A Poor Wise Man

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER XLII

  It was at this time that Doyle showed his hand, with his customaryfearlessness. He made a series of incendiary speeches, the general themebeing that the hour was close at hand for putting the fear of God intothe exploiting classes for all time to come. His impassioned oratory,coming at the psychological moment, when the long strike had brought itstrain of debt and evictions, made a profound impression. Had he askedfor a general strike vote then, he would have secured it.

  As it was, it was some time before all the unions had voted for it. Andthe day was not set. Doyle was holding off, and for a reason. Day byday he saw a growth of the theory of Bolshevism among the so-calledintellectual groups of the country. Almost every university had itsradicals, men who saw emerging from Russia the beginning of a new earth.Every class now had its Bolshevists. They found a ready market for theirpropaganda, intelligent and insidious as it was, among a certain liberalelement of the nation, disgruntled with the autocracy imposed upon themby the war.

  The reaction from that autocracy was a swinging to the other extreme,and, as if to work into the hands of the revolutionary party, livingcosts remained at the maximum. The cry of the revolutionists, to allenough and to none too much, found a response not only in the anxiousminds of honest workmen, but among an underpaid intelligentsia. Neitherpolitical party offered any relief; the old lines no longer held, andnew lines of cleavage had come. Progressive Republicans and Democratshad united against reactionary members of both parties. There were nogreat leaders, no men of the hour.

  The old vicious cycle of empires threatened to repeat itself, the oldstory of the many led by the few. Always it had come, autocracy, the toogreat power of one man; then anarchy, the overthrow of that power by theangry mob. Out of that anarchy the gradual restoration of order bythe people themselves, into democracy. And then in time again, by thatsteady gravitation of the strong up and the weak down, some one man whoemerged from the mass and crowned himself, or was crowned. And there wasautocracy again, and again the vicious circle.

  But such movements had always been, in the last analysis, the work ofthe few. It had always been the militant minority which ruled. Alwaysthe great mass of the people had submitted. They had fought, one wayor the other when the time came, but without any deep conviction behindthem. They wanted peace, the right to labor. They warred, to find peace.Small concern was it, to the peasant plowing his field, whether one manruled over him or a dozen. He wanted neither place nor power.

  It came to this, then, Willy Cameron argued to himself. This new worldconflict was a struggle between the contented and the discontented. InEurope, discontent might conquer, but in America, never. There were toomany who owned a field or had the chance to labor. There were too manyways legitimately to aspire. Those who wanted something for nothing werebut a handful to those who wanted to give that they might receive.

  * * * * *

  Three days before the election, Willy Cameron received a note from Lily,sent by hand.

  "Father wants to see you to-night," she wrote, "and mother suggeststhat as you are busy, you try to come to dinner. We are dining alone. Docome, Willy. I think it is most important."

  He took the letter home with him and placed it in a locked drawer ofhis desk, along with a hard and shrunken doughnut, tied with a bow ofChristmas ribbon, which had once helped to adorn the Christmas tree theyhad trimmed together. There were other things in the drawer; a postcardphotograph, rather blurred, of Lily in the doorway of her little hut,smiling; and the cigar box which had been her cash register at the camp.

  He stood for some time looking down at the post card; it did not seempossible that in the few months since those wonderful days, life couldhave been so cruel to them both. Lily married, and he himself--

  Ellen came up when he was tying his tie. She stood behind him, watchinghim in the mirror.

  "I don't know what you've done to your hair, Willy," she said; "itcertainly looks queer."

  "It usually looks queer, so why worry, heart of my heart?" But he turnedand put an arm around her shoulders. "What would the world be withoutwomen like you, Ellen?" he said gravely.

  "I haven't done anything but my duty," Ellen said, in her prim voice."Listen, Willy. I saw Edith again to-day, and she told me to dosomething."

  "To go home and take a rest? That's what you need."

  "No. She wants me to tear up that marriage license."

  He said nothing for a moment. "I'll have to see her first."

  "She said it wouldn't be any good, Willy. She's made up her mind." Shewatched him anxiously. "You're not going to be foolish, are you? Shesays there's no need now, and she's right."

  "Somebody will have to look after her."

  "Dan can do that. He's changed, since she went." Ellen glanced towardMrs. Boyd's empty room. "You've done enough, Willy. You've seenthem through, all of them. I--isn't it time you began to think aboutyourself?"

  He was putting on his coat, and she picked a bit of thread from it, withnervous fingers.

  "Where are you going to-night, Willy?"

  "To the Cardews. Mr. Cardew has sent for me."

  She looked up at him.

  "Willy, I want to tell you something. The Cardews won't let thatmarriage stand, and you know it. I think she cares for you. Don't lookat me like that. I do."

  "That's because you are fond of me," he said, smiling down at her."I'm not the sort of man girls care about, Ellen. Let's face that. TheGeneral Manager said when he planned me, 'Here's going to be a fellowwho is to have everything in the world, health, intelligence, wit andthe beauty of an Adonis, but he has to lack something, so we'll make itthat'."

  But Ellen, glancing up swiftly, saw that although his tone was light,there was pain in his eyes.

  He reflected on Edith's decision as he walked through the park towardthe Cardew house. It had not surprised him, and yet he knew it had costher an effort. How great an effort, man-like, he would never understand,but something of what she had gone through he realized. He wonderedvaguely whether, had there never been a Lily Cardew in his life, hecould ever have cared for Edith. Perhaps. Not the Edith of the earlydays, that was certain. But this new Edith, with her gentleness andmeekness, her clear, suffering eyes, her strange new humility.

  She had sent him a message of warning about Akers, and from it he hadreconstructed much of the events of the night she had taken sick.

  "Tell him to watch Louis Akers," she had said. "I don't know how nearWilly was to trouble the other night, Ellen, but they're going to try toget him."

  Ellen had repeated the message, watching him narrowly, but he had onlylaughed.

  "Who are they?" she had persisted.

  "I'll tell you all about it some day," he had said. But he had told Danthe whole story, and, although he did not know it, Dan had from thattime on been his self-constituted bodyguard. During his campaignspeeches Dan was always near, his right hand on a revolver in his coatpocket, and for hours at a time he stood outside the pharmacy, favoringevery seeker for drugs or soap or perfume with a scowling inspection.When he could not do it, he enlisted Joe Wilkinson in the evenings, andsometimes the two of them, armed, policed the meeting halls.

  As a matter of fact, Joe Wilkinson was following him that night. Onhis way to the Cardews Willy Cameron, suddenly remembering the uncannyability of Jinx to escape and trail him, remaining meanwhile at a safedistance in the rear, turned suddenly and saw Joe, walking sturdilyalong in rubber-soled shoes, and obsessed with his high calling ofpersonal detective.

  Joe, discovered, grinned sheepishly.

  "Thought that looked like your back," he said. "Nice evening for a walk,isn't it?"

  "Let me look at you, Joe," said Willy Cameron. "You look strange to me.Ah, now I have it. You look like a comet without a tail. Where's thefamily?"

  "Making taffy. How--is Edith?"

  "Doing nicely." He avoided the boy's eyes.

  "I guess I'd better tell you. Dan's told me about her. I--" Joe
hesitated. Then: "She never seemed like that sort of a girl," hefinished, bitterly.

  "She isn't that sort of girl, Joe."

  "She did it. How could a fellow know she wouldn't do it again?"

  "She has had a pretty sad sort of lesson."

  Joe, his real business forgotten, walked on with eyes down and shouldersdrooping.

  "I might as well finish with it," he said, "now I've started. I'vealways been crazy about her. Of course now--I haven't slept for twonights."

  "I think it's rather like this, Joe," Willy Cameron said, after a pause."We are not one person, really. We are all two or three people, andall different. We are bad and good, depending on which of us is thestrongest at the time, and now and then we pay so much for the bad wedo that we bury that part. That's what has happened to Edith. Unless, ofcourse," he added, "we go on convincing her that she is still the thingshe doesn't want to be."

  "I'd like to kill the man," Joe said. But after a little, as they nearedthe edge of the park, he looked up.

  "You mean, go on as if nothing had happened?"

  "Precisely," said Willy Cameron, "as though nothing had happened."