"Eighteen dollars," she mused, half to herself. "Why, I have spent that,
and more, for a single ounce of a new perfume--something very rare, you
know, from Japan."

"Indeed? Well, don't tell _me_," he replied. "I'm not interested in how
you spend money, but how you get it."

"Get it? Oh, father gives me my allowance, that's all."

"And he squeezes it out of the common people?"

She glanced at him quickly.

"You--you aren't a Socialist, into the bargain, are you?" she inquired.

"At your service," he bowed.

"This is strange, strange indeed," she said. "Tell me your name."

"No," he refused. "I'd still rather not. Nor shall I ask yours. Please
don't volunteer it."

Came a moment's silence, there in the darkening hut, with the fire-glow
red upon their faces.

"Happy," said the girl. "You say you're happy. While I--"

"Are not unhappy, surely?" asked Gabriel, leaning forward as he sat
there beside her, and gazing keenly into her face.

"How should I know?" she answered. "Unhappy? No, perhaps not. But
vacant--empty--futile!"

"Yes, I believe you," Gabriel judged. "You tell me no news. And as you
are, you will ever be. You will live so and die so. No, I won't preach.
I won't proselytize. I won't even explain. It would be useless. You are
one pole, I the other. And the world--the whole wide world--lies
between!"

Suddenly she spoke.

"You're a Socialist," said she. "What does it mean to be a Socialist?"

He shook his head.

"You couldn't understand, if I told you," he answered.

"Why not?"

"Oh, because your ideas and environments and interests and everything
have been so different from mine--because you're what you are--because
you can never be anything else."

"You mean Socialism is something beyond my understanding?" she demanded,
piqued. "Of course, that's nonsense. I'm a human being. I've got brains,
haven't I? I can understand a scheme of dividing up, or levelling down,
or whatever it is, even if I can't believe in it!"

He smiled oddly.

"You've just proved, by what you've said," he answered slowly, "that
your whole concepts are mistaken. Socialism isn't anything like what you
think it is, and if I should try to explain it, you'd raise ten thousand
futile objections, and beg the question, and defeat my object of
explanation by your very inability to get the point of view. So you
see--"

"I see that I want to know more!" she exclaimed, with determination. "If
there's any branch of human knowledge that lies outside my reasoning
powers, it's time I found that fact out. I thought Socialists were wild,
crazy, erratic cranks; but if you're one, then I seem to have been
wrong. You look rational enough, and you talk in an eminently sane
manner."

"Thank you," he replied, ironically.

"Don't be sarcastic!" she retorted. "I only meant--"

"It's all right, anyhow," said he. "You've simply got the old, stupid,
wornout ideas of your class. You can't grasp this new ideal, rising
through the ruck and waste and sin and misery of the present system. I
don't blame you. You're a product of your environment. You can't help
it. With that environment, how can you sense the newer and more vital
ideas of the day?"

For a moment she fixed eager eyes on him, in silence. Then asked she:

"Ideals? You mean that Socialism has ideals, and that it's not all a
matter of tearing down and dividing up, and destroying everything good
and noble and right--all the accumulated wisdom and resources of the
world?"

He laughed heartily.

"Who handed you that bunk?" he demanded.

"Father told me Socialism was all that, and more,"

"What's your father's business?"

"Why, investments, stocks, bonds, industrial development and all that
sort of thing."

"Hm!" he grunted. "I thought as much!"

"You mean that father misinformed me?"

"Rather!"

"Well, if he did, what is Socialism?"

"Socialism," answered the young man slowly, while he fixed his eyes on
the smouldering fire, "Socialism is a political movement, a concept of
life, a philosophy, an interpretation, a prophecy, an ideal. It embraces
history, economics, science, art, religion, literature and every phase
of human activity. It explains life, points the way to better things,
gives us hope, strengthens the weary and heavy-laden, bids us look
upward and onward, and constitutes the most sublime ideal ever conceived
by the soul of man!"

"Can this be true?" the girl demanded, astonished.

"Not only can, but is! Socialism would free the world from slavery and
slaves, from war, poverty, prostitution, vice and crime; would cleanse
the sores of our rotting capitalism, would loose the gyves from the
fettered hands of mankind, would bid the imprisoned soul of man awake to
nobler and to purer things! How? The answer to that would take me weeks.
You would have to read and study many books, to learn the entire truth.
But I am telling you the substance of the ideal--a realizable ideal, and
no chimera--when I say that Socialism sums up all that is good, and
banishes all that is evil! And do you wonder that I love and serve it,
all my life?"

She peered at him in wonder.

"You serve it? How?" she demanded.

"By spreading it abroad; by speaking for it, working for it, fighting
for it! By the spoken and the printed word! By every act and through
every means whereby I can bring it nearer and nearer realization!"

"You're a dreamer, a visionary, a fanatic!" she exclaimed.

"You think so? No, I can't agree. Time will judge that matter.
Meanwhile, I travel up and down the earth, spreading Socialism."

"And what do you get out of it, personally?"

"I? What do you mean? I never thought of that question."

"I mean, money. What do you make out of it?"

He laughed heartily.

"I get a few jail-sentences, once in a while; now and then a crack over
the head with a policeman's billy, or maybe a peek down the muzzle of a
rifle. I get--"

"You mean that you're a martyr?"

"By no means! I've never even thought of being called such. This is a
privilege, this propaganda of ours. It's the greatest privilege in the
world--bringing the word of life and hope and joy to a crushed, bleeding
and despairing world!"

She thought a moment, in silence.

"You're a poet, I believe!" said she.

"No, not that. Only a worker in the ranks."

"But do you write poetry?"

"I write verses. You'd hardly call them poetry!"

"Verses? About Socialism?"

"Sometimes."

"Will you give me some?"

"What do you mean?"

"Tell me some of them."

"Of course not! I can't recite my verses! They aren't worth bothering
you with!"

"That's for me to judge. Let me hear something of that kind. If you only
knew how terribly much you interest me!"

"You mean that?"

"Of course I do! Please let me hear something you've written!"

He pondered a moment, then in his well-modulated, deep-toned voice
began:


_HESPERIDES_.


I.

My feet, used to pine-needles, moss and turf,
And the gray boulders at the lip o' the sea,
Where the cold brine jets up its creamy surf,
Now tread once more these city ways, unloved by me,
Hateful and hot, gross with iniquity.
And so I grieve,
Grieve when I wake, or at high blinding noon
Or when the moon
Mocks this sad Ninevah where the throngs weave
Their jostling ways by day, their paths by night;
Where darkness is not--where the streets burn bright
With hectic fevers, eloquent of death!
I gasp for breath....
Visions have I, visions! So sweet they seem
That from this welter of men and things I turn, to dream
Of the dim Wood-world, calling out to me.
Where forest-virgins I half glimpse, half see
With cool mysterious fingers beckoning!
Where vine-wreathed woodland altars sunlit burn,
Or Dryads dance their mystic rounds and sing,
Sing high, sing low, with magic cadences
That once the wild oaks of Dodona heard;
And every wood-note bids me burst asunder
The bonds that hold me from the leaf-hid bird.
I quaff thee, O Nepenthe! Ah, the wonder
Grows, that there be who buy their wealth, their ease
By damning serfs to cities, hot and blurred,
Far from thy golden quest, Hesperides!...


II.

I see this August sun again
Sheer up high heaven wheel his angry way;
And hordes of men
Bleared with unrestful sleep rise up another day,
Their bodies racked with aftermaths of toil.
Over the city, in each gasping street,
Shudders a haze of heat,
Reverberant from pillar, span and plinth.
Once more, cribbed in this monstrous labyrinth
Sacrificed to the Minotaur of Greed
Men bear the turmoil, glare, sweat, brute inharmonies;
Denial of each simplest human need,
Loss of life's meaning as day lags on day;
And my rebellious spirit rises, flies
In dreams to the green quiet wood away,
Away! Away!


III.

And now, and now...I feel the forest-moss...
Come! On these moss-beds let me lie with Pan,
Twined with the ivy-vine in tendrill'd curls,
And I will hold all gold, that hampers man,
Only the ashes of base, barren dross!
On with the love-dance of the pagan girls!
The pagan girls with lips all rosy-red,
With breasts upgirt and foreheads garlanded,
With fair white foreheads nobly garlanded!
With sandalled feet that weave the magic ring!
Now...let them sing,
And I will pipe a tune that all may hear,
To bid them mind the time of my wild rhyme;
To warn profaning feet lest they draw near.
Away! Away! Beware these mystic trees!
Who dares to quest you now, Hesperides?


IV.

Great men of song, what sing ye? Woodland meadows?
Rocks, trees and rills where sunlight glints to gold?
Sing ye the hills, adown whose sides blue shadows
Creep when the westering day is growing old?
Sing ye the brooks where in the purling shallows
The small fish dart and gleam?
Sing ye the pale green tresses of the willows
That stoop to kiss the stream?
Or sing ye burning streets, foul with the breath
Of sweatshop, tenement, where endlessly
Spawned swarms of folk serve tyrant masters twain--
Profit, and his twin-brother, grinning Death?
Where millions toil, hedged off from aught save pain?
Far from thee ever, O mine Arcady?...


His voice ceased and silence fell between the man and woman in the old
sugar-house. Gabriel sat there by the dying fire, which cast its ruddy
light over his strongly virile face, and gazed into the coals. The girl,
lying on the rude bed, her face eager, her slim strong hands tightly
clasped, had almost forgotten to breathe.

At last she spoke.

"That--that is wonderful!" she cried, a tremor of enthusiasm in her
voice.

He shook his head.

"No compliments, please," said he.

"I'm not complimenting you! I think it _is_ wonderful. You're a true
poet!"

"I wish I were--so I might use it all for Socialism!"

"You could make a fortune, if you'd work for some paper or
magazine--some regular one, I mean, not Socialist."

He shook his head.

"Dead sea fruit," he answered. "Fairy gold, fading in the clutch,
worthless through and through. No, if my work has any merit, it's all
for Socialism, now and ever!"

Silence again. Neither now found a word to say, but their eyes met and
read each other; and a kind of solemn hush seemed to lie over their
hearts.

Then, as they sat there, looking each at each--for now the girl had
raised herself on the crude bed and was supporting herself with one
hand--a sudden sound of a motor, on the road, awakened them from their
musing.

Came the raucous wail of a siren. Then the engine-exhaust ceased; and a
voice, raised in some annoyance, hailed loudly through the maple-grove:

"Hello! Hello? What's wrong here?"

Gabriel stepped to the sugar-house door:

"Here! Come here!" he shouted in a ringing voice that echoed wildly from
between his hollowed palms.

As the motorist still sat there, uncomprehending, Gabriel made his way
toward the road.

"Accident here," said he. "Girl in here, injured. Can you take her to
the nearest town, at once? She needs a doctor."

Instantly the man was out of his car, and hastening toward Gabriel.

"Eh? What?" he asked. "Anything serious?"

In a few words, Gabriel told him the outlines of the tale.

"The quicker you get the girl to a town, and let her have a doctor and
communication with her family, the better," he concluded.

"Right! I'll do all in my power," said the other, a rather stout,
well-to-do, vulgar-looking man.

"Good! This way, then!"

The man followed Gabriel to the sugar-house. They found the girl already
on her feet, standing there a bit unsteadily, but with determination to
be game, in every feature.

Five minutes later she was in the new-comer's car, which had been turned
around and now was headed back toward Haverstraw. The shawl and robe
serving her as wraps, she was made comfortable in the tonneau.

"Think you can stand it, all right?" asked Gabriel, as he took in his
the hand she extended. "In half an hour, you'll be under a doctor's
care, and your father will be on his way toward you."

She nodded, and for a second tightened the grasp of her hand.

"I--I'm not even going to know who you are?" she asked, a strange tone
in her voice.

"No," he answered. "And now, good luck, and good-bye!"

"Good-bye," she echoed, her voice almost inaudible. "I--I won't forget
you."

He made no answer, but only smiled in a peculiar way.

Then, as the car rolled slowly forward, their hands separated.

Gabriel, bareheaded and with level gaze, stood there in the middle of
the great highway, looking after her. A minute, under the darkening
arches of the forest road, he saw her, still. Then the car swung round
a bend, and vanished.

Had she waved her hand at him? He could not tell. Motionless he stood, a
while, then cleared away the barrier of branches that obstructed the
road, took up his knapsack, and with slow steps returned to the
sugar-house.

Almost on the threshold, a white something caught his eye. He picked it
up. Her handkerchief! A moment he held the dainty, filmy thing in his
rough hand. A vague perfume reached his nostrils, disquieting and
seductive.

"More than eighteen dollars an ounce, perhaps!" he exclaimed, with
sudden bitterness; but still he did not throw the handkerchief away.
Instead, he looked at it more keenly. In one corner, the fading light
just showed him some initials. He studied them, a moment.

"C. J. F." he read. Then, yielding to a sudden impulse, he
folded the kerchief and put it in his pocket.

He entered the sugar-house, to make sure, before departing, that he had
left no danger of fire behind him.

Another impulse bade him sit down on a rough box, there, before the
dying embers. He gazed at the bed of leaves, a while, immersed in
thought, then filled his pipe and lighted it with a glowing brand, and
sat there--while the night came--smoking and musing, in a reverie.

The overpowering lure of the woman who had lain in his arms, as he had
borne her thither; her breath upon his face; the perfume of her, even
her blood that he had washed away--all these were working on his senses,
still. But most of all he seemed to see her eyes, there in the
ember-lit gloom, and hear her voice, and feel her lithe young body and
her breast against his breast.

For a long time he sat there, thinking, dreaming, smoking, till the last
shred of tobacco was burned out in the heel of his briar; till the last
ember had winked and died under the old sheet-iron stove.

At last, with a peculiar laugh, he rose, slung the knapsack once more on
his shoulders, settled his cap upon his head, and made ready to depart.

But still, one moment, he lingered in the doorway. Lingered and looked
back, as though in his mind's eye he would have borne the place away
with him forever.

Suddenly he stooped, picked up a leaf from the bed where she had lain,
and put that, too, in his pocket where the kerchief was.

Then, looking no more behind him, he strode off across the maple-grove,
through which, now, the first pale stars were glimmering. He reached the
road again, swung to the north, and, striking into his long marching
stride, pushed onward northward, away and away into the soft June
twilight.




CHAPTER XVI.

TIGER WALDRON "COMES BACK."


Old Isaac Flint loved but two things in all this world--power, and his
daughter Catherine.

I speak advisedly in putting "power" first. Much as he idolized the
girl, much as she reminded him of the long-dead wife of his youth, he
could have survived the loss of her. The loss of power would inevitably
have crushed and broken him, stunned him, killed him. Yet, so far as
human affection could still blossom in that withered heart, shrunk by
cold scheming and the cruel piracies of many decades, he loved the girl.

And so it was that when the message came in, that evening, over the
telephone, the news that Kate had been injured in an auto-accident which
had entirely destroyed the machine and killed Herrick, he paled,
trembled, and clutched the receiver, hardly able to hold it to his ear
with his shaking hand.

"Here! You!" he cried. "She--she's not badly hurt? She's living? She's
safe? No lies, now! The truth!"

"Your daughter is very much alive, and perfectly safe," a voice
answered. "This is Doctor MacDougal, of Haverstraw, speaking. The
patient is now having a superficial scalp wound dressed by my assistant.
You can speak to her, in a few minutes, if you like."

"Now! For God's sake, let me speak _now_!" entreated the Billionaire;
but the doctor refused. Not all Flint's urging or bribing would turn him
one hair's breadth.

"No," he insisted. "In ten minutes she can talk to you. Not now. But
have no fear, sir. She is perfectly safe and--barring her wound, which
will probably heal almost without a scar--is as well as ever. A little
nervous and unstrung, of course, but that's to be expected."

"What happened, and how?" demanded Flint, in terrible agitation.

The doctor briefly gave him such facts as he knew, ending with the
statement that a passing automobilist had brought the girl to him, and
outlining the situation of the first-aid measures in the sugar-house. At
the thought that Herrick, the drunken cause of it all, was dead and
burned, Flint smiled with real satisfaction.

"Damn him! It's too good for the scum!" he muttered. Then, aloud, he
asked over the wire:

"And who was the rescuer?"

"I don't know," MacDougal answered. "Your daughter didn't tell me. But
from what I've learned, he must have been a man of rare strength and
presence of mind. It may well be that you owe your daughter's life to
his prompt work."

"I'll find him, yet. He'll be suitably rewarded," thought the
Billionaire. "No matter what my enemies have called me, I'm not
incapable of gratitude!"

Some few minutes later, having paced the library floor meanwhile, in
great excitement, he called the doctor's house again by long-distance,
and this time succeeded in having speech with his daughter. Her voice,
though a little weak, vastly reassured him. Once more he asked for the
outline of the story. She told him all the essentials, and finished by:

"Now, come and get me, won't you, father dear? I want to go home. And
the quicker you come for me, the happier I'll be."

"Bless your heart, Kate!" he exclaimed, deeply moved. "Nothing like the
old man, after all, is there? Yes, I'll start at once. I've only been
waiting here, to talk with you and _know_ you're safe. In five minutes
I'll be on my way, with the racing-car. And if I don't break a few
records between here and Haverstraw, my name's not Isaac Flint!"

After an affectionate good-bye, the old man hung up, rang for Slawson,
his private valet, and ordered the swiftest car in his garage made ready
at once, for a quick run.

Two hours later, Doctor MacDougal had pocketed the largest fee he ever
had received or ever would, again; and Kate was safe at home, in Idle
Hour.

On the homeward journey, Flint learned every detail of the affair, from
start to finish; and again grimly consigned the soul of the dead
chauffeur to the nethermost pits of Hell. Yes, he realized, he must have
the body brought in and decently buried, after the coroner's verdict had
been rendered; but in his heart he knew that, save for the eye of public
opinion and the law, he would let those charred remnants lie and rot
there, by the river bank, under the twisted wreckage of the car--and
revel in the thought of that last, barbarous revenge.

Arrived at home, Flint routed specialists out of their offices, and at a
large expense satisfied himself the girl had really taken no serious
harm. Next day, and the days following, all that money and science
could do to make the gash heal without a scar, was done. Waldron called,
greatly unnerved and not at all himself; and Kate received him with
amicable interest. She had not yet informed her father of the rupture
between Waldron and herself, nor did he suspect it. As for "Tiger," he
realized the time was inopportune for any statement of conditions, and
held his peace. But once she should be well, again, he had savagely
resolved this decision of hers should not stand.

"Damn it, it can't! It mustn't!" he reflected, as on the third evening
he returned to his Fifth Avenue house. "Now that I'm really in danger of
losing her, I'm just beginning to realize what an extraordinary woman
she is! As a wife, the mistress of my establishment, a hostess, a social
leader, what a figure she would make! And too, the alliance between
Flint and myself simply must not be shattered. Kate is the only child.
The old man's billion, or more, will surely come to her, practically
every penny of it. Flint is more than sixty-three this very minute, he's
a dope-fiend, and his heart's damned weak. He's liable to drop off, any
moment. If I get Kate, and he dies, what a fortune! What a prize! Added
to my interests, it will make me master of the world!

"Then, too, this new Air Trust scheme positively demands that Flint and
I should be bound together by something closer than mere financial
association. I've simply got to be one of the family. I've got to be his
son-in-law. That's a positive necessity! God, what a fool I was at
Longmeadow, to have taken those three drinks, and have been piqued at
her beating me--to have let my tongue and temper slip--in short, to have
acted like an ass!"

Ugly and grim, he puffed at his Londres. Vast schemes of finance and of
conquest wove through his busy, plotting brain. Visions of the girl
arose, too, tempting him still more, though his chill heart was
powerless to feel the urge of any real, self-sacrificing or devoted
love. Sensual passion he knew, and ambition, and the lust of power;
nothing else. But these all opened his eyes to the vast blunder he had
committed, and nerved him to reconquest of the ground that he had lost.

"I can win her, yet," reflected he, as his car swung into the long and
brilliant night-vista of Fifth Avenue. "I know women, and I understand
the game. Flowers, letters, telephone calls, attention every day--every
hour, if need be--these are the artillery to batter down the strongest
fortresses of indifference, even of dislike. And she shall have them
all--all and more. Wally, old chap, you've never been beaten at any
game, whether in the Street or in the pursuit of woman. You'll win yet;
you're bound to win! And Kate shall yet open the door to you, toward
wealth and power and position such as never yet were seen on earth!"

Thus fortified by his own determination, he slept more calmly that
night. And, on the morrow, his campaign began.

It lasted but a week.

At the end of that time, a friendly little note from Idle Hour told him,
frankly and in the kindest manner possible, that--much as she still
liked and respected him--Catherine could not, now or ever, think of him
in any other way than as a friend.

Stunned by this body-blow, "Tiger" first swore with hideous blasphemies
that caused his valet to retreat precipitately from the famous,
nymph-frieze bedchamber; then ordered drink, then walked the floor a
while in a violent passion; and finally knit up his decision.

"By God!" he swore, shaking his fist in the direction of Englewood.
"She's balky, eh? She won't, eh? But _I_ say she _will_! And if I can't
make her, there's her father, who can. Together we can break this
stiff-necked spirit and bring her to time. Hm! Fancy anybody or anything
in this world setting up opposition to Flint and Waldron, combined! Just
fancy it, that's all!

"So then, what's to do? This: See her father and have a heart-to-heart
talk with him. It's obvious she hasn't told him, yet, the real state of
affairs. I doubt if the old idiot has even noticed the absence of my
ring from her finger. And if he has, she's been able to fool him, easily
enough. But not much longer, so help me!

"No, this very morning he shall hear from me, the whole infernal
story--he shall learn his daughter's unreasonable rebellion, the slight
she's put upon me and her opposition to his will. _Then_ we shall
see--we shall see who's master in that family, he or the girl!"

With this strong determination in his superheated mind, Waldron rang up
Flint, asked for a private talk, at eleven, in the Wall Street office,
and made ready the mustering of his arguments; his self-defense; his
appeals to Flint's every sense of interest and liking; his whole plea
for the resumption of the broken betrothal.

And Catherine, all this time of convalescence--what were her thoughts,
and whither were they straying? Not thoughts of Waldron, that is sure,
despite his notes, his telephoning, his flowers, his visits. Not to him
did they wander, as she sat in her sunny bedroom bay-window, looking
out over the great, close cropped lawn, through the oaks and elms, to
the Palisades and the sparkling Hudson beneath.