--is a boon which +real love cannot do without. Minor feelings may flourish on snatched +interviews and stolen meetings, but love demands--and usually +gets--protected leisure. The next day these lovers had it. They spent +the morning, when Mr. Cord was known to be playing golf, at the +Cords' house, and then when Mr. Cord telephoned that he was staying to +luncheon at the club, if Crystal did not object (and Crystal did not), +she and Ben arranged a picnic--at least Tomes did, and they went off +about one o'clock in the blue car. They went to a pool in the rocks +that Crystal had always known about, with high walls around it, and +here, with a curtain of foam between them and the sea, for the waves +were rising, they ate lunch, as much alone as on a desert island. + +It was here that Ben asked her to marry him, or, to be accurate, it +was here that they first began talking about their life together, and +whether Nora would become reconciled to another woman about the flat. + +The nearest approach to a definite proposal was Ben's saying: + +"You would not mind my saying something about all this to your father +before I go this evening, would you?" + +And Crystal replied: "Poor father! It will be a blow, I'm afraid." + +"Well," said Ben, "he told me himself that he liked me better than +David." + +"That's not saying much." + +At this Ben laughed lightly. + +He might have had his wrong-headed notions about barriers, but he was +not so un-American as to regard a father as an obstacle. + +"But, oh, Crystal," he added, "suppose you find you do hate being +poor. It is a bore in some ways." + +Crystal, who had been tucking away the complicated dishes of her +luncheon basket, looked at Ben and lightly sucked one finger to which +some raspberry jam from Tomes's supernal sandwiches had adhered. + +"I sha'n't mind it a bit, Ben," she said, "and for a good +reason--because I'm terribly conceited." He did not understand at +all, and she went on: "I believe I shall be just as much of a +person--perhaps more--without money. The women who really mind being +poor are the humble-minded ones, who think that they are made by their +clothes and their lovely houses and their maids and their sables. When +they lose them they lose all their personality, and of course that +terrifies them. I don't think I shall lose mine. Does it shock you to +know that I think such a lot of myself?" + +It appeared it did not shock him at all. + +[Illustration: "Suppose you find you do hate being poor?"] + +When they reached the house she established him in the drawing-room +and went off to find her father. + +She was a true woman, by which is meant now and always that she +preferred to allow a man to digest his dinner before she tried to +bring him to a rational opinion. But in this case her hands were tied. +The Cords dined at eight--or sometimes a little later, and Ben's +boat left for New York at half past nine, so that it would be utterly +impossible to postpone the discussion of her future until after +dinner. It had to be done at once. + +Crystal ran up and knocked at his bedroom door. Loud splashings from +the adjoining bathroom were all the answer she got. She sat down on +the stairs and waited. Those are the moments that try men's and even +women's souls. For the first time her enterprise seemed to her a +little reckless. For an instant she had the surprising experience of +recognizing the fact that Ben was a total stranger. She looked at the +gray-stone stairway on which she was sitting and thought that her life +had been as safe and sheltered as a cloister, and now, steered by this +total stranger, she proposed to launch herself on an uncharted +course of change. And to this program she was to bring her father's +consent--for she knew very well that if she couldn't, Ben wouldn't be +able to--in the comparatively short time between now and dinner. Then, +the splashing having ceased, the sound of bureau drawers succeeded, +and Crystal sprang up and knocked again. + +"That you, Peters?" said an unencouraging voice. (Peters was Mr. +Cord's valet.) + +"No, dear, it's I," said Crystal. + +"Oh, come in," said Mr. Cord. He was standing in the middle of the +room in his shirt sleeves and gloomily contemplating the shirt he +wore. "What's this laundress, anyhow? A Bolshevist or a pastry-cook?" +he said. "Did you ever see anything like this shirt?" + +Crystal approached and studied the shirt. It appeared to her to be +perfectly done up, but she said: "Yes, dear, how terrible! I'll pack +her off to-morrow, but you always look all right whatever you wear; +that's some comfort." She saw that even this hadn't done much good, +and, going to the heart of the problem, she asked, "How did your golf +go?" + +Mr. Cord's gloom gathered as he answered, with resignation, "Oh, all +right." + +His manner was exactly similar to Ben's in his recent moment of +depression, and not unlike McKellar's when he had explained what he +suffered under the good Lord's weather. + +"Is Eddie's game any better?" asked Crystal, feeling her way. + +"No," cried her father, contemptuously. "He's rotten, but I'm worse. +And golf-clubs, Crystal! No one can make a club any more. Have you +noticed that? But the truth of the matter is, I'm getting too old +to play golf." And Mr. Cord sat down with a good but unconscious +imitation of a broken old man. + +Of course Crystal swept this away. She scolded him a little, pointed +out his recent prowess, and spoke slightingly of all younger athletes, +but she really had not time to do the job thoroughly, for the thought +of Ben, sitting so anxious in the drawing-room alone, hurried her on. + +"Anyhow, dear," she said, "I've come to talk to you about something +terribly important. What would you say, father, if I told you I was +engaged?" + +Mr. Cord was so startled that he said, what was rare for him, the +first thing that came into his head: + +"Not to Eddie?" + +The true diplomatist, we have been told, simply takes advantage of +chance, and Crystal was diplomatic. "And suppose it is?" she replied. + +"I should refuse my consent," replied her father. + +Crystal looked hurt. "Is there anything against Eddie," she asked, +"except his golf?" + +"Yes," answered her father, "there are two of the most serious things +in the world against him--first, that he doesn't amount to anything; +and second, that you don't love him." + +"No," Crystal admitted, "I don't, but then--love--father, isn't love +rather a serious undertaking nowadays? Is it a particularly helpful +adjunct to marriage? Look at poor Eugenia. Isn't it really more +sensible to marry a nice man who can support one, and then if in time +one does fall in love with another man--" + +"Never let me hear you talk like that again, Crystal," said her +father, with a severity and vigor he seldom showed outside of board +meetings. "It's only your ignorance of life that saves you from being +actually revolting. I'm an old man and not sentimental, you'll +grant, but, take my word for it, love is the only hope of pulling off +marriage successfully, and even then it's not easy. As for Eugenia, I +think she's made a fool of herself and is going to be unhappy, but I'd +rather do what she has done than what you're contemplating. At least +she cared for that fellow--" + +"I'm glad you feel like that, darling," said Crystal, "because it +isn't Eddie I'm engaged to, but Ben Moreton. He's waiting downstairs +now." + +Mr. Cord started up--his eyes shining like black flames. + +"By God! Crystal," he said, "you sha'n't marry that +fellow--Eugenia--perhaps--but not you." + +"But, father, you said yourself, you thought he was a fine--" + +"I don't care what I said," replied Mr. Cord, and, striding to the +door, he flung it open and called in a voice that rolled about the +stone hall: "Mr. Moreton, Mr. Moreton! Come up here, will you?" + +Ben came bounding up the stairs like a panther. Cord beckoned him in +with a sharp gesture and shut the door. + +"This won't do at all, Moreton," he said. "You can't have Crystal." + +Ben did not answer; he looked very steadily at Cord, who went on: + +"You think I can't stop it--that she's of age and that you wouldn't +take a penny of my money, anyhow. That's the idea, isn't it?" + +"That's it," said Ben. + +Cord turned sharply to Crystal. "Does what I think make any difference +to you?" he asked. + +"A lot, dear," she answered, "but I don't understand. You never seemed +so much opposed to the radical doctrine." + +"No, it's the radical, not the doctrine, your father objects to," said +Ben. + +"Exactly," answered Mr. Cord. "You've put it in a nutshell. Crystal, +I'm going to tell you what these radicals really are--they're +failures--everyone of them. Sincere enough--they want the world +changed because they haven't been able to get along in it as it +is--they want a new deal because they don't know how to play their +cards; and when they get a new hand, they'll play it just as badly. +It's not their theories I object to, but them themselves. You think if +you married Moreton you'd be going into a great new world of idealism. +You wouldn't. You'd be going into a world of failure--of the pettiest, +most futile quarrels in the world. The chief characteristic of the man +who fails is that he always believes it's the other fellow's fault; +and they hate the man who differs with them by one per cent more than +they hate the man who differs by one hundred. Has there ever been a +revolution where they did not persecute their fellow revolutionists +worse than they persecuted the old order, or where the new rule wasn't +more tyrannical than the old?" + +"No one would dispute that," said Ben. "It is the only way to win +through to--" + +"Ah," said Cord, "I know what you're going to say, but I tell you, +you win through to liberal practices when, and only when, the +conservatives become converted to your ideas, and put them through for +you. That's why I say I have no quarrel with radical doctrines--they +are coming, always coming, but"--Cord paused to give his words full +weight--"I hate the radical." + +There was a little pause. Crystal, who had sunk into a low chair, +raised her eyes to Ben, as if she expected a passionate contradiction +from him, but it did not come. + +"Yes," he said, after a moment, "that's all true, Mr. Cord--with +limitations; but, granting it, you've put my side, too. What are we to +say of the conservative--the man who has no vision of his own--who +has to go about stealing his beliefs from the other side? He's very +efficient at putting _them_ into effect--but efficient as a tool, as +a servant. Look at the mess he makes of his own game when he tries to +act on his own ideas. He crushes democracy with an iron efficiency, +and he creates communism. He closes the door to trade-unionism and +makes a revolution. That's efficiency for you. We radicals are not +so damned inefficient, while we let the conservatives do our work for +us." + +"Well, let it be revolution, then," said Cord. "I believe you're +right. It's coming, but do you want to drag a girl like Crystal into +it? Think of her! Say you take her, as I suppose a young fellow like +you can do. She'd have perhaps ten years of an exciting division of +allegiance between your ideas and the way she had been brought up, and +the rest of her life (for, believe me, as we get older we all return +to our early traditions)--the rest of her life she'd spend regretting +the ties and environment of her youth. On the other hand, if she gives +you up she will have regrets, too, I know, but they won't wreck her +and embitter her the way the others will." + +Ben's face darkened. No man not a colossal egotist could hear such +a prophesy with indifference. He did not at once answer, and then he +turned to Crystal. + +"What do you think of that?" he asked. + +To the surprise of both men, Crystal replied with a laugh. "I was +wondering," she said, "when either of you would get round to asking +what I thought of it all." + +"Well, what do you think?" said Cord, almost harshly. + +Crystal rose, and, slipping her arm through his, leaned her head +on the point of her father's shoulder--he was of a good height. "I +think," she said, "you both talk beautifully. I was so proud of you +both--saying such profound things so easily, and keeping your tempers +so perfectly" (both brows smoothed out), "and it was all the more +wonderful because, it seemed to me, you were both talking about things +you knew nothing about." + +"What do you mean?" burst from both men with simultaneous +astonishment. + +"Ben, dear, father doesn't know any radicals--except you, and he's +only seen you twice. Father dear, I don't believe Ben ever talked +five minutes with an able, successful conservative until he came here +to-day." + +"You're going to throw me over, Crystal?" said Ben, seeing her pose +more clearly than he heard her words. + +"No," said Mr. Cord, bitterly, "she's going to throw over an old man +in favor of a young one." + +"You silly creatures," said Crystal, with a smile that made the words +affectionate and not rude. "How can I ever throw either of you over? +I'm going to be Ben's wife, and I am my father's daughter. I'm going +to be those two things for all my life." + +Ben took her hand. She puzzled him, but he adored her. "But some +day, Crystal," he said, "you will be obliged to choose between our +views--mine or your father's. You must see that." + +"He's right," her father chimed in. "This is not a temporary +difference of opinion, you know, Crystal. This cleavage is as old as +mankind--the radical against the conservative. Time doesn't reconcile +them." + +Again the idea came to her: "They do love to form gangs, the poor +dears." Aloud she said: "Yes, but the two types are rarely pure ones. +Why, father, you think Ben is a radical, but he's the most hidebound +conservative about some things--much worse than you--about free verse, +for instance. I read a long editorial about it not a month ago. He +really thinks anyone who defends it ought to be deported to some +poetic limbo. Ben, you think my father is conservative. But there's a +great scandal in his mental life. He's a Baconian--" + +"He thinks Bacon wrote the plays!" exclaimed Ben, really shocked. + +"Certainly I do," answered Mr. Cord. "Every man who uses his mind must +think so. There is nothing in favor of the Shakespeare theory, except +tradition--" + +He would have talked for several hours upon the subject, but Crystal +interrupted him by turning to Ben and continuing what she had meant to +say: + +"When you said I should have to choose between your ideas, you meant +between your political ideas. Perhaps I shall, but I won't make my +choice, rest assured, until I have some reason for believing that each +of you knows something--honestly knows something about the other one's +point of view." + +"I don't get it, exactly," said Ben. + +She addressed Mr. Cord. + +"Father," she went on, "Ben has a little flat in Charles Street, and +an old servant, and that's where I'm going to live." + +Her father, though bitterly wounded, had regained his sardonic calm. +"Perhaps," he said, "you'll bring him up to Seventy-ninth Street for +Sunday dinner now and then." + +Crystal shook her head. "No, dear," she said. "That isn't the way it's +going to be. As soon as I get settled and have time to look about me, +I shall take another little flat for you. You will live with us, for a +few months in the winter, and get to know Ben's friends--his gang, +as you would say--get to know them not as a philanthropist, or an +employer, or an observer, but just as one of our friends--see if they +really are the way you think they are. And then, in March you shall go +off to Palm Beach or Virginia just as usual." + +"That's a fine idea," said Mr. Cord, sarcastically. "Do you realize +that I shall hardly survive your marriage with the editor of +_Liberty_. I shall be kicked off--requested to resign from half a +dozen boards for having such a son-in-law--" + +"There's freedom for you," said Ben. + +"And," continued Mr. Cord, "if it were known that I consented to the +marriage, and actually consorted with such fellows! You must realize, +Crystal, that most of the most influential men in the country think +the way Eddie does. Half my boards are composed of older Eddies." + +"You'll do better to resign from them, then," said Crystal. + +Ben had been very much struck by Crystal's suggestion. + +"Really, Mr. Cord," he said, "I believe that is a great idea of +Crystal's. I really believe if capital had more idea of the real +views of labor--as you said, you eventually adopt all our ideas, why +wouldn't an intimate knowledge of individuals hurry that process?" + +"Simply because I should lose all influence with my own people by +merely investigating you in a friendly spirit." + +"Glory!" exclaimed Ben, with open contempt for such people. "Think of +penalizing the first honest attempt to understand!" + +"You see the point of my plan, don't you, Ben?" said Crystal. + +"You bet I do." + +"That's wonderful," she answered, "for you've only heard half of it. +In July, August, and September, we will come here to Newport, and you +will get to understand father's--" + +"Hold on," cried Ben, "just a moment. That is absolutely impossible, +Crystal. You don't understand. The paper couldn't keep me a day if I +did that." + +"Ha!" cried Mr. Cord, coming suddenly to life. "There's freedom for +you!" + +"That would be very cruel of the owners, Ben, but if they did--" + +"It wouldn't be cruel at all," said Moreton. "They wouldn't have any +choice. I should have lost all influence with my readers, if it were +known--" + +"Glory!" said Mr. Cord. "Think of penalizing the first honest attempt +to understand the capitalistic class!" + +Ben stood silent, caught in the grip of an intellectual dilemma which +he felt every instant would dissolve itself and which didn't. + +Crystal for the first time moved away from her father. "Those are my +terms," she said. "I stay with the man who agrees to them, and if you +both decline them--well, I'll go off and try and open the oyster by +myself." + +There was a long momentous pause, and then Tomes's discreet knock on +the door. + +"Mr. Verriman on the telephone, madam." + +"I can't come," said Crystal. "Ask him to send a message." + +"Don't you see, Crystal, what your plan would do?" said her father. +"Either it would make Moreton a red revolutionist and me a persecuting +Bourbon, or else it would just ruin us both for either of our +objectives." + +"It won't ruin you for my objectives," said Crystal, "and women are +more human, you know, than men." + +Another knock at the door. Tomes's voice again: + +"Mr. Verriman wishes to know if he might dine here this evening?" + +"No," said Cord, looking at Crystal. + +Crystal raised her voice. "Certainly, Tomes. Say we shall be delighted +to have him--at eight." + +Both men turned to her. + +"Why did you do that, Crystal? Verriman--here--to-night?" + +Crystal did not answer--the identity of their tones, their words, +and their irritation with her should have told them the answer, but +didn't. + +She knew that only opposition to Eddie and Eddie's many prototypes +could weld her two men solidly together. + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Beauty and the Bolshevist, by Alice Duer Miller + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAUTY AND THE BOLSHEVIST *** + +***** This file should be named 13146-8.txt or 13146-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/1/4/13146/ + +Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Joshua Hutchinson and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/old/13146-8.zip b/old/old/13146-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0acd9d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/13146-8.zip diff --git a/old/old/13146.txt b/old/old/13146.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bda2c11 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/13146.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2978 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Beauty and the Bolshevist, by Alice Duer Miller + +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 Beauty and the Bolshevist + +Author: Alice Duer Miller + +Release Date: August 9, 2004 [EBook #13146] +[Date last updated: October 5, 2004] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAUTY AND THE BOLSHEVIST *** + + + + +Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Joshua Hutchinson and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +[Illustration: "I beg your pardon. Is this a private raft?"] + +THE BEAUTY AND THE BOLSHEVIST + +By ALICE DUER MILLER +_Author of_ +"_ The Charm School_" +"_Ladies must Live_" +"_Come out of the Kitchen_" +_etc_. + +Illustrated + +1920 + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + "I beg your pardon. Is this a private raft?" + "Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty" + "I'll be there in five minutes, in a little blue car" + "Suppose you find you do hate being poor?" + + + + +THE BEAUTY AND THE BOLSHEVIST + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +The editor of that much-abused New York daily, _Liberty_, pushed back +his editorial typewriter and opened one letter in the pile which the +office-boy--no respecter of persons--had just laid upon the desk while +whistling a piercing tune between his teeth. + +The letter said: + + DEAR BEN,--I hate to think what your feelings will be on + learning that I am engaged to be married to a daughter of the + capitalistic class. Try to overcome your prejudices, however, + and judge Eugenia as an individual and not as a member of a + class. She has very liberal ideas, reads your paper, and is + content to go with me to Monroe College and lead the life of + an instructor's wife. You will be glad to know that Mr. Cord + disapproves as much as you do, and will not give his daughter + a cent, so that our life will be as hard on the physical side + as you in your most affectionate moments could desire. Mr. + Cord is under the impression that lack of an income will cool + my ardor. You see he could not think worse of me if he were my + own brother. + + Yours, + + DAVID. + +The fine face of the editor darkened. It was the face of an +idealist--the deep-set, slowly changing eyes, the high cheek bones, +but the mouth closed firmly, almost obstinately, and contradicted the +rest of the face with a touch of aggressiveness, just as in Lincoln's +face the dreamer was contradicted by the shrewd, practical mouth. He +crossed his arms above the elbow so that one long hand dangled on one +side of his knees and one on the other--a favorite pose of his--and +sat thinking. + +The editor was often called a Bolshevist--as who is not in these days? +For language is given us not only to conceal thought, but often to +prevent it, and every now and then when the problems of the world +become too complex and too vital, some one stops all thought on a +subject by inventing a tag, like "witch" in the seventeenth century, +or "Bolshevist" in the twentieth. + +Ben Moreton was not a Bolshevist; indeed, he had written several +editorials to show that, in his opinion, their doctrines were not +sound, but of course the people who denounced him never thought +of reading his paper. He was a socialist, a believer in government +ownership, and, however equably he attempted to examine any dispute +between capital and labor, he always found for labor. He was much +denounced by ultraconservatives, and perhaps their instinct was sound, +for he was educated, determined, and possessed of a personality that +attached people warmly, so that he was more dangerous than those whose +doctrines were more militant. He was not wholly trusted by the extreme +radicals. His views were not consistently agreeable to either group. +For instance, he believed that the conscientious objectors were really +conscientious, a creed for which many people thought he ought to be +deported. On the other hand, he doubted that Wall Street had started +the war for its own purposes, a skepticism which made some of his +friends think him just fit for a bomb. + +The great problem of his life was how to hold together a body of +liberals so that they could be effective. This problem was going to be +immensely complicated by the marriage of his brother with the daughter +of a conspicuous capitalist like William Cord. + +He pushed the buzzer on his desk and wrote out the following telegram: + + David Moreton, Care William Cord, Newport, R.I. + + Am taking boat Newport to-night. Meet me. + + Ben. + +No one answered his buzzer, but presently a boy came in collecting +copy, and Moreton said to him: + +"Here, get this sent, and ask Klein to come here. He's in the +composing room." + +And presently Mr. Klein entered, in the characteristic dress of the +newspaper man--namely, shirt sleeves and a green shade over his eyes. + +"Look here, Ben!" he exclaimed in some excitement. "Here's a +thousand-dollar check just come in for the strike fund. How's that for +the second day?" + +"Good enough," said Ben, who would ordinarily have put in a good hour +rejoicing over such unexpected good fortune, but whose mind was now +on other things. "I have to go out of town to-night. You'll be here, +won't you, to lock the presses? And, see here, Leo, what is the matter +with our book page?" + +"Pretty rotten page," replied Klein. + +"I should say it was--all about taxes and strikes and economic crises. +I told Green never to touch those things in the book reviews. +Our readers get all they want of that from us in the news and the +editorials--hotter, better stuff, too. I've told him not to touch +'em in the book page, and he runs nothing else. He ought to +be beautiful--ought to talk about fairies, and poetry, and +twelfth-century art. What's the matter with him?" + +"He doesn't know anything," said Klein. "That's his trouble. He's +clever, but he doesn't know much. I guess he only began to read books +a couple years ago. They excite him too much. He wouldn't read a fairy +story. He'd think he was wasting time." + +"Get some one to help him out." + +"Who'd I get?" + +"Look about. I've got to go home and pack a bag. Ask Miss Cox what +time that Newport boat leaves." + +"Newport! Great heavens, Ben! What is this? A little week-end?" + +"A little weak brother, Leo." + +"David in trouble again?" + +Moreton nodded. "He thinks he's going to marry William Cord's +daughter." + +Klein, who was Ben's friend as well as his assistant, blanched at the +name. + +"Cord's daughter!" he exclaimed, and if he had said Jack-the-ripper's, +he could not have expressed more horror. "Now isn't it queer," he went +on, musingly, "that David, brought up as he has been, can see anything +to attract him in a girl like that?" + +Ben was tidying his desk preparatory to departure--that is to say, he +was pushing all the papers far enough back to enable him to close the +roller top, and he answered, absently: + +"Oh, I suppose they're all pretty much the same--girls." + +"Why, what do you mean?" said Leo, reproachfully. "How can a girl +who's been brought up to be a parasite--to display the wealth of her +father and husband, and has never done a useful thing since she was +born--Why, a woman was telling me the other day--I got caught in a +block in the subway and she was next me--awfully interesting, she was. +She sewed in one of these fashionable dressmaking establishments--and +the things she told me about what those women spend on their +clothes--underclothes and furs and everything. Now there must be +something wrong with a woman who can spend money on those things when +she knows the agony of poverty right around her. You can't compare +that sort of woman with a self-respecting, self-supporting girl--" + +At this moment the door opened and Miss Cox entered. She wore a +short-sleeved, low-neck, pink-satin blouse, a white-satin skirt, +open-work stockings, and slippers so high in the heels that her ankles +turned inward. Her hair was treated with henna and piled untidily +on the top of her head. She was exactly what Klein had described--a +self-respecting, self-supporting girl, but, on a superficial +acquaintance, men of Cord's group would have thought quite as badly of +her as Klein did of fashionable women. They would have been mistaken. +Miss Cox supported her mother, and, though only seventeen, denied +herself all forms of enjoyment except dress and an occasional movie. +She was conscientious, hard-working, accurate, and virtuous. She loved +Ben, whom she regarded as wise, beautiful, and generous, but she would +have died rather than have him or anyone know it. + +She undulated into the room, dropped one hip lower than the other, +placed her hand upon it and said, with a good deal of enunciation: + +"Oh, Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty." + +"Thank you very much, Miss Cox," said Ben, gravely, and she went out +again. + +[Illustration: "Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty"] + +"It would be a terrible thing for Dave to make a marriage like that," +Klein went on as soon as she had gone, "getting mixed up with those +fellows. And it would be bad for you, Ben--" + +"I don't mean to get mixed up with them," said Ben. + +"No, I mean having Dave do it. It would kill the paper; it would +endanger your whole position; and as for leadership, you could never +hope--" + +"Now, look here, Leo. You don't think I can stop my brother's marrying +because it might be a poor connection for me? The point is that it +wouldn't be good for Dave--to be a poorly tolerated hanger-on. That's +why I'm going hot-foot to Newport. And while I'm away do try to do +something about the book page. Get me a culture-hound--get one of +these Pater specialists from Harvard. Or," he added, with sudden +inspiration when his hand was already on the door, "get a woman--she'd +have a sense of beauty and would know how to jolly Green into agreeing +with her." And with this the editor was gone. + +It was the end of one of those burning weeks in August that New York +often knows. The sun went down as red as blood every evening behind +the Palisades, and before the streets and roofs had ceased to radiate +heat the sun was up again above Long Island Sound, as hot and red as +ever. As Ben went uptown in the Sixth Avenue Elevated he could see +pale children hanging over the railings of fire escapes, and +behind them catch glimpses of dark, crowded rooms which had all the +disadvantages of caves without the coolness. But to-day he was too +concentrated on his own problem to notice. + +Since Ben's sixteenth year his brother David had been dependent on +him. Their father had been professor of economics in a college in that +part of the United States which Easterners describe as the "Middle +West." In the gay days when muck-raking was at its height Professor +Moreton had lost his chair because he had denounced in his lecture +room financial operations which to-day would be against the law. At +that time they were well thought of, and even practiced by the eminent +philanthropist who had endowed the very chair which Moreton occupied. +The trustees felt that it was unkind and unnecessary to complicate +their already difficult duties by such tactlessness, and their hearts +began to turn against Moreton, as most of our hearts turn against +those who make life too hard for us. Before long they asked him +to resign on account of his age--he was just sixty and extremely +vigorous; but immediately afterward, having been deeply surprised +and hurt, he did what Goldsmith recommends to lovely woman under not +dissimilar circumstances--he died. He left his two young sons--he had +married late in life--absolutely unprovided for. Ben, the elder of the +two, was sixteen, and just ready for college; but he could not give +four precious years to an academic degree. He went to work. With the +background of an educated environment and a very sound knowledge of +economic questions, breathed in from his earliest days, he found a +place at once on a new paper--or, rather, on an old paper just +being converted into a new organ of liberalism--_Liberty_. It was +independent in politics, and was supposed to be independent in +economic questions, but by the time Ben worked up to the editorship it +was well recognized to be an anticapitalist sheet. The salary of its +editor, though not large, was sufficient to enable him to send his +younger brother through college, with the result that David, a little +weak, a little self-indulgent, a little--partly through physical +causes--disinclined to effort, was now a poet, a classicist and an +instructor in a fresh-water college. Ben made him an allowance to +enable him to live--the college not thinking this necessary for its +instructors. But during the war Ben had not been able to manage the +allowance, because, to the surprise of many of his friends, Ben had +volunteered early. + +Although the reasons for doing this seemed absurdly simple to him, the +decision had been a difficult one. He was a pacifist--saw no virtue +in war whatsoever. He wished to convert others to his opinion--unlike +many reformers who prefer to discuss questions only with those who +already agree with them. He argued that the speeches of a man who had +been through war, or, better still, the posthumous writings of one who +has been killed in war, would have more weight with the public than +the best logic of one who had held aloof. But his radical friends felt +that he was using this argument merely as an excuse for choosing +the easy path of conformity, while the few ultraconservatives who +mentioned the matter at all assumed that he had been drafted against +his will. Afterward, when the war was over and his terrible book, +_War_, appeared, no one was pleased, for the excellent reason that it +was published at a moment when the whole world wanted to forget +war entirely. The pay of a private, however, had not allowed him to +continue David's allowance, and so David, displaying unusual energy, +had found a job for himself as tutor for the summer to William Cord's +son. Ben had not quite approved of a life that seemed to him slightly +parasitical, but it was healthy and quiet and, above everything, David +had found it for himself, and initiative was so rare in the younger +man that Ben could not bear to crush it with disapproval. + +Increasingly, during the two years he was in France, Ben was +displeased by David's letters. The Cords were described as kindly, +well-educated people, fond one of another, considerate of the tutor, +with old-fashioned traditions of American liberties. Ben asked himself +if he would have been better pleased if David's employers had +been cruel, vulgar, and blatant, and found the answer was in the +affirmative. It would, he thought, have been a good deal safer for +David's integrity if he had not been so comfortable. + +For two summers Ben had made no protest, but the third summer, when +the war was over and the allowance again possible, he urged David not +to go back to Newport. David flatly refused to yield. He said he saw +no reason why he should go on taking Ben's money when this simple way +of earning a full living was open to him. Wasn't Ben's whole theory +that everyone should be self-supporting? Why not be consistent? + +Ignorant people might imagine that two affectionate brothers could +not quarrel over an issue purely affectionate. But the Moretons did +quarrel--more bitterly than ever before, and that is saying a great +deal. With the extraordinary tenacity of memory that develops +under strong emotion, they each contrived to recall and to mention +everything which the other had done that was wrong, ridiculous, or +humiliating since their earliest days. They parted with the impression +on David's part that Ben thought him a self-indulgent grafter, and +on Ben's side that David thought him a bully solely interested in +imposing his will on those unfortunate enough to be dependent on him. + +It was after half past four when, having walked up five flights of +stairs, he let himself into his modest flat on the top floor of an +old-fashioned brownstone house. As he opened the door, he called, + +"Nora!" + +No beautiful partner of a free-love affair appeared, but an elderly +woman in spectacles who had once been Professor Moreton's cook, +and now, doing all the housework for Ben, contrived to make him so +comfortable that the editor of a more radical paper than his own had +described the flat as "a bourgeois interior." + +"Nora," said Ben, "put something in my bag for the night--I'm going to +Newport in a few minutes." + +He had expected a flood of questions, for Nora was no looker-on at +life, and he was surprised by her merely observing that she was glad +he was getting away from the heat. The truth was that she knew far +more about David than he did. She had consistently coddled David since +his infancy, and he told her a great deal. Besides, she took care +of his things when he was at Ben's. She had known of sachets, +photographs, and an engraved locket that he wore on his watch-chain. +She was no radical. She had seen disaster come upon the old professor +and attributed it, not to the narrowness of the trustees, but to the +folly of the professor. She disapproved of most of Ben's friends, and +would have despised his paper if she ever read it. The only good +thing about it in her estimation was, he seemed to be able "to knock +a living out of it"--a process which Nora regarded with a sort of gay +casualness. She did not blame him for making so little money and +thus keeping her housekeeping cramped, but she never in her own mind +doubted that it would be far better if he had more. The idea that +David was about to marry money seemed to her simply the reward of +virtue--her own virtue in bringing David up so well. She knew that Mr. +Cord opposed the marriage, but she supposed that Ben would arrange all +that. She had great confidence in Ben. Still he was very young, very +young, so she gave him a word of advice as she put his bag into his +hand. + +"Don't take any nonsense. Remember you're every bit as good as they. +Only don't, for goodness' sake, Mr. Ben, talk any of your ideas to +them. A rich man like Mr. Cord wouldn't like that." + +Ben laughed. "How would you like me to bring you home a lovely heiress +of my own?" he said. + +She took a thread off his coat. "Only don't let her come interfering +in my kitchen," she said, and hurried him away. He had a good deal of +courage, but he had not enough to tell Nora he was going to Newport to +stop her darling's marriage. + +The Newport boat gets to Newport about two o'clock in the morning, and +experienced travelers, if any such choose this method of approach, go +on to Fall River and take a train back to Newport, arriving in time +for a comfortable nine-o'clock breakfast. But Ben was not experienced, +and he supposed that when you took a boat for Newport and reached +Newport the thing to do was to get off the boat. + +It had been a wonderful night on the Sound, and Ben had not been to +bed, partly because, applying late on a Friday evening, he had not +been able to get a room, but partly because the moon and the southerly +breeze and the silver shores of Long Island and the red and white +lighthouses had been too beautiful to leave. Besides, he had wanted to +think out carefully what he was going to say to his brother. + +To separate a man from the woman he loves, however unwisely, has some +of the same disadvantages as offering a bribe--one respects the other +person less in proportion as one succeeds. What, Ben said to himself, +could he urge against a girl he did not know? Yet, on the other hand, +if he had known her, his objections would have seemed regrettably +personal. Either way, it was difficult to know what to say. He +wondered what Cord had said, and smiled to think that here was one +object for which he and Cord were co-operating--only Cord would never +believe it. That was one trouble with capitalists--they always thought +themselves so damned desirable. And Ben did not stop to inquire how it +was that capitalists had gained this impression. + +On the pier he looked about for David, but there was no David. Of +course the boy had overslept, or hadn't received his telegram--Ben +said this to himself, but somehow the vision of David comfortably +asleep in a luxurious bed in the Cords's house irritated him. + +His meditations were broken in upon by a negro boy with an open +hack, who volunteered to "take him up for fifty cents." It sounded +reasonable. Ben got in and they moved slowly down the narrow pier, the +horses' hoofs clumping lazily on the wooden pavement. Turning past the +alley of Thames Street, still alight at three o'clock in the morning, +Ben stopped at the suggestion of his driver and left his bag at +a hotel, and then they went on up the hill, past the tower of the +Skeleton in Armor, past old houses with tall, pillared porticoes, +reminiscent of the days when the South patronized Newport, and turned +into Bellevue Avenue--past shops with names familiar to Fifth Avenue, +past a villa with bright-eyed owls on the gateposts, past many large, +silent houses and walled gardens. + +The air was very cool, and now and then the scent of some flowering +bush trailed like a visible cloud across their path. Then suddenly the +whole avenue was full of little red lights, like the garden in "Faust" +when Mephistopheles performs his magic on it. Here and there the huge +headlights of a car shone on the roadway, magnifying every rut in the +asphalt, and bringing out strange, vivid shades in the grass and the +hydrangea bushes. They were passing a frowning palace set on a piece +of velvet turf as small as a pocket handkerchief--so small that the +lighted windows were plainly visible from the road. + +"Stop," said Ben to his driver. He had suddenly realized how long it +must be before he could rouse the Cord household. + +He paid his driver, got out, and made his way up the driveway +toward the house. Groups of chauffeurs were standing about their +cars--vigorous, smartly dressed men, young for the most part. Ben +wondered if it were possible that they were content with the present +arrangement, and whether their wives and children were not stifling in +the city at that very moment. He caught a sentence here and there as +he passed. "And, believe me," one was saying, "as soon as he got into +the box he did not do a thing to that fellar from Tiverton--" Ben's +footsteps lagged a little. He was a baseball fan. He almost forgave +the chauffeurs for being content. They seemed to him human beings, +after all. + +He approached the house, and, walking past a narrow, unroofed piazza, +he found himself opposite a long window. He looked straight into the +ballroom. The ball was a fancy ball--the best of the season. It was +called a Balkan Ball, which gave all the guests the opportunity of +dressing pretty much as they pleased. The wood of the long paneled +room was golden, and softened the light from the crystal appliques +along the wall, and set off the bright dresses of the dancers as a +gold bowl sets off the colors of fruit. + +Every now and then people stepped out on the piazza, and as they did +they became audible to Ben for a few seconds. First, two middle-aged +men, solid, bronzed, laughing rather wickedly together. Ben drew back, +afraid of what he might overhear, but it turned out to be no very +guilty secret. "My dear fellow," one was saying, "I gave him a stroke +a hole, and he's twenty years younger than I am--well, fifteen anyhow. +The trouble with these young men is that they lack--" + +Ben never heard what it was that young men lacked. + +Next came a boy and a girl, talking eagerly, the girl's hand +gesticulating at her round, red lips. Ben had no scruples in +overhearing them--theirs appeared to be the universal secret. But here +again he was wrong. She was saying: "Round and round--not up and down. +My dentist says that if you always brush them round and round--" + +Then two young men--boys, with cigarettes drooping from their lips; +they were saying, "I haven't pitched a game since before the war, but +he said to go in and get that Tiverton fellow, and so--" Ben saw that +he was in the presence of the hero of the late game. He forgave him, +too. + +As a matter of fact, he had never given the fashionable world +enough attention to hate it. He knew that Leo Klein derived a very +revivifying antagonism from reading about it, and often bought himself +an entrance to the opera partly because he loved music, but partly, +Ben always thought, because he liked to look up at the boxes and hate +the occupants for their jewels and inattention. But Ben watched the +spectacle with as much detachment as he would have watched a spring +dance among the Indians. + +And then suddenly his detachment melted away, for a lovely girl came +through the window--lovely with that particular and specific kind of +loveliness which Ben thought of when he used the word--_his_ kind. He +used to wonder afterward how he had known it at that first glimpse, +for, in the dim light of the piazza, he could not see some of her +greatest beauties--the whiteness of her skin, white as milk where her +close, fine, brown hair began, or the blue of the eyes set at an angle +which might have seemed Oriental in eyes less enchanting turquoise in +color. But he could see her slenderness and grace. She was dressed in +clinging blues and greens and she wore a silver turban. She leaned her +hands on the railings--she turned them out along the railings; they +were slender and full of character--not soft. Ben looked at the one +nearest him. With hardly more than a turn of his head he could have +kissed it. The idea appealed to him strongly; he played with it, just +as when he was a child in a college town he had played with the idea +of getting up in church and walking about on the backs of the pews. +This would be pleasanter, and the subsequent getaway even easier. He +glanced at the dark lawn behind him; there appeared to be no obstacle +to escape. + +Perhaps, under the spell of her attraction for him, and the knowledge +that he would never see her again, he might actually have done it, but +she broke the trance by speaking to a tall, stolid young man who was +with her. + +"No, Eddie," she said, as if answering something he had said some time +ago, "I really was at home, at just the time I said, only this new +butler does hate you so--" + +"You might speak to him about it--you might even get rid of him," +replied the young man, in the tone of one deeply imposed upon. + +"Good butlers are so rare nowadays." + +"And are devoted friends so easy to find?" + +"No, but a good deal easier than butlers, Eddie dear." + +The young man gave an exclamation of annoyance. "Let us find some +place out of the way. I want to speak to you seriously--" he began, +and they moved out of earshot--presumably to a secluded spot of +Eddie's choosing. + +When they had gone Ben felt distinctly lonely, and, what was more +absurd, slighted, as if Eddie had deliberately taken the girl away +from him--out of reach. How silly, he thought, for Eddie to want to +talk to her, when it was so clear the fellow did not know how to talk +to her. How silly to say, in the sulky tone, "Are devoted friends +so easy to find?" Of course they were--for a girl like that--devoted +friends, passionate lovers, and sentimental idiots undoubtedly blocked +her path. + +It might have been some comfort to him to know that in the remote spot +of his own choosing, a stone bench under a purple beech, Eddie was +simply going from bad to worse. + +"Dear Crystal," he began, with that irritating reasonableness of +manner which implies that the speaker is going to be reasonable for +two, "I've been thinking over the situation. I know that you don't +love me, but then I don't believe you will ever be deeply in love with +any one. I don't think you are that kind of woman." + +"Oh, Eddie, how dreadful!" + +"I don't see that at all. Just as well, perhaps. You don't want to get +yourself into such a position as poor Eugenia." + +"I do, I would. I'd give anything to be as much in love as Eugenia." + +"What? With a fellow like that! A complete outsider." + +"Outside of what? The human race?" + +"Well, no," said Eddie, as if he were yielding a good deal, "but +outside of your traditions and your set." + +"My set! Good for him to be outside of it, I say. What have they ever +done to make anyone want to be inside of it? Why, David is an educated +gentleman. To hear him quote Horace--" + +"Horace who?" + +"Really, Eddie." + +"Oh, I see. You mean the poet. That's nothing to laugh at, Crystal. It +was a natural mistake. I thought, of course, you meant some of those +anarchists who want to upset the world." + +Crystal looked at him more honestly and seriously than she had yet +done. + +"Well, don't you think there _is_ something wrong with the present +arrangement of things, Eddie?" + +"No, I don't, and I hate to hear you talk like a socialist." + +"I am a socialist." + +"You're nothing of the kind." + +"I suppose I know what I am." + +"Not at all--not at all." + +"I certainly think the rich are too rich, while the poor are so +horridly poor." + +"_You'd_ get on well without your maid and your car and your father's +charge accounts at all the shops, wouldn't you?" + +Though agreeable to talk seriously if you agree, it is correspondingly +dangerous if you disagree. Crystal stood up, trembling with an emotion +which Eddie, although he was rather angry himself, considered utterly +unaccountable. + +"Yes," she said, almost proudly, "I _am_ luxurious, I _am_ dependent +on those things. But whose fault is that? It's the way I was brought +up--it's all wrong. But, even though I am dependent on them, I believe +I could exist without them. I'd feel like killing myself if I didn't +think so. Sometimes I want to go away and find out if I couldn't +live and be myself without all this background of luxury. But at the +worst--I'm just one girl--suppose I were weak and couldn't get on +without them? That wouldn't prove that they are right. I'm not so +blinded that I can't see that a system by which I profit may still be +absolutely wrong. But you always seem to think, Eddie, that it's +part of the Constitution of the United States that you should have +everything you've always had." + +Eddie rose, too, with the manner of a man who has allowed things to +go far enough. "Look here, my dear girl," he said, "I am a man and I'm +older than you, and have seen more of the world. I know you don't +mean any harm, but I must tell you that this is very wicked, dangerous +talk." + +"Dangerous, perhaps, Eddie, but I can't see how it can be wicked to +want to give up your special privileges." + +"Where in the world do you pick up ideas like this?" + +"I inherited them from an English ancestor of mine, who gave up all +that he had when he enlisted in Washington's army." + +"You got that stuff," said Eddie, brushing this aside, "from David +Moreton, and that infernal seditious paper his brother edits--and that +white-livered book which I haven't read against war. I'd like to put +them all in jail." + +"It's a pity," said Crystal, "that your side can't think of a better +argument than putting everyone who disagrees with you in jail." + +With this she turned and left him, and, entering the ballroom, flung +herself into the arms of the first partner she met. It was a timid +boy, who, startled by the eagerness with which she chose him, with +her bright eyes and quickly drawn breath, was just coming to +the conclusion that a lovely, rich, and admired lady, had fallen +passionately in love with him, when with equal suddenness she stepped +out of his arms and was presently driving her small, open car down the +avenue. + +Under the purple beech Eddie, left alone, sank back on the stone bench +and considered, somewhat as the persecutors of Socrates may have done, +suitable punishments for those who put vile, revolutionary ideas into +the heads of young and lovely women. + +In the meantime Ben, who had enjoyed the party more than most of the +invited guests, and far more than the disconsolate Eddie, had left his +vantage point at the window. He had suddenly become aware of a strange +light stealing under the trees, and, looking up, he saw with +surprise that the stars were growing small and the heavens turning +steel-color--in fact, that it was dawn. + +Convinced that sunrise was a finer sight than the end of the grandest +ball that ever was given, he made his way down a shabby back lane, +and before long came out on the edge of the cliffs, with the whole +panorama of sunrise over the Atlantic spread out before him. + +He stood there a moment, somebody's close, well-kept lawn under his +feet, and a pale-pink sea sucking in and out on the rocks a hundred +feet below. The same hot, red sun was coming up; there wasn't a steady +breeze, but cool salt puffs came to him now and then with a breaking +wave. It was going to be a hot day, and Ben liked swimming better than +most things in life. He hesitated. + +If he had turned to the left, he would have come presently to a public +beach and would have had his swim conventionally and in due time. But +some impulse told him to turn to the right, and he began to wander +westward along the edge of the cliffs--always on his left hand, space +and the sea, and on his right, lawns or gardens or parapets crowned +by cactus plants in urns, and behind these a great variety of +houses--French chateaux and marble palaces and nice little white +cottages, and, finally, a frowning Gothic castle. All alike seemed +asleep, with empty piazzas and closed shutters, and the only sign of +life he saw in any of them was one pale housemaid shaking a duster out +of a window in an upper gable. + +At last he came to a break in the cliffs--a cove, with a beach in it, +a group of buildings obviously bathing-houses. The sacredness of this +pavilion did not occur to Ben; indeed, there was nothing to suggest +it. He entered it light-heartedly and was discouraged to find the door +of every cabin securely locked. The place was utterly deserted. But +Ben was persistent, and presently he detected a bit of a garment +hanging over a door, and, pulling it out, he found himself in +possession of a man's bathing suit. A little farther on he discovered +a telephone room unlocked. Here he undressed and a minute later was +swimming straight out to sea. + +The level rays of the sun were doing to the water just what the +headlights of the motors had done to the road; they were enlarging +every ripple and edging the deep purple-blue with yellow light. Except +for a fishing dory chunking out to its day's work, Ben had the sea +and land to himself. He felt as if they were all his own, and, for +a socialist, was guilty of the sin of pride of possession. He was +enjoying himself so much that it was a long time before he turned to +swim back. + +He was swimming with his head under water most of the time so that he +did not at once notice that a raft he had passed on his way out was +now occupied. As soon as he did see it his head came up. It was a +female figure, and even from a distance he could see that she was +unconscious of his presence and felt quite as sure of having the world +to herself as he was. She was sitting on the edge of the raft, kicking +a pair of the prettiest legs in the world in and out of the water. +They were clad in the thinnest of blue-silk stockings, the same in +which a few minutes before she had been dancing, but not being able +to find any others in her bathhouse, she had just kept them on, +recklessly ignoring the inevitable problem of what she should wear +home. She was leaning back on her straightened arms, with her head +back, looking up into the sky and softly whistling to herself. Ben saw +in a second that she was the girl of the silver turban. + +He stole nearer and nearer, cutting silently through the water, +and then, when he had looked his fill, he put his head down again, +splashed a little, and did not look up until his hand was on the raft, +when he allowed an expression of calm surprise to appear on his face. + +"I beg your pardon," he said. "Is this a private raft?" + +The young lady, who had had plenty of time since the splash to +arrange her countenance, looked at him with a blank coldness, and then +suddenly smiled. + +"I thought it was a private world," she replied. + +"It's certainly a very agreeable one," said Ben, climbing on the raft. +"And what I like particularly about it is the fact that no one is +alive but you and me. Newport appears to be a city of the dead." + +"It always was," she answered, contemptuously. + +"Oh, come. Not an hour ago you were dancing in blue and green and a +silver turban at a party over there," and he waved his hand in the +direction from which he had come. + +"Did you think it was a good ball?" + +"I enjoyed it," he answered, truthfully. + +Her face fell. "How very disappointing," she said. "I didn't see you +there." + +"Disappointing that you did not see me there?" + +"No," she replied, and then, less positively; "No; I meant it was +disappointing that you were the kind of man who went to parties--and +enjoyed them." + +"It would be silly to go if you didn't enjoy them," he returned, +lightly. + +She turned to him very seriously. "You're right," she said; "it is +silly--very silly, and it's just what I do. I consider parties like +that the lowest, emptiest form of human entertainment. They're dull; +they're expensive; they keep you from doing intelligent things, +like studying; they keep you from doing simple, healthy things, like +sleeping and exercising; they make you artificial; they make you civil +to people you despise--they make women, at least, for we must have +partners--" + +"But why do you go, then?" + +She was silent, and they looked straight and long at each other. Then +she said, gravely: + +"The answer's very humiliating. I go because I haven't anything else +to do." + +He did not reassure her. "Yes, that's bad," he said, after a second. +"But of course you could not expect to have anything else to do when +all your time is taken up like that. 'When the half gods go,' you +know, 'the gods arrive.'" + +The quotation was not new to Crystal; in fact, she had quoted it to +Eddie not very long before, apropos of another girl to whom he had +shown a mild attention, but it seemed to her as if she took in for the +first time its real meaning. Whether it was the dawn, exhaustion, a +stimulating personality, love, or mere accident, the words now came +to her with all the beauty and truth of a religious conviction. They +seemed to shake her and make her over. She felt as if she could never +be sufficiently grateful to the person who had thus made all life +fresh and new to her. + +"Ah," she said, very gently, "that's it. I see. You won't believe me, +but I assure you from now on I mean to be entirely different." + +"Please, not too different." + +"Oh yes, yes, as different as possible. I've been so unhappy, and +unhappy about nothing definite--that's the worst kind, only that I +have not liked the life I was leading." + +She glanced at him appealingly. She had tried to tell this simple +story to so many people, for she had many friends, and yet no one had +ever really understood. Some had told her she was spoiled, more, that +there was no use in trying to change her life because she would soon +marry; most of them had advised her to marry and find out what real +trouble was. Now, as she spoke she saw that this strange young man +from the sea not only understood her discontent, but thought it +natural, almost commonplace. + +She poured it all out. "Only the worst thing," she ended, "is that I'm +not really any good. There isn't anything else that I know how to do." + +"I doubt that," he answered, and she began to doubt it, too. "I'm sure +there are lots of things you could do if you put your mind on it. Did +you ever try to write?" + +Now, indeed, she felt sure that he was gifted with powers more +than mortal--to have guessed this secret which no one else had ever +suspected. She colored deeply. + +"Why, yes," she answered, "I think I can--a little, only I've so +little education." + +"So little education?" + +"Yes, I belong to the cultivated classes--three languages and nothing +solid." + +"Well, you know, three languages seem pretty solid to me," said Ben, +who had wrestled very unsuccessfully with the French tongue. "You +speak three languages, and let me see, you know a good deal about +painting and poetry and jade and Chinese porcelains?" + +She shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. "Oh, of course everyone +knows about those things, but what good are they?" + +They were a good deal of good to Ben. He pressed on toward his final +goal. "What is your attitude toward fairies?" he asked, and Miss +Cox would have heard in his tone a faint memory of his voice when he +engaged a new office-boy. + +Her attitude toward fairies was perfectly satisfactory, and he showed +so much appreciation that she went on and told him her great secret +in full. She had once had something published and been paid money for +it--fifteen dollars--and probably never in her life had she spoken of +any sum with so much respect. It had been, well, a sort of a review of +a new illustrated edition of Hans Andersen's Tales, treating them as +if they were modern stories, commenting on them from the point of +view of morals and probability--making fun of people who couldn't give +themselves up to the charm of a story unless it tallied with their own +horrid little experiences of life. She told it, she said, very badly, +but perhaps he could get the idea. + +He got it perfectly. "Good," he said. "I'll give you a job. I'm a +newspaper editor." + +"Oh," she exclaimed, "you're not Mr. Munsey, are you, or Mr. Reid, or +Mr. Ochs?" + +Her knowledge of newspaper owners seemed to come to a sudden end. + +"No," he answered, smiling, "nor even Mr. Hearst. I did not say I +owned a newspaper. I edit it. I need some one just like you for my +book page, only you'd have to come to New York and work hard, and +there wouldn't be very much salary. Can you work?" + +"Anyone can." + +"Well, will you?" + +"Indeed I will." (It was a vow.) "And now I must go. I have to drive +myself home in an open car, and the tourists do stare at one so--in +fancy dress." + +"Yes, but when am I to see you again? I leave Newport to-night." + +"Telephone me--2079--and we'll arrange to do something this +afternoon." + +"And whom shall I ask for?" + +"Telephone at two-fifteen to the minute, and I'll answer the telephone +myself." + +She evidently rather enjoyed the mystery of their not knowing each +other's names. But a black idea occurred to Ben. She had slid off the +raft and swum a few strokes before he shouted to her: + +"Look here. Your name isn't Eugenia, is it?" + +She waved her hand. "No, I'm Crystal," she called back. + +"Good-by, Crystal." + +This time she did not wave, but, swimming on her side with long, easy +strokes, she gave him a sweet, reassuring look. + +After she had gone he lay down on the raft with his face buried in his +arms. A few moments before he had thought he could never see enough of +the sunrise and the sea, but now he wanted to shut it out in favor of +a much finer spectacle within him. So this was love. Strange that no +one had ever been able to prepare you for it. Strange that poets had +never been able to give you a hint of its stupendous inevitability. He +wondered if all miracles were like that--so simple--so-- + +Suddenly he heard her voice near him. He lifted his head from his +arms. She was there in the water below him, clinging to the raft with +one hand. + +"I just came back to tell you something," she said. "I thought you +ought to know it before things went any farther." + +He thought, "Good God! she's in love with some one else!" and the +horror of the idea made him look at her severely. + +"I'm not perhaps just as I seem--I mean my views are rather liberal. +In fact"--she brought it out with an effort--"I'm almost a socialist." + +The relief was so great that Ben couldn't speak. He bent his head and +kissed the hand that had tempted him a few hours before. + +She did not resent his action. Her special technique in such matters +was to pretend that such little incidents hardly came into the realm +of her consciousness. She said, "At two-fifteen, then," and swam away +for good. + +Later in the day a gentleman who owned both a bathing house and a +bathing suit on Bailey's beach was showing the latter possession to a +group of friends. + +"No one can tell me that Newport isn't damp," he said. "I haven't been +in bathing for twenty-four hours, and yet I can actually wring the +water out of my suit." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +That same morning, about ten o'clock, Mr. William Cord was shut up in +the study of his house--shut up, that is, as far as entrance from the +rest of the house was concerned, but very open as to windows looking +out across the grass to the sea. It was a small room, and the leather +chairs which made up most of its furnishings were worn, and the +bookshelves were filled with volumes like railroad reports and _Poor's +Manual_, but somehow the total effect of the room was so agreeable +that the family used it more than Mr. Cord liked. + +He was an impressive figure, tall, erect, and with that suggestion +of unbroken health which had had something to do with his success in +life. His hair must have been of a sandy brown, for it had turned, +not gray nor white, but that queer no-color that sandy hair does turn, +melting into all pale surroundings. His long face was not vividly +colored, either, but was stamped with the immobility of expression +that sensitive people in contact with violent life almost always +acquire. The result was that there seemed to be something dead about +his face until you saw his eyes, dark and fierce, as if all the fire +and energy of the man were concentrated in them. + +He was dressed in gray golfing-clothes that smelled more of peat than +peat does, and, though officially supposed to be wrestling with the +more secret part of correspondence which even his own secretary was +not allowed to see, he was actually wiggling a new golf-club over the +rug, and toying with the romantic idea that it would enable him to +drive farther than he had ever driven before. + +There was a knock at the door. Mr. Cord leaned the driver in a corner, +clasped his hands behind his back, straddled his legs a trifle, so +that they seemed to grow out of the rug as the eternal oak grows out +of the sod, and said, "Come in," in the tone of a man who, considering +the importance of his occupation, bears interruption exceedingly well. + +Tomes, the butler, entered. "Mr. Verriman, sir, to see you." + +"To see _me_?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Cord just nodded at this, which evidently meant that the visitor was +to be admitted, for Tomes never made a mistake and Verriman presently +entered. Mr. Cord had seen Eddie Verriman the night before at the +ball, and had thought him a very fine figure of a man, so now, putting +two and two together, he said to himself, "Is he here to ask my +blessing?" + +Aloud he said nothing, but just nodded; it was a belief that had +translated itself into a habit--to let the other man explain first. + +"I know I'm interrupting you, Mr. Cord," Verriman began. Mr. Cord made +a lateral gesture with his hand, as if all he had were at the disposal +of his friends, even his most precious asset--time. + +"It's something very important," Eddie went on. "I'm worried. I +haven't slept. Mr. Cord, have you checked up Crystal's economic +beliefs lately?" + +"Lately?" said Mr. Cord. "I don't know that I ever have. Have a +cigar?" + +Eddie waved the cigar aside as if his host had offered it to him in +the midst of a funeral service. + +"Well, I have," he said, as if some one had to do a parent's duty, +"and I've been very much distressed--shocked. I had a long talk with +her about it at the dance last night." + +"About economics?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Why, Eddie, don't I seem to remember your telling me you were in love +with Crystal?" + +"Yes, Mr. Cord, I am." + +"Then what do you want to talk economics for? Or is it done like that +nowadays?" + +"I don't want to," answered Eddie, almost in a wail. "_She_ does. She +gets me going and then we quarrel because she has terrible opinions. +She talks wildly. I have to point out to her that she's wrong. And +last night she told me"--Eddie glanced about to be sure he was not +overheard--"she told me that she was a socialist." + +Mr. Cord had just lit the very cigar which Eddie had waved away, and +he took the first critical puffs at it before he answered: + +"Did you ask her what that was?" + +"No--no--I didn't." + +"Missed a trick there, Eddie." + +It was impossible to accuse so masklike a magnate of frivolity, but +Eddie was often dissatisfied with Mr. Cord's reactions to the serious +problems of life. + +"But don't you think it's terrible," he went on, eagerly, "for Crystal +to be a socialist? In this age of the world--civilization trembling on +the brink--chaos"--Eddie made a gesture toward the perfectly ordered +shelves containing _Poor's Manual_--"staring us in the face? You say +that the half-baked opinions of an immature girl make no difference?" + +"No, I shouldn't say that--at least not to Crystal," murmured her +father. + +"But the mere fact that she picks up such ideas proves that they are +in the air about us and that terrifies me--terrifies me," ended Eddie, +his voice rising as he saw that his host intended to remain perfectly +calm. + +"Which terrifies you, Eddie--Crystal or the revolution?" + +"The general discontent--the fact that civilization is tr--" + +"Oh yes, that," said Mr. Cord, hastily. "Well, I wouldn't allow that +to terrify me, Eddie. I should have more sympathy with you if it had +been Crystal. Crystal is a good deal of a proposition, I grant you. +The revolution seems to me simpler. If a majority of our fellow +countrymen really want it, they are going to get it in spite of you +and me; and if they don't want it, they won't have it no matter +how Crystal talks to you at parties. So cheer up, Eddie, and have a +cigar." + +"They can, they will," said Eddie, not even troubling to wave away the +cigar this time. "You don't appreciate what an organized minority of +foreign agitators can do in this country. Why, they can--" + +"Well, if a minority of foreigners can put over a revolution against +the will of the American people, we ought to shut up shop, Eddie." + +"You're not afraid?" + +"No." + +"You mean you wouldn't fight it?" + +"You bet your life I'd fight it," said Mr. Cord, gayly, "but I fight +lots of things without being afraid of them. What's the use of being +afraid? Here I am sixty-five, conservative and trained to only one +game, and yet I feel as if I could manage to make my own way even +under soviet rule. Anyway, I don't want to die or emigrate just +because my country changes its form of government. Only it would have +to be the wish of the majority, and I don't believe it ever will be. +In the meantime there is just one thing I _am_ afraid of--and +that's the thing that you and most of my friends want to do +first--suppressing free speech; if you suppress it, we won't know who +wants what. Then you really do get an explosion." + +Eddie had got Mr. Cord to be serious now, with the unfortunate result +that the older man was more shocking than ever. + +"Free speech doesn't mean treason and sedition," Eddie began. + +"It means the other man's opinion." + +There was a pause during which Eddie became more perturbed and Mr. +Cord settled back to his habitual calm. + +"Wouldn't you suppress _anything_?" Verriman asked at length, willing +to know the worst. "Not even such a vile sheet as _Liberty_?" + +"Do you ever see it, Eddie?" + +"Read a rotten paper like that? Certainly not. Do you?" + +"I subscribe to it." And, bending down, Mr. Cord unlocked a drawer in +his desk and produced the issue of the preceding day. + +"I notice you keep it locked up," said Eddie, and felt that he had +scored. + +"I have to," replied Mr. Cord, "or else Crystal gets hold of it and +cuts it all up into extracts--she must have sent you some--before I +get a chance to read it. Besides, it shocks Tomes. You ought to talk +to Tomes, Eddie. He thinks about as you do--" + +At this moment the door opened and Tomes himself entered. + +"Mr. Moreton would like to see you, sir." + +Even Cord's calm was a little disturbed by this unexpected news. + +"Mr. Moreton!" he exclaimed. "Not--not--not--not?" + +"No, sir," said Tomes, always in possession of accurate information. +"His brother, I believe." + +"Show him in here," said Cord, and added to Eddie, as Tomes left the +room: "Well, here he is--the editor himself, Eddie. You can say it all +to him." + +"I don't want to see such fellows," Verriman began. + +"Stay and protect me, Eddie. He may have a bomb in his pocket." + +"You don't really believe that he's come to--" + +"No, Eddie, I don't. I think he's come like young Lochinvar--to dance +a little late at the wedding. To try to persuade me to accept that +lazy, good-looking brother of his as a son-in-law. He'll have quite a +job over that." Then, as the door opened, Mr. Cord's eyes concentrated +on it and his manner became a shade sharper. "Ah, Mr. Moreton, good +morning. Mr. Verriman--Mr. Moreton." + +Ben was a good-looking young man, but it was his expression--at once +illuminated and determined--that made him unusual. And the effect of +his night and morning had been to intensify this, so that now, as he +stood a moment in the doorway, he was a very attractive and compelling +figure. + +"I came to see my brother, Mr. Cord," he said, simply, "but I hear +he's not here any more. If I could speak to you alone for a few +minutes--" He glanced at Eddie, whom he instantly recognized as the +man who had not known how to talk to the woman in the world best worth +talking to. + +"Oh, you may speak before Mr. Verriman," said Cord. "He knows the +situation--knows your brother--knows my children--knows about you. +In fact, we were just speaking about your paper when you came +in. However, I must tell you that Mr. Verriman doesn't approve of +_Liberty_. At least, I believe I understood you right, Eddie." And Mr. +Cord, having thus assured himself a few minutes to regain his poise, +leaned back comfortably in his chair. + +"What's wrong with the paper, Mr. Verriman?" said Ben, pleasantly. + +Eddie did not love the adventure of mental combat, but he was no +coward. "It seems to me," he said, "that it preaches such radical +changes in our government that it is seditious. To be frank, Mr. +Moreton, I think the government ought to suppress it." + +"But we don't break the law. The government can't suppress us." + +"Then the laws ought to be changed so that it can." + +"That's all we advocate, Mr. Verriman, the changing of the law. It +isn't any more seditious for me to say it than for you to, is it?" + +Of course in Eddie's opinion it was--much, much more seditious. Only +somehow it was a difficult point to make clear, if a person was so +wrongheaded he couldn't see it for himself. The point was that he, +Eddie, was right in wanting the laws changed and Moreton was wrong. +Anyone, it seemed to Eddie, would agree to that, unless he happened +to agree with Moreton beforehand, and those were just the people who +ought to be deported, imprisoned, or even perhaps in rare instances, +as examples, strung up to lamp-posts. Only each time he tried to put +these very natural opinions in words, they kept sounding wrong and +tyrannical and narrow--qualities which Eddie knew he was entirely +without. In order to counteract this effect, he tried at first to +speak very temperately and calmly, but, unhappily, this only had the +effect of making him sound patronizing to Ben's ears. + +In short, it was hardly to be expected that the discussion would be +amicable, and it was not. Each man began to be angry in his own way. +Eddie shouted a little, and Ben expressed himself with turns of phrase +quite needlessly insulting. Ben found Verriman's assumption that the +profits of capital were bound up with patriotism, family life, and +the Christian religion almost as irritating as Verriman found Ben's +assumption that the government of labor as a class would be entirely +without the faults that have always marked every form of class +government. + +"And suppose you got socialism," said Eddie, at last, "suppose you did +divide everything up equally, don't you suppose that in a few years +the clever, strong, industrious men would have it all in their own +hands?" + +"Very likely," said Ben, "but that would be quite a change from the +present arrangement, wouldn't it?" + +Mr. Cord had a narrow escape from laughing out loud, which would have +cost him the friendship of the man with whom on the whole he really +agreed. He thought it was time to interfere. + +"This is very interesting, Mr. Moreton," he said, "but I fancy it +wasn't about the general radical propaganda that you came to see me." + +"No," said Ben, turning slowly. He felt as a dog feels who is dragged +out of the fight just as it begins to get exciting. "No, I came to see +you about this unfortunate engagement of my brother's." + +"Unfortunate?" asked Mr. Cord, without criticism. + +"I should consider it so, and I understand you do, too." + +Cord did not move an eyelash; this was an absolutely new form of +attack. It had certainly never crossed his mind that any objection +could come from the Moreton family. + +"You consider it unfortunate?" said Eddie, as if it would be mere +insolence on Ben's part to object to his brother's marrying anyone. + +"Will you give me your reasons for objecting?" said Cord. + +Ben smiled. "You ought to understand them," he said, "for I imagine +they're pretty much the same as your own. I mean they are both founded +on class consciousness. I feel that it will be destructive to the +things I value most in David to be dependent on, or associated with, +the capitalistic group. Just as you feel it will be destructive to +your daughter to be married to a tutor--a fellow with radical views +and a seditious brother--" + +"One moment, one moment," said Cord; "you've got this all wrong so +far as I'm concerned. I do most emphatically disagree with the radical +propaganda. I think the radical is usually just a man who hasn't got +something he wants." + +"And the conservative is a man who wants to keep something he's got," +said Ben, less hostilely than he had spoken to Eddie. + +"Exactly, exactly," said Cord. "In ideality there isn't much to choose +between them, but, generally speaking, I have more respect for the man +who has succeeded in getting something to preserve than for the man +who hasn't got anything to lose." + +"If their opportunities were equal." + +"I say in general. There is not much to choose between the two types; +but there is in my opinion a shade in favor of the conservative on +the score of efficiency, and I am old-fashioned perhaps, but I like +efficiency. If it came to a fight, I should fight on the conservative +side. But this is all beside the point. My objections to your brother, +Mr. Moreton, are not objections to his group or class. They are +personal to him. Damned personal." + +"You don't like David?" + +"Why, he's an attractive young fellow, but, if you'll forgive my +saying so, Mr. Moreton, I don't think he's any good. He's weak, he's +idle, he entirely lacks that aggressive will that--whether we have +your revolution or not--is the only bulwark a woman has in this world. +Why, Mr. Moreton, you are evidently a very much more advanced and +dangerous radical than your brother, but I should not have half the +objection to you that I have to him. There is only one thing that +makes a difference in this world--character. Your brother hasn't got +it." + +For an instant the perfect accuracy of Cord's statements about David +left Ben silent. Then he pulled himself together and said, with a +firmness he did not wholly feel: + +"You hardly do David justice. He may not have great force, but he has +talent, great sweetness, no vices--" + +"Oh, quite, quite, quite, quite," said Cord, with a gesture of his +long hand that should somehow have recalled to Ben the motion of a +hand he had recently kissed. + +"However," said Ben, "there is no use in arguing about our +differences. The point is we are agreed that this marriage ought not +to be. Let us co-operate on that. Where could I find David? I believe +if I could see him I'd have some effect on him." + +"You mean you could talk him out of marrying the girl he loves?" + +"I might make him see the folly of it." + +"Well, I haven't said anything as bad about your brother as that, Mr. +Moreton. But you do him injustice. You couldn't talk him out of it, +and if you could, she'd talk him right back into it again. But there +is one thing to consider. I understand you make him an allowance. How +about stopping that?" + +"I wouldn't consider that for a moment," said Ben, with more temper +than he had so far shown. "I don't make him that allowance so that +I can force him to do what I think best. I give it to him because he +needs it. I don't believe in force, Mr. Cord." + +"Oh yes, you do, Mr. Moreton." + +"What do you mean?" + +"You were proposing to use a much more pernicious kind of force when +you proposed talking the boy out of his first love. However, to be +candid with you, I must tell you that the issue is dead. They ran off +yesterday and were married in Boston." + +There was a short silence and then Ben moved toward the door. + +"Won't you stay to lunch?" said Mr. Cord, politely. + +"Thank you, no," said Ben. He wanted to be alone. Like all dominating +people who don't get their own way in an altruistic issue, his +feelings were deeply wounded. He took his hat from the disapproving +Tomes, and went out to the sea to think. He supposed he was going to +think about David's future and the terrible blow his paper had just +received. + +As the door closed behind him, Eddie turned to Mr. Cord with a world +of reproach in his eyes. + +"Well," he said, "I must say, sir, I think you were unnecessarily +gentle with that fellow." + +"Seemed to me a fine young fellow," said Mr. Cord. + +"Asking him to lunch," said Eddie. + +"I did that for Crystal," replied Cord, getting up and slapping his +pockets--a gesture which in some subconscious way he hoped would make +Eddie go home. "She's always so keen to meet new people. If she heard +that the editor of _Liberty_ had been here while she was asleep and +that I had not tried to keep him for her to see--whew!--she would make +a scene." + +"But she oughtn't to see people like that," protested Eddie, as if +he were trying to talk sense in a madhouse. "That was what I was just +explaining to you, Mr. Cord, when--" + +"So you were, Eddie, so you were," said Mr. Cord. "Stay to lunch and +tell Crystal. Or, rather," he added, hastily glancing at the clock, +"come back to lunch in an hour. I have to go now and see--" Mr. Cord +hesitated for the fraction of a second--"the gardener. If you don't +see gardeners now and then and let them scold you about the weather +and the Lord's arrangement of the seasons, they go mad and beat their +wives. See you later, Eddie," and Mr. Cord stepped out through the +French window. It was only great crises like these that led him to +offer himself up to the attacks of his employees. + +A severe elderly man with a long, flat upper lip and side whiskers +immediately sprang apparently from the earth and approached him. He +had exactly the manner of resolute gloom that a small boy has when +something has gone wrong at school and he wants his mother to drag it +out of him. + +"Good morning, sir," he said. + +"Morning, McKellar," said Cord, gayly. "Everything's all right, I +suppose." + +McKellar shook his head. Everything was about as far from all right as +it well could be. The cook was a violent maniac who required peas to +be picked so young that they weren't worth the picking. Tomes and his +footman were a band of malicious pirates who took pleasure in cutting +for the table the very buds which McKellar was cherishing for the +horticultural show. And as for the season--McKellar could not remember +such a devastatingly dry August since he was a lad at home. + +"Why, McKellar, we had rain two days ago." + +"You wouldn't call that little mist rain, sir." + +"And last week a perfect downpour." + +"Ah, that's the kind doesn't sink into the soil." Looking up +critically at the heavens, McKellar expressed his settled conviction +that in two weeks' time hardly a blade or a shrub would be alive in +the island at Newport. + +"Well, that will save us all a lot of trouble, McKellar," said Mr. +Cord, and presently left his gloomy gardener. He had attained his +object. When he went back into the house, Eddie had gone, and he could +go back to his new driver in peace. + +He was not interrupted until ten minutes past one, when Crystal came +into the room, her eyes shining with exactly the same color that, +beyond the lawn, the sea was displaying. Unlike Eddie, she looked +better than in her fancy dress. She had on flat tennis shoes, a cotton +blouse and a duck skirt, and a russet-colored sweater. Miss Cox would +have rejected every item of her costume except the row of pearls, +which just showed at her throat. + +She kissed her father rapidly, and said: + +"Good morning, dear. Are you ready for breakfast--lunch I mean?" + +She was a little bit flustered for the reason that it seemed to her +as if any one would be able to see that she was an entirely different +Crystal from the one of the evening before, and she was not quite sure +what she was going to answer when her father said, as she felt certain +he must say at any moment, "My dear child, what has come over you?" + +He did not say this, however. He held out his golf-club and said, "Got +a new driver." + +"Yes, yes, dear, very nice," said Crystal. "But I want to have lunch +punctually, to-day." + +Mr. Cord sighed. Crystal wasn't always very sympathetic. "I'm ready," +he said, "only Eddie's coming." + +"_Eddie!_" exclaimed Crystal, drawing her shoulders up, as if at the +sight of a cobra in her path. "Why is Eddie coming to lunch? I did not +ask him." + +"No, my dear, I took that liberty," replied her father. "It seemed the +only way of getting rid of him." + +"Well, I sha'n't wait for him," said Crystal, ringing the bell. "I +have an engagement at a quarter past two." + +"At the golf club?" asked her father, his eye lighting a little. "You +might drive me out, you know." + +"No, dear; quite in the other direction--with a man who was at the +party last night." + +"You enjoyed the party?" + +"No, not a bit." + +"But you stayed till morning." + +"I stopped and took a swim." + +"You enjoyed that, I suppose?" + +His daughter glanced at him and turned crimson; but she did not have +to answer, for at that moment Tomes came, in response to her ring, and +she said: + +"We won't wait lunch for Mr. Verriman, Tomes." Then, as he went away, +she asked, "And what was Eddie doing here this morning, anyhow?" + +"He was scolding me," replied Mr. Cord. "Have you noticed, Crystal, +what a lot of scolding is going on in the world at present? I believe +that that is why no one is getting any work done--everyone is so +busy scolding everybody else. The politicians are scolding, and the +newspapers are scolding, and most of the fellows I know are scolding. +I believe I've got hold of a great truth--" + +"And may I ask what Eddie was scolding about?" asked Crystal, no more +interested in great truths than most of us. + +"About you." + +Crystal moved her head about as if things had now reached a point +where it wasn't even worth while to be angry. "About me?" + +"It seems you're a socialist, my dear. Eddie asked me how long it was +since I had taken an inventory of your economic beliefs. I could not +remember that I ever had, but perhaps you will tell them to me +now. That is," Mr. Cord added, "if you can do it without scolding +me--probably an impossible condition to impose nowadays." + +"It's a pity about Eddie," said Crystal, fiercely. "If only stupid +people would be content to be stupid, instead of trying to run the +world--" + +"Ah, my dear, it's only stupid people who are under the impression +that they can. Good morning again, Eddie, we were just speaking of +you." + +Mr. Cord added the last sentence without the slightest change of tone +or expression as his guest was ushered in by Tomes, who, catching +Crystal's eyes for a more important fact than Eddie's arrival, +murmured that luncheon was served. + +"Well, Eddie," said Crystal, and there was a sort of gay vibration in +her whole figure, and her tone was like a bright banner of war, "and +so you came round to complain to my father, did you?" + +Mr. Cord laid his hand on her shoulder. "Do you think you could +demolish Eddie just as well at table, my dear?" he said. "If so, +there's no use in letting the food get cold." + +"Oh, she can do it anywhere," replied Eddie, bitterly, and then, +striking his habitual note of warning, he went on, "but, honestly, +Crystal, if you had heard what your father and I heard this morning--" + +"I had a visit from David's brother this morning," put in Mr. Cord, +"the editor of your favorite morning paper." + +"Ben Moreton, here! Oh, _father_, why didn't you call me? Yes, I +know," she added, as her father opened his mouth to say that she had +left most particular instructions that she was to be allowed to sleep +as late as she could, "I know, but you must have known I should have +wanted to look David's brother over. Has he long hair? Does he wear a +soft tie? Did you hate him?" + +"Eddie didn't take much of a fancy to him." + +"I should say not. A damned, hollow-eyed fanatic." + +"Is he as good-looking as David, father? What does he look like?" + +Mr. Cord hesitated. "Well, a little like my engraving of Thomas +Jefferson as a young man." + +"He looks as if he might have a bomb in his pocket." + +"Oh, Eddie, do keep quiet, there's a dear, and let father give me one +of his long, wonderful accounts. Go ahead, father." + +"Well," said Mr. Cord, helping himself from a dish that Tomes was +presenting to him, "as I told you, Eddie had dropped in very kindly to +scold me about you, when Tomes announced Mr. Moreton. Tomes thought he +ought to be put straight out of the house. Didn't you, Tomes?" + +"No, sir," said Tomes, who was getting used to his employer, although +he did not encourage this sort of thing, particularly before the +footmen. + +"Well, Moreton came in and said, very simply--" + +"Has he good manners, father?" + +"He has no manners at all," roared Eddie. + +"Oh, how nice," said Crystal, of whom it might be asserted without +flattery that she now understood in perfection the art of irritating +Eddie. + +"He is very direct and natural," her father continued. "He has a lot +more punch than your brother-in-law, my dear. In fact, I was rather +impressed with the young fellow until he and Eddie fell to quarreling. +Things did not go so well, then." + +"You mean," said Crystal, the gossip rather getting the best of the +reformer in her, "that he lost his temper horribly?" + +"I should say he did," said Eddie. + +"Well, Eddie, you know you were not perfectly calm," answered Cord. +"Let us say that they both lost their tempers, which is strange, for +as far as I could see they were agreed on many essentials. They both +believe that one class in the community ought to govern the other. +They both believe the world is in a very bad way; only, according to +Eddie, we are going to have chaos if capital loses its control of +the situation; and according to Moreton we are going to have chaos +if labor doesn't get control. So, as one or the other seems bound to +happen, we ought to be able to adjust ourselves to chaos. In fact, +Crystal, I have been interviewing McKellar about having a chaos cellar +built in the garden." + +Eddie pushed back his plate; it was empty, but the gesture suggested +that he could not go on choking down the food of a man who joked about +such serious matters. + +"I must say, Mr. Cord," he began, "I really must say--" He paused, +surprised to find that he really hadn't anything that he must say, and +Crystal turned to her father: + +"But you haven't told me why he came. To see Eugenia, I suppose?" + +"No; he hadn't heard of the marriage. He came to talk to his brother." + +"For you must know," put in Eddie, hastily, "that Mr. Ben Moreton does +not approve of the marriage--oh, dear, no. He would consider such a +connection quite beneath his family. He disapproves of Eugenia as a +sister-in-law." + +"How could any one disapprove of her?" asked her sister, hotly. + +"Jevver hear such nerve?" said Eddie. + +"It's not Eugenia; it's capital Moreton disapproves of," Mr. Cord went +on, patiently explaining. "You see it never crossed our minds that the +Moretons might object, but of course they do. They regard us as a +very degrading connection. Doubtless it will hurt Ben Moreton with his +readers to be connected with a financial pirate like myself, quite as +much as it will hurt me in the eyes of most of my fellow board members +when it becomes known that my son-in-law's brother is the editor of +_Liberty_." + +"The Moretons disapprove," repeated Crystal, to whom the idea was not +at all agreeable. + +"Disapprove, nonsense!" said Eddie. "I believe he came to blackmail +you. To see what he could get out of you if he offered to stop the +marriage. Well, why not? If these fellows believe all the money ought +to be taken away from the capitalists, why should they care how +it's done? I can't see much difference between robbing a man, and +legislating his fortune out of--" + +"Well, I must tell you, father dear," said Crystal, exactly as if +Eddie had not been speaking, "that I think it was horrid of you not to +have me called when you must have known--" + +"Crystal, you're scolding me," wailed her father. "And most unjustly. +I did ask him to lunch just for your sake, although I saw Eddie was +shocked, and I was afraid Tomes would give warning. But I did ask him, +only he wouldn't stay." + +Crystal rose from the table with her eye on the clock, and they began +to make their way back to Mr. Cord's study, as she asked: + +"Why wouldn't he stay?" + +"I gathered because he didn't want to. Perhaps he was afraid he'd have +to argue with Eddie about capital and labor all through lunch. And of +course he did not know that I had another beautiful daughter sleeping +off the effects of a late party, or very likely he would have +accepted." + +Very likely he would. + +Just as they entered the study, the telephone rang. Crystal sprang +to the instrument, brushing away her father's hand, which had moved +toward it. + +"It's for me, dear," she said, and continued, speaking into the +mouthpiece: "Yes, it's I." (A pause.) "Where are you?... Oh, yes, I +know the place. I'll be there in five minutes, in a little blue car." +She hung up the receiver, sprang up, and looked very much surprised to +see Eddie and her father still there just as before. "Good-by, Eddie," +she said, "I'm sorry, but I have an engagement. Good-by, father." + +"You don't want to run me out to the golf club first?" + +"Not possible, dear. The chauffeur can take you in the big car." + +"Yes, but he'll scold me all the way about there not being room enough +in the garage." + +Crystal was firm. "I'm sorry, but I can't, dear. This is important. I +may take a job. I'll tell you all about it this evening." And she left +the room, with a smile that kept getting entirely beyond her control. + +"What's this? What's this?" cried Eddie as the door shut. "A job. You +wouldn't let Crystal take a job, would you, Mr. Cord?" + +"I haven't been consulted," said Mr. Cord, taking out his new driver +again. + +"But didn't you notice how excited she was. I'm sure it's decided." + +"Yes, I noticed, Eddie; but it looked to me more like a man than a +job. How do you think we'd come out if I gave you a stroke and a half +a hole?" + +Eddie was too perturbed even to answer. + +In the meantime, Crystal was spinning along Bellevue Avenue, +forgetting to bow to her friends, and wondering why the car was going +so badly until, her eye falling on the speedometer, she noticed that +she was doing a mild thirty-five miles an hour. Sooner, therefore, +than the law allowed, she reached a small park that surrounds a statue +of Perry, and there she picked up a passenger. + +Ben got in and shut the little door almost before she brought the car +to a standstill. + +[Illustration: "I'll be there in five minutes, in a little blue car"] + +"When you were little," he said, "did you ever imagine something +wonderful that might happen--like the door's opening and a delegation +coming to elect you captain of the baseball team, or whatever is +a little girl's equivalent of that--and keep on imagining it and +imagining it, until it seemed as if it really were going to happen? +Well, I have been standing here saying to myself, Wouldn't it be +wonderful if Crystal should come in a little blue car and take me to +drive? And, by Heaven! you'll never believe me, but she actually did." + +"Tell me everything you've done since I saw you," she answered. + +"I haven't done anything but think about you. Oh yes, I have, too. +I've reappraised the universe. You see, you've just made me a present +of a brand-new world, and I've been pretty busy, I can tell you, +untying the string and unwrapping the paper, and bless me, Crystal, it +looks like a mighty fine present so far." + +"Oh," she said, "I think you talk charmingly." She had started to say, +"you make love charmingly," but on second thoughts decided that the +overt statement had better come from him. "Dear me," she went on, "we +have so much to talk about. There's my job. Can't we talk a little +about that?" + +They could and did. Their talk consisted largely in his telling her +how much richer a service she could render his paper through having +been unconsciously steeped in beauty than if she had been merely +intellectually instructed--than if, as she more simply put it, she +had known something. And as he talked, her mind began to expand in +the warm atmosphere of his praise and to give off its perfume like a +flower. + +But the idea of her working with him day after day, helping the +development of the paper which had grown as dear as a child to him, +was so desirable that he did not dare to contemplate it unless it +promised realization. + +"Oh," he broke out, "you won't really do it. Your family will object, +or something. Probably when I go away to-night, I shall never see you +again." + +"You are still going away to-night?" + +"I must." + +She looked at him and slowly shook her head, as a mother shakes her +head at the foolish plans of a child. + +"I thought I was going," he said, weakly. + +"Why?" + +He groaned, but did not answer. + +She thought, "Oh, dear, I wish when men want to be comforted they +would not make a girl spend so much time and energy getting them to +say that they do want it." Aloud she said: + +"You must tell me what's the matter." + +"It's a long story." + +"We have all afternoon." + +"That's it--we haven't all eternity." + +"Oh, eternity," said Crystal, dismissing it with the Cord wave of the +hand. "Who wants eternity? 'Since we must die how bright the starry +track,' you know." + +"No; what is that?" + +"I don't remember." + +"Oh." + +After this meeting of minds they drove for some time in silence. Ben +was seeing a new aspect of Newport--bare, rugged country, sandy +roads, a sudden high rock jutting out toward the sea, a rock on which +tradition asserts that Bishop Berkeley once sat and considered the +illusion of matter. They stopped at length at the edge of a sandy +beach. Crystal parked her car neatly with a sharp turn of the wheel, +and got out. + +"There's a tea basket," she called over her shoulder. + +Ben's heart bounded at the news--not that he was hungry, but as the +hour was now but little past half after two a tea basket indicated a +prolonged interview. He found it tucked away in the back of the car, +and followed her. They sat down at the edge of the foam. He lit a +pipe, clasped his hands about his knees and stared out to sea; she +curled her feet backward, grasped an ankle in her hand, and, looking +at him, said: + +"Now what makes you groan so?" + +"I haven't meant to be dishonest," he said, "but I have been obtaining +your friendship--trying to--under false pretenses." + +"Trying to?" said Crystal. "Now isn't it silly to put that in." + +He turned and smiled at her. She was really incredibly sweet. "But, +all the same," he went on, "there is a barrier, a real, tangible +barrier between us." + +Crystal's heart suffered a chill convulsion at these words. "Good +gracious!" she thought. "He's entangled with another woman--oh +dear!--_marriage_"--But she did not interrupt him, and he continued: + +"I let you think that I was one of the men you might have known--that +I was asked to your party last night, whereas, as a matter of fact, I +only watched you--" + +Crystal's mind, working with its normal rapidity, invented, faced, and +passed over the fact that he must have been one of the musicians. She +said aloud: + +"I think I ought to tell you that I'm not much of a believer in +barriers--between sensible people who want friendship." + +"Friendship!" exclaimed Ben, as if that were the last thing he had +come out on a lovely summer afternoon to discuss. + +"There aren't any real barriers any more," Crystal continued. +"Differences of position, and religion, and all those things don't +seem to matter now. Romeo and Juliet wouldn't have paid any attention +to the little family disagreement if they had lived to-day." + +"In the case of Romeo and Juliet, if I remember correctly," said Ben, +"it was not exactly a question of friendship." + +She colored deeply, but he refused to modify his statement, for, after +all, it was correct. "But difference of opinion _is_ an obstacle," +he went on. "I have seen husbands and wives parted by differences of +opinion in the late war. And as far as I'm concerned there's a war +on now--a different war, and I came here to try to prevent my brother +marrying into an enemy influence--" + +"Good Heavens!" cried Crystal. "You are Ben Moreton! Why didn't I see +it sooner? I'm Crystal Cord," and, lifting up her chin, she laughed. + +That she could laugh as the gulf opened between them seemed to him +terrible. He turned his head away. + +She stopped laughing. "You don't think it's amusing?" (He shook his +head.) "That we're relations-in-law, when we thought it was all so +unknown and romantic? No wonder I felt at home with you, when I've +read so many of your letters to David--such nice letters, too--and I +subscribe to your paper, and read every word of the editorials. And +to think that you would not lunch with me to-day, when my father asked +you." + +"To think that it was you I was being asked to lunch with, and didn't +know it!" + +"Well, you dine with us to-morrow," she answered, stating a simple +fact. + +"Crystal," he said, and put his hand on hers as if this would help him +through his long explanation; but the continuity of his thought was +destroyed and his spirit wounded by her immediately withdrawing it; +and then--so exactly does the spring of love resemble the uncertain +glory of an April day--he was rendered perfectly happy again by +perceiving that her action was due to the publicity of their position +and not to repugnance to the caress. + +Fortunately he was a man not without invention, and so when a few +minutes later she suggested opening the tea basket, he insisted on +moving to a more retired spot on the plea that the teakettle would +burn better out of the wind; and Crystal, who must have known that +Tomes never gave her a teakettle, but made the tea at home and put it +in a thermos bottle, at once agreed to the suggestion. + +They moved back across the road, where irregular rocks sheltered small +plots of grass and wild flowers, and here, instead of an Arcadian +duet, they had, most unsuitably, their first quarrel. + +It began as quarrels are so apt to do, by a complete agreement. Of +course he would stay over the next day, which was Sunday, and not very +busy in the office of _Liberty_. In return he expected her undivided +attention. She at once admitted that this was part of the plan--only +there would have to be one little exception; she was dining out this +evening. Oh, well, that could be broken, couldn't it? She would like +to break it, but it happened to be one of those engagements that had +to be kept. Ben could not understand that. + +At first she tried to explain it to him: She had chosen her own +evening several weeks ago with these people, who wanted her to meet a +friend of theirs who was motoring down specially from Boston. She felt +she must keep her word. + +"I assure you I don't want to, but you understand, don't you?" + +If she had looked at his face she would not have asked the last +question. He did not understand; indeed, he had resolved not to. + +"No," he said, "I must own, I don't. If you told me that you _wanted_ +to go, that would be one thing. I shouldn't have a word to say then." + +"Oh yes, you would, Ben," said Crystal, but he did not notice her. + +"I can't understand your allowing yourself to be dragged there against +your will. You say you despise this life, but you seem to take it +pretty seriously if you can't break any engagement that you may make." + +"How absurd you are! Of course I often break engagements." + +"I see. You do when the inducement is sufficient. Well, that makes it +all perfectly clear." + +She felt both angry and inclined to cry. She knew that to yield to +either impulse would instantly solve the problem and bring a very +unreasonable young man to reason. She ran over both scenes in her +imagination. Registering anger, she would rise and say that, really, +Mr. Moreton, if he would not listen to her explanation there was no +use in prolonging the discussion. That would be the critical moment. +He would take her in his arms then and there, or else he would let +her go, and they would drive in silence, and part at the little park, +where of course she might say, "Aren't you silly to leave me like +this?"--only her experience was that it was never very practical to +make up with an angry man in public. + +To burst into tears was a safer method, but she had a natural +repugnance to crying, and perhaps she was subconsciously aware that +she might be left, after the quarrel was apparently made up by this +method, with a slight resentment against the man who had forced her to +adopt so illogical a line of conduct. + +A middle course appealed to her. She laid her hand on Ben's. A few +minutes before it would have seemed unbelievable to Ben that his own +hand would have remained cold and lifeless under that touch, but such +was now the case. + +"Ben," she said, "if you go on being disagreeable a second longer you +must make up your mind how you will behave when I burst into tears." + +"How I should behave?" + +She nodded. + +His hands clasped hers. He told her how he should behave. He even +offered to show her, without putting her to the trouble of tears. + +"You mean," she said, "that you would forgive me? Well, forgive me, +anyhow. I'm doing what I think is right about this old dinner. Perhaps +I'm wrong about it; perhaps you're mistaken and I'm not absolutely +perfect, but if I were, think what a lot of fun you would miss in +changing me. And you know I never meant to abandon you for the whole +evening. I'll get away at half past nine and we'll take a little +turn." + +So that was settled. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +As they drove back she revealed another plan to him--she was taking +him for a moment to see a friend of hers. He protested. He did not +want to see anyone but herself, but Crystal was firm. He must see this +woman; she was their celebrated parlor Bolshevist. Ben hated parlor +Bolshevists. Did he know any? No. Well, then. Anyhow, Sophia would +never forgive her if she did not bring him. Sophia adored celebrities. +Sophia who? Sophia Dawson. The name seemed dimly familiar to Ben, and +then he remembered. It was the name on the thousand-dollar check for +the strike sufferers that had come in the day before. + +They drove up an avenue of little oaks to a formidable palace built +of gray stone, so smoothly faced that there was not a crevice in the +immense pale facade. Two men in knee-breeches opened the double doors +and they went in between golden grilles and rows of tall white lilies. +They were led through a soundless hall, and up stairs so thickly +carpeted that the feet sank in as in new-fallen snow, and finally they +were ushered through a small painted door into a small painted room, +which had been brought all the way from Sienna, and there they found +Mrs. Dawson--a beautiful, worn, world-weary Mrs. Dawson, with one +streak of gray in the front of her dark hair, her tragic eyes, and her +long violet and black draperies--a perfect Sibyl. + +Crystal did not treat her as a Sibyl, however. "Hullo, Sophie!" she +said. "This is my brother-in-law's brother, Ben Moreton. He's crazy to +meet you. You'll like him. I can't stay because I'm dining somewhere +or other, but he's not." + +"Will he dine with me?" said Mrs. Dawson in a wonderful deep, slow +voice--"just stay on and dine with me alone?" + +Ben began to say that he couldn't, but Crystal said yes, that he would +be delighted to, and that she would stop for him again about half past +nine, and that it was a wonderful plan, and then she went away. + +Mrs. Dawson seemed to take it all as a matter of course. "Sit down, +Mr. Moreton," she said. "I have a quarrel with you." + +Ben could not help feeling a little disturbed by the way he had been +injected into Mrs. Dawson's evening without her volition. He did not +sit down. + +"You know," he said, "there isn't any reason why you should have me +to dine just because Crystal says so. I do want to thank you for +the check you sent in to us for the strike fund. It will do a lot of +good." + +"Oh, that," replied Mrs. Dawson. "They are fighting all our battles +for us." + +"It cheered us up in the office. I wanted to tell you, and now I think +I'll go. I dare say you are dining out, anyhow--" + +Her eyes flashed at him. "Dining out!" she exclaimed, as if the +suggestion insulted her. "You evidently don't know me. I never dine +out. I have nothing in common with these people. I lead a very lonely +life. You do me a favor by staying. You and I could exchange ideas. +There is no one in Newport whom I can talk to--reactionaries." + +"Miss Cord is not exactly a reactionary," said Ben, sitting down. + +Mrs. Dawson smiled. "Crystal is not a reactionary; Crystal is a +child," she replied. "But what can you expect of William +Cord's daughter? He is a dangerous and disintegrating +force--cold--cynical--he feels not the slightest public responsibility +for his possessions." Mrs. Dawson laid her hand on her heart as if +it were weighted with all her jewels and footmen and palaces. "Most +Bourbons are cynical about human life, but he goes farther; he is +cynical about his own wealth. And that brings me to my quarrel with +you, Mr. Moreton. How could you let your brother spend his beautiful +vigorous youth as a parasite to Cord's vapid son? Was that consistent +with your beliefs?" + +This attack on his consistency from a lady whose consistency seemed +even more flagrant amused Ben, but as he listened he was obliged to +admit that there was a great deal of good sense in what she had to say +about David, whom she had met once or twice at the Cords'. Ben was too +candid and eager not to ask her before long the question that was +in his mind--how it was possible for a woman holding her views to be +leading a life so opposed to them. + +She was not at all offended, and even less at a loss for an answer. +"I am not a free agent, Mr. Moreton," she said. "Unhappily, before I +began to think at all, I had undertaken certain obligations. The law +allows a woman to dispose of everything but her property while she is +still a child. I married at eighteen." + +It was a story not without interest and Mrs. Dawson told it well. +There does not live a man who would not have been interested. + +They dined, not in the great dining room downstairs, nor even in the +painted room from Sienna, but in a sort of loggia that opened from it, +where, beyond the shaded lights, Ben could watch the moon rise out of +the sea. + +It was a perfect little meal, short, delicious, and quickly served +by three servants. He enjoyed it thoroughly, although he found his +hostess a strangely confusing companion. He would make up his mind +that she was a sincere soul captured by her environment, when a +freshly discovered jewel on her long fingers would shake his faith. +And he would just decide that she was a melodramatic fraud, when she +would surprise him by her scholarly knowledge of social problems. She +had read deeply, knew several languages, and had known many of the +European leaders. Such phrases as "Jaures wrote me ten days before he +died--" were frequent, but not too frequent, on her lips. + +By the time Crystal stopped for him Ben had begun to feel like a child +who has lost his mother in a museum, or as Dante might have felt if he +had missed Virgil from his side. When he bade Mrs. Dawson good night, +she asked him to come back. + +"Come and spend September here," she said, as if it were a small +thing. "You can work all day if you like. I sha'n't disturb you, and +you need never see a soul. It will do you good." + +He was touched by the invitation, but of course he refused it. He +tried to explain tactfully, but clearly, why it was that he couldn't +do that sort of thing--that the editor of _Liberty_ did not take his +holiday at Newport. + +She understood, and sighed. "Ah, yes," she said. "I'm like that man in +mythology whom neither the sky nor the earth would receive. I'm very +lonely, Mr. Moreton." + +He found himself feeling sorry for her, as he followed a footman +downstairs, his feet sinking into the carpets at each step. Crystal in +the blue car was at the door. She was bareheaded and the wind had been +blowing her hair about. + +"Well," she said, as he got in, "did you have a good time? I'm sure +you had a good dinner." + +"Excellent, but confusing. I don't quite get your friend." + +"You don't understand Sophia?" Crystal's tone expressed surprise. "You +mean her jewels and her footmen? Why, Ben, it's just like the fathers +of this country who talked about all men being equal and yet were +themselves slaveholders. She sincerely believes those things in a way, +and then it's such a splendid role to play, and she enjoys that; +and then it teases Freddie Dawson. Freddie is rather sweet if he's +thoroughly unhappy, and this keeps him unhappy almost all the time. +Did she ask you to stay? I meant her to." + +"Yes, she did; but of course I couldn't." + +"Oh, Ben, why not?" + +This brought them once more to the discussion of the barrier. This +time Ben felt he could make her see. He said that she must look at it +this way--that in a war you could not go and stay in enemy country, +however friendly your personal relations might be. Well, as far as he +was concerned this was a war, a class war. + +They were headed for the Ocean Drive, and Crystal rounded a sharp turn +before she answered seriously: + +"But I thought you didn't believe in war." + +"I don't," he answered. "I hate it--I hate all violence. We--labor, +I mean--didn't initiate this, but when men won't see, when they have +power and won't stop abusing it, there is only one way to make--" + +"Why, Ben," said Crystal, "you're just a pacifist in other people's +quarrels, but as militaristic as can be in your own. I'm not a +pacifist, but I'm a better one than you, because I don't believe in +emphasizing any difference between human beings. That's why I want +a League of Nations. I hate gangs--all women really do. Little girls +don't form gangs like little boys. Every settlement worker knows that. +I won't have you say that I belong to the other group. I won't be +classified. I'm a human being--and I intend to behave as such." + +Since she had left him she had been immersed again in her old +life--her old friends--and the result had been to make her wonder if +her experience with Ben had been as wonderful as it had seemed. When +she stopped for him she had been almost prepared to find that the wild +joy of their meetings had been something accidental and temporary, and +that only a stimulating and pleasant friendship was left. But as soon +as she saw that he really regarded their differences seriously, all +her own prudence and doubt melted away. She knew she was ready to make +any sacrifices for him, and in view of that all talk of obstacles was +folly. + +She stopped the car on the point of the island, with the open sea on +one hand, the harbor on the other. In front of them the lightship +was moving with a slow, majestic roll, and to the right was the long +festoon of Narragansett lights, and as they stopped the lighted bulk +of the New York boat appeared, making its way toward Point Judith. + +His prolonged silence began to frighten her. + +"Ben," she said, "do you seriously mean that you believe friendship +between us is impossible?" + +"Friendship, nothing," answered Moreton. "I love you." + +He said it as if it had always been understood between them, as +of course it had, but the instant he said it, he gave her a quick, +appealing look to see how she would take so startling an assertion. + +If Crystal had poured out just what was in her mind at that second she +would have answered: "Of course you do. I've known that longer than +you have. And can't you see that if I had had any doubt about its +being true, I'd have taken steps to make it true? But, as I really did +not doubt it, I've been able to be quite passive and leave it mostly +to you, which I so much prefer." + +But rigorous candor is rarely attained, and Crystal did not say +this. In fact, for a few seconds she did not say anything, but merely +allowed her eyes to shine upon him, with the inevitable result that +at the end of precisely six seconds of their benevolent invitation he +took her in his arms and kissed her. It was a very unprotected point, +and several cars were standing not too far away, but Crystal, who had +an excellent sense of proportion, made no objection whatever. She was +being proved right in two important particulars--first, that she was +a human being, and second, that there was no barrier between them. +She was very generous about it. She did not say, "Where's your barrier +now?" or anything like that; she simply said nothing, and the barrier +passed out of the conversation and was no more seen. + +Very soon, alleging that she must get home at the time at which she +usually did get home from dinners, she took him back; but she soothed +him with the promise of an uninterrupted day to follow. + +Time--the mere knowledge of unbroken hours ahead--is a boon which +real love cannot do without. Minor feelings may flourish on snatched +interviews and stolen meetings, but love demands--and usually +gets--protected leisure. The next day these lovers had it. They spent +the morning, when Mr. Cord was known to be playing golf, at the +Cords' house, and then when Mr. Cord telephoned that he was staying to +luncheon at the club, if Crystal did not object (and Crystal did not), +she and Ben arranged a picnic--at least Tomes did, and they went off +about one o'clock in the blue car. They went to a pool in the rocks +that Crystal had always known about, with high walls around it, and +here, with a curtain of foam between them and the sea, for the waves +were rising, they ate lunch, as much alone as on a desert island. + +It was here that Ben asked her to marry him, or, to be accurate, it +was here that they first began talking about their life together, and +whether Nora would become reconciled to another woman about the flat. + +The nearest approach to a definite proposal was Ben's saying: + +"You would not mind my saying something about all this to your father +before I go this evening, would you?" + +And Crystal replied: "Poor father! It will be a blow, I'm afraid." + +"Well," said Ben, "he told me himself that he liked me better than +David." + +"That's not saying much." + +At this Ben laughed lightly. + +He might have had his wrong-headed notions about barriers, but he was +not so un-American as to regard a father as an obstacle. + +"But, oh, Crystal," he added, "suppose you find you do hate being +poor. It is a bore in some ways." + +Crystal, who had been tucking away the complicated dishes of her +luncheon basket, looked at Ben and lightly sucked one finger to which +some raspberry jam from Tomes's supernal sandwiches had adhered. + +"I sha'n't mind it a bit, Ben," she said, "and for a good +reason--because I'm terribly conceited." He did not understand at +all, and she went on: "I believe I shall be just as much of a +person--perhaps more--without money. The women who really mind being +poor are the humble-minded ones, who think that they are made by their +clothes and their lovely houses and their maids and their sables. When +they lose them they lose all their personality, and of course that +terrifies them. I don't think I shall lose mine. Does it shock you to +know that I think such a lot of myself?" + +It appeared it did not shock him at all. + +[Illustration: "Suppose you find you do hate being poor?"] + +When they reached the house she established him in the drawing-room +and went off to find her father. + +She was a true woman, by which is meant now and always that she +preferred to allow a man to digest his dinner before she tried to +bring him to a rational opinion. But in this case her hands were tied. +The Cords dined at eight--or sometimes a little later, and Ben's +boat left for New York at half past nine, so that it would be utterly +impossible to postpone the discussion of her future until after +dinner. It had to be done at once. + +Crystal ran up and knocked at his bedroom door. Loud splashings from +the adjoining bathroom were all the answer she got. She sat down on +the stairs and waited. Those are the moments that try men's and even +women's souls. For the first time her enterprise seemed to her a +little reckless. For an instant she had the surprising experience of +recognizing the fact that Ben was a total stranger. She looked at the +gray-stone stairway on which she was sitting and thought that her life +had been as safe and sheltered as a cloister, and now, steered by this +total stranger, she proposed to launch herself on an uncharted +course of change. And to this program she was to bring her father's +consent--for she knew very well that if she couldn't, Ben wouldn't be +able to--in the comparatively short time between now and dinner. Then, +the splashing having ceased, the sound of bureau drawers succeeded, +and Crystal sprang up and knocked again. + +"That you, Peters?" said an unencouraging voice. (Peters was Mr. +Cord's valet.) + +"No, dear, it's I," said Crystal. + +"Oh, come in," said Mr. Cord. He was standing in the middle of the +room in his shirt sleeves and gloomily contemplating the shirt he +wore. "What's this laundress, anyhow? A Bolshevist or a pastry-cook?" +he said. "Did you ever see anything like this shirt?" + +Crystal approached and studied the shirt. It appeared to her to be +perfectly done up, but she said: "Yes, dear, how terrible! I'll pack +her off to-morrow, but you always look all right whatever you wear; +that's some comfort." She saw that even this hadn't done much good, +and, going to the heart of the problem, she asked, "How did your golf +go?" + +Mr. Cord's gloom gathered as he answered, with resignation, "Oh, all +right." + +His manner was exactly similar to Ben's in his recent moment of +depression, and not unlike McKellar's when he had explained what he +suffered under the good Lord's weather. + +"Is Eddie's game any better?" asked Crystal, feeling her way. + +"No," cried her father, contemptuously. "He's rotten, but I'm worse. +And golf-clubs, Crystal! No one can make a club any more. Have you +noticed that? But the truth of the matter is, I'm getting too old +to play golf." And Mr. Cord sat down with a good but unconscious +imitation of a broken old man. + +Of course Crystal swept this away. She scolded him a little, pointed +out his recent prowess, and spoke slightingly of all younger athletes, +but she really had not time to do the job thoroughly, for the thought +of Ben, sitting so anxious in the drawing-room alone, hurried her on. + +"Anyhow, dear," she said, "I've come to talk to you about something +terribly important. What would you say, father, if I told you I was +engaged?" + +Mr. Cord was so startled that he said, what was rare for him, the +first thing that came into his head: + +"Not to Eddie?" + +The true diplomatist, we have been told, simply takes advantage of +chance, and Crystal was diplomatic. "And suppose it is?" she replied. + +"I should refuse my consent," replied her father. + +Crystal looked hurt. "Is there anything against Eddie," she asked, +"except his golf?" + +"Yes," answered her father, "there are two of the most serious things +in the world against him--first, that he doesn't amount to anything; +and second, that you don't love him." + +"No," Crystal admitted, "I don't, but then--love--father, isn't love +rather a serious undertaking nowadays? Is it a particularly helpful +adjunct to marriage? Look at poor Eugenia. Isn't it really more +sensible to marry a nice man who can support one, and then if in time +one does fall in love with another man--" + +"Never let me hear you talk like that again, Crystal," said her +father, with a severity and vigor he seldom showed outside of board +meetings. "It's only your ignorance of life that saves you from being +actually revolting. I'm an old man and not sentimental, you'll +grant, but, take my word for it, love is the only hope of pulling off +marriage successfully, and even then it's not easy. As for Eugenia, I +think she's made a fool of herself and is going to be unhappy, but I'd +rather do what she has done than what you're contemplating. At least +she cared for that fellow--" + +"I'm glad you feel like that, darling," said Crystal, "because it +isn't Eddie I'm engaged to, but Ben Moreton. He's waiting downstairs +now." + +Mr. Cord started up--his eyes shining like black flames. + +"By God! Crystal," he said, "you sha'n't marry that +fellow--Eugenia--perhaps--but not you." + +"But, father, you said yourself, you thought he was a fine--" + +"I don't care what I said," replied Mr. Cord, and, striding to the +door, he flung it open and called in a voice that rolled about the +stone hall: "Mr. Moreton, Mr. Moreton! Come up here, will you?" + +Ben came bounding up the stairs like a panther. Cord beckoned him in +with a sharp gesture and shut the door. + +"This won't do at all, Moreton," he said. "You can't have Crystal." + +Ben did not answer; he looked very steadily at Cord, who went on: + +"You think I can't stop it--that she's of age and that you wouldn't +take a penny of my money, anyhow. That's the idea, isn't it?" + +"That's it," said Ben. + +Cord turned sharply to Crystal. "Does what I think make any difference +to you?" he asked. + +"A lot, dear," she answered, "but I don't understand. You never seemed +so much opposed to the radical doctrine." + +"No, it's the radical, not the doctrine, your father objects to," said +Ben. + +"Exactly," answered Mr. Cord. "You've put it in a nutshell. Crystal, +I'm going to tell you what these radicals really are--they're +failures--everyone of them. Sincere enough--they want the world +changed because they haven't been able to get along in it as it +is--they want a new deal because they don't know how to play their +cards; and when they get a new hand, they'll play it just as badly. +It's not their theories I object to, but them themselves. You think if +you married Moreton you'd be going into a great new world of idealism. +You wouldn't. You'd be going into a world of failure--of the pettiest, +most futile quarrels in the world. The chief characteristic of the man +who fails is that he always believes it's the other fellow's fault; +and they hate the man who differs with them by one per cent more than +they hate the man who differs by one hundred. Has there ever been a +revolution where they did not persecute their fellow revolutionists +worse than they persecuted the old order, or where the new rule wasn't +more tyrannical than the old?" + +"No one would dispute that," said Ben. "It is the only way to win +through to--" + +"Ah," said Cord, "I know what you're going to say, but I tell you, +you win through to liberal practices when, and only when, the +conservatives become converted to your ideas, and put them through for +you. That's why I say I have no quarrel with radical doctrines--they +are coming, always coming, but"--Cord paused to give his words full +weight--"I hate the radical." + +There was a little pause. Crystal, who had sunk into a low chair, +raised her eyes to Ben, as if she expected a passionate contradiction +from him, but it did not come. + +"Yes," he said, after a moment, "that's all true, Mr. Cord--with +limitations; but, granting it, you've put my side, too. What are we to +say of the conservative--the man who has no vision of his own--who +has to go about stealing his beliefs from the other side? He's very +efficient at putting _them_ into effect--but efficient as a tool, as +a servant. Look at the mess he makes of his own game when he tries to +act on his own ideas. He crushes democracy with an iron efficiency, +and he creates communism. He closes the door to trade-unionism and +makes a revolution. That's efficiency for you. We radicals are not +so damned inefficient, while we let the conservatives do our work for +us." + +"Well, let it be revolution, then," said Cord. "I believe you're +right. It's coming, but do you want to drag a girl like Crystal into +it? Think of her! Say you take her, as I suppose a young fellow like +you can do. She'd have perhaps ten years of an exciting division of +allegiance between your ideas and the way she had been brought up, and +the rest of her life (for, believe me, as we get older we all return +to our early traditions)--the rest of her life she'd spend regretting +the ties and environment of her youth. On the other hand, if she gives +you up she will have regrets, too, I know, but they won't wreck her +and embitter her the way the others will." + +Ben's face darkened. No man not a colossal egotist could hear such +a prophesy with indifference. He did not at once answer, and then he +turned to Crystal. + +"What do you think of that?" he asked. + +To the surprise of both men, Crystal replied with a laugh. "I was +wondering," she said, "when either of you would get round to asking +what I thought of it all." + +"Well, what do you think?" said Cord, almost harshly. + +Crystal rose, and, slipping her arm through his, leaned her head +on the point of her father's shoulder--he was of a good height. "I +think," she said, "you both talk beautifully. I was so proud of you +both--saying such profound things so easily, and keeping your tempers +so perfectly" (both brows smoothed out), "and it was all the more +wonderful because, it seemed to me, you were both talking about things +you knew nothing about." + +"What do you mean?" burst from both men with simultaneous +astonishment. + +"Ben, dear, father doesn't know any radicals--except you, and he's +only seen you twice. Father dear, I don't believe Ben ever talked +five minutes with an able, successful conservative until he came here +to-day." + +"You're going to throw me over, Crystal?" said Ben, seeing her pose +more clearly than he heard her words. + +"No," said Mr. Cord, bitterly, "she's going to throw over an old man +in favor of a young one." + +"You silly creatures," said Crystal, with a smile that made the words +affectionate and not rude. "How can I ever throw either of you over? +I'm going to be Ben's wife, and I am my father's daughter. I'm going +to be those two things for all my life." + +Ben took her hand. She puzzled him, but he adored her. "But some +day, Crystal," he said, "you will be obliged to choose between our +views--mine or your father's. You must see that." + +"He's right," her father chimed in. "This is not a temporary +difference of opinion, you know, Crystal. This cleavage is as old as +mankind--the radical against the conservative. Time doesn't reconcile +them." + +Again the idea came to her: "They do love to form gangs, the poor +dears." Aloud she said: "Yes, but the two types are rarely pure ones. +Why, father, you think Ben is a radical, but he's the most hidebound +conservative about some things--much worse than you--about free verse, +for instance. I read a long editorial about it not a month ago. He +really thinks anyone who defends it ought to be deported to some +poetic limbo. Ben, you think my father is conservative. But there's a +great scandal in his mental life. He's a Baconian--" + +"He thinks Bacon wrote the plays!" exclaimed Ben, really shocked. + +"Certainly I do," answered Mr. Cord. "Every man who uses his mind must +think so. There is nothing in favor of the Shakespeare theory, except +tradition--" + +He would have talked for several hours upon the subject, but Crystal +interrupted him by turning to Ben and continuing what she had meant to +say: + +"When you said I should have to choose between your ideas, you meant +between your political ideas. Perhaps I shall, but I won't make my +choice, rest assured, until I have some reason for believing that each +of you knows something--honestly knows something about the other one's +point of view." + +"I don't get it, exactly," said Ben. + +She addressed Mr. Cord. + +"Father," she went on, "Ben has a little flat in Charles Street, and +an old servant, and that's where I'm going to live." + +Her father, though bitterly wounded, had regained his sardonic calm. +"Perhaps," he said, "you'll bring him up to Seventy-ninth Street for +Sunday dinner now and then." + +Crystal shook her head. "No, dear," she said. "That isn't the way it's +going to be. As soon as I get settled and have time to look about me, +I shall take another little flat for you. You will live with us, for a +few months in the winter, and get to know Ben's friends--his gang, +as you would say--get to know them not as a philanthropist, or an +employer, or an observer, but just as one of our friends--see if they +really are the way you think they are. And then, in March you shall go +off to Palm Beach or Virginia just as usual." + +"That's a fine idea," said Mr. Cord, sarcastically. "Do you realize +that I shall hardly survive your marriage with the editor of +_Liberty_. I shall be kicked off--requested to resign from half a +dozen boards for having such a son-in-law--" + +"There's freedom for you," said Ben. + +"And," continued Mr. Cord, "if it were known that I consented to the +marriage, and actually consorted with such fellows! You must realize, +Crystal, that most of the most influential men in the country think +the way Eddie does. Half my boards are composed of older Eddies." + +"You'll do better to resign from them, then," said Crystal. + +Ben had been very much struck by Crystal's suggestion. + +"Really, Mr. Cord," he said, "I believe that is a great idea of +Crystal's. I really believe if capital had more idea of the real +views of labor--as you said, you eventually adopt all our ideas, why +wouldn't an intimate knowledge of individuals hurry that process?" + +"Simply because I should lose all influence with my own people by +merely investigating you in a friendly spirit." + +"Glory!" exclaimed Ben, with open contempt for such people. "Think of +penalizing the first honest attempt to understand!" + +"You see the point of my plan, don't you, Ben?" said Crystal. + +"You bet I do." + +"That's wonderful," she answered, "for you've only heard half of it. +In July, August, and September, we will come here to Newport, and you +will get to understand father's--" + +"Hold on," cried Ben, "just a moment. That is absolutely impossible, +Crystal. You don't understand. The paper couldn't keep me a day if I +did that." + +"Ha!" cried Mr. Cord, coming suddenly to life. "There's freedom for +you!" + +"That would be very cruel of the owners, Ben, but if they did--" + +"It wouldn't be cruel at all," said Moreton. "They wouldn't have any +choice. I should have lost all influence with my readers, if it were +known--" + +"Glory!" said Mr. Cord. "Think of penalizing the first honest attempt +to understand the capitalistic class!" + +Ben stood silent, caught in the grip of an intellectual dilemma which +he felt every instant would dissolve itself and which didn't. + +Crystal for the first time moved away from her father. "Those are my +terms," she said. "I stay with the man who agrees to them, and if you +both decline them--well, I'll go off and try and open the oyster by +myself." + +There was a long momentous pause, and then Tomes's discreet knock on +the door. + +"Mr. Verriman on the telephone, madam." + +"I can't come," said Crystal. "Ask him to send a message." + +"Don't you see, Crystal, what your plan would do?" said her father. +"Either it would make Moreton a red revolutionist and me a persecuting +Bourbon, or else it would just ruin us both for either of our +objectives." + +"It won't ruin you for my objectives," said Crystal, "and women are +more human, you know, than men." + +Another knock at the door. Tomes's voice again: + +"Mr. Verriman wishes to know if he might dine here this evening?" + +"No," said Cord, looking at Crystal. + +Crystal raised her voice. "Certainly, Tomes. Say we shall be delighted +to have him--at eight." + +Both men turned to her. + +"Why did you do that, Crystal? Verriman--here--to-night?" + +Crystal did not answer--the identity of their tones, their words, +and their irritation with her should have told them the answer, but +didn't. + +She knew that only opposition to Eddie and Eddie's many prototypes +could weld her two men solidly together. + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Beauty and the Bolshevist, by Alice Duer Miller + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAUTY AND THE BOLSHEVIST *** + +***** This file should be named 13146.txt or 13146.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/1/4/13146/ + +Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Joshua Hutchinson and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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