The Conflict Part 12

"Yes," said Jane.

"The Kellys and the Houses give general orders to their lieutenants.

The lieutenants pa.s.s the orders along--and down. And so on, until all sorts of men are engaged in doing all sorts of work. Dirty, clean, criminal--all sorts. Some of these men, baffled in what they are trying to do to earn their pay--baffled by Victor Dorn--plot against him." Again that sad, bitter laugh. "My dear Miss Hastings, to kill a cat there are a thousand ways besides skinning it alive."

"You are prejudiced," said Jane, in the manner of one who could not be convinced.

Selma made an impatient gesture. "Again I say, no matter. Victor laughs at our fears----"

"I knew it," said Jane triumphantly. "He is less foolish than his followers."

"He simply does not think about himself," replied Selma. "And he is right. But it is our business to think about him, because we need him.

Where could we find another like him?"

"Yes, I suppose your movement WOULD die out, if he were not behind it."

Selma smiled peculiarly. "I think you don't quite understand what we are about," said she. "You've accepted the ignorant notion of your cla.s.s that we are a lot of silly roosters trying to crow one sun out of the heavens and another into it. The facts are somewhat different.

Your cla.s.s is saying, 'To-day will last forever,' while we are saying, 'No, to-day will run its course--will be succeeded by to-morrow. Let us not live like the fool who thinks only of the day. Let us be sensible, intelligent, let us realize that there will be to-morrow and that it, too, must be lived. Let us get ready to live it sensibly. Let us build our social system so that it will stand the wear and tear of another day and will not fall in ruins about our heads.'"

"I am terribly ignorant about all these things," said Jane. "What a ridiculous thing my education has been!"

"But it hasn't spoiled your heart," cried Selma. And all at once her eyes were wonderfully soft and tender, and into her voice came a tone so sweet that Jane's eyes filled with tears. "It was to your heart that I came to appeal," she went on. "Oh, Miss Hastings--we will do all we can to protect Victor Dorn--and we guard him day and night without his knowing it. But I am afraid--afraid! And I want you to help. Will you?"

"I'll do anything I can," said Jane--a Jane very different from the various Janes Miss Hastings knew--a Jane who seemed to be conjuring of Selma Gordon's enchantments.

"I want you to ask your father to give him a fair show. We don't ask any favors--for ourselves--for him. But we don't want to see him--"

Selma shuddered and covered her eyes with her hands "--lying dead in some alley, shot or stabbed by some unknown thug!"

Selma made it so vivid that Jane saw the whole tragedy before her very eyes.

"The real reason why they hate him," Selma went on, "is because he preaches up education and preaches down violence--and is building his party on intelligence instead of on force. The masters want the workingman who burns and kills and riots. They can shoot him down.

They can make people accept any tyranny in preference to the danger of fire and murder let loose. But Victor is teaching the workingmen to stop playing the masters' game for them. No wonder they hate him! He makes them afraid of the day when the united workingmen will have their way by organizing and voting. And they know that if Victor Dorn lives, that day will come in this city very, very soon." Selma saw Davy Hull, impatient at his long wait, advancing toward them. She said: "You will talk to your father?"

"Yes," said Jane. "And I a.s.sure you he will do what he can. You don't know him, Miss Gordon."

"I know he loves you--I know he MUST love you," said Selma. "Now, I must go. Good-by. I knew you would be glad of the chance to do something worth while."

Jane had been rather expecting to be thanked for her generosity and goodness. Selma's remark seemed at first blush an irritating attempt to s.h.i.+ft a favor asked into a favor given. But it was impossible for her to fail to see Selma's sensible statement of the actual truth. So, she said honestly:

"Thank you for coming, Miss Gordon. I am glad of the chance."

They shook hands. Selma, holding her hand, looked up at her, suddenly kissed her. Jane returned the kiss. David Hull, advancing with his gaze upon them, stopped short. Selma, without a glance--because without a thought--in his direction, hastened away.

When David rejoined Jane, she was gazing tenderly after the small, graceful figure moving toward the distant entrance gates. Said David:

"I think that girl has got you hypnotized."

Jane laughed and sent him home. "I'm busy," she said. "I've got something to do, at last."

III

Jane knocked at the door of her father's little office. "Are you there, father?" said she.

"Yes--come in, Jinny." As she entered, he went on, "But you must go right away again. I've got to 'tend to this strike." He took on an injured, melancholy tone. "Those fool workingmen! They're certain to lose. And what'll come of it all? Why, they'll be out their wages and their jobs, and the company lose so much money that it can't put on the new cars the public's clamorin' for. The old cars'll have to do for another year, anyhow--maybe two."

Jane had heard that lugubrious tone from time to time, and she knew what it meant--an air of sorrow concealing secret joy. So, here was another benefit the company--she preferred to think of it as the company rather than as her father--expected to gain from the strike.

It could put off replacing the miserable old cars in which it was compelling people to ride. Instead of losing money by the strike, it would make money by it. This was Jane's first glimpse of one of the most interesting and important truths of modern life--how it is often to the advantage of business men to have their own business crippled, hampered, stopped altogether.

"You needn't worry, father," said she cheerfully. "The strike's been declared off."

"What's that?" cried her father.

"A girl from down town just called. She says the union has called the strike off and the men have accepted the company's terms."

"But them terms is withdrawn!" cried Hastings, as if his daughter were the union. He seized the telephone. "I'll call up the office and order 'em withdrawn."

"It's too late," said she.

Just then the telephone bell rang, and Hastings was soon hearing confirmation of the news his daughter had brought him. She could not bear watching his face as he listened. She turned her back, stood gazing out at the window. Her father, beside himself, was shrieking into the telephone curses, denunciations, impossible orders. The one emergency against which he had not provided was the union's ending the strike. When you have struck the line of battle of a general, however able and self-controlled, in the one spot where he has not arranged a defense, you have thrown him--and his army--into a panic. Some of the greatest tact.i.tians in history have given way in those circ.u.mstances; so, Martin Hastings' utter loss of self-control and of control of the situation only proves that he had his share of human nature. He had provided against the unexpected; he had not provided against the impossible.

Jane let her father rave on into the telephone until his voice grew hoa.r.s.e and squeaky. Then she turned and said: "Now, father--what's the use of making yourself sick? You can't do any good--can you?" She laid one hand on his arm, with the other hand caressed his head. "Hang up the receiver and think of your health."

"I don't care to live, with such goings-on," declared he. But he hung up the receiver and sank back in his chair, exhausted.

"Come out on the porch," she went on, tugging gently at him. "The air's stuffy in here."

He rose obediently. She led him to the veranda and seated him comfortably, with a cus.h.i.+on in his back at the exact spot at which it was most comfortable. She patted his shrunken cheeks, stood off and looked at him.

"Where's your sense of humor?" she cried. "You used to be able to laugh when things went against you. You're getting to be as solemn and to take yourself as seriously as Davy Hull."

The old man made a not unsuccessful attempt to smile. "That there Victor Dorn!" said he. "He'll be the death of me, yet."

"What has he done now?" said Jane, innocently.

Hastings rubbed his big bald forehead with his scrawny hand. "He's tryin' to run this town--to run it to the devil," replied he, by way of evasion.

"Something's got to be done about him--eh?" observed she, in a fine imitation of a business-like voice.

"Something WILL be done," retorted he.

Jane winced--hid her distress--returned to the course she had mapped out for herself. "I hope it won't be something stupid," said she.

Then she seated herself and went on. "Father--did you ever stop to wonder whether it is Victor Dorn or the changed times?"

The old man looked up abruptly and sharply--the expression of a shrewd man when he catches a hint of a new idea that sounds as if it might have something in it.

"You blame Victor Dorn," she went on to explain. "But if there were no Victor Dorn, wouldn't you be having just the same trouble? Aren't men of affairs having them everywhere--in Europe as well as on this side--nowadays?"