The Conflict Part 6

She fled; the old man wiped his eyes, blew his nose and resumed the careful smoking of the cheap, smelly cigar. He said he preferred that brand of his days of poverty; and it was probably true, as he would refuse better cigars offered him by fastidious men who hoped to save themselves from the horrors of his. He waited restlessly, though it was long past his bedtime; he yawned and pretended to listen while Davy Hull, who had called for Jane in the Hull brougham, tried to make a favorable impression upon him. At last Jane reappeared--and certainly Let.i.tia Hastings would have been more than satisfied.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," said she to Hull, who was speechless and tremulous before her voluptuous radiance. "But father didn't like the way I was rigged out. Maybe I'll have to change again."

"Take her along, Davy," said Hastings, his big head wagging with delight. "She's a caution--SHE is!"

Hull could not control himself to speak. As they sat in the carriage, she finishing the pulling on of her gloves, he stared out into the heavy rain that was deluging the earth and bending low the boughs.

Said she, half way down the hill:

"Well--can't you talk about anything but Victor Dorn?"

"I saw him this afternoon," said Hull, glad that the tension of the silence was broken.

"Then you've got something to talk about."

"The big street car strike is on."

"So father said at dinner. I suppose Victor Dorn caused it."

"No--he's opposed to it. He's queer. I don't exactly understand his ideas. He says strikes are ridiculous--that it's like trying to cure smallpox by healing up one single sore."

Jane gave a shiver of lady-like disgust. "How--nasty," said she.

"I'm telling you what he said. But he says that the only way human beings learn how to do things right is by doing them wrong--so while he's opposed to strikes he's also in favor of them."

"Even _I_ understand that," said Jane. "I don't think it's difficult."

"Doesn't it strike you as--as inconsistent?"

"Oh--bother consistency!" scoffed the girl. "That's another middle cla.s.s virtue that sensible people loathe as a vice. Anyhow, he's helping the strikers all he can--and fighting US. You know, your father and my father's estate are the two biggest owners of the street railways."

"I must get his paper," said Jane. "I'll have a lot of fun reading the truth about us."

But David wasn't listening. He was deep in thought. After a while he said: "It's amazing--and splendid--and terrible, what power he's getting in our town. Victor Dorn, I mean."

"Always Victor Dorn," mocked Jane.

"When he started--twelve years ago as a boy of twenty, just out of college and working as a carpenter--when he started, he was alone and poor, and without friends or anything. He built up little by little, winning one man at a time--the fellow working next him on his right, then the chap working on his left--in the shop--and so on, one man after another. And whenever he got a man he held him--made him as devoted--as--as fanatical as he is himself. Now he's got a band of nearly a thousand. There are ten thousand voters in this town. So, he's got only one in ten. But what a thousand!"

Jane was gazing out into the rain, her eyes bright, her lips parted.

"Are you listening?" asked Hull. "Or, am I boring you?"

"Go on," said she.

"They're a thousand missionaries--apostles--yes, apostle is the name for them. They live and breathe and think and talk only the ideas Victor Dorn believes and fights for. And whenever he wants anything done--anything for the cause--why, there are a thousand men ready to do it."

"Why?" said Jane.

"Victor Dorn," said Hull. "Do you wonder that he interests me? For instance, to-night: you see how it's raining. Well, Victor Dorn had them print to-day fifty thousand leaflets about this strike--what it means to his cause. And he has asked five hundred of his men to stand on the corners and patrol the streets and distribute those dodgers.

I'll bet not a man will be missing."

"But why?" repeated Jane. "What for?"

"He wants to conquer this town. He says the world has to be conquered--and that the way to begin is to begin--and that he has begun."

"Conquer it for what?"

"For himself, I guess," said Hull. "Of course, he professes that it's for the public good. They all do. But what's the truth?"

"If I saw him I could tell you," said Jane in the full pride of her belief in her woman's power of divination in character.

"However, he can't succeed," observed Hull.

"Oh, yes, he can," replied Jane. "And will. Even if every idea he had were foolish and wrong. And it isn't--is it?"

David laughed peculiarly. "He's infernally uncomfortably right in most of the things he charges and proposes. I don't like to think about it." He shut his teeth together. "I WON'T think about it," he muttered.

"No--you'd better stick to your own road, Davy," said Jane with irritating mockery. "You were born to be thoroughly conventional and respectable. As a reformer you're ideal. As a--an imitator of Victor Dorn, you'd be a joke."

"There's one of his men now," exclaimed Hull, leaning forward excitedly.

Jane looked. A working man, a commonplace enough object, was standing under the corner street lamp, the water running off his hat, his shoulders, his coat tail. His package of dodgers was carefully shielded by an oilcloth from the wet which had full swing at the man.

To every pa.s.ser-by he presented a dodger, accompanying the polite gesture with some phrase which seemed to move the man or woman to take what was offered and to put it away instead of dropping it.

Jane sank back in the carriage, disappointed. "Is that all?" said she disdainfully.

"ALL?" cried Hull. "Use your imagination, Jen. But I forgot--you're a woman. They see only surfaces."

"And are snared into marrying by complexions and pretty features and dresses and silly flirting tricks," retorted the girl sarcastically.

Hull laughed. "I spoke too quick that time," said he. "I suppose you expected to see something out of a fifteenth century Italian old master! Well--it was there, all right."

Jane shrugged her shoulders. "And your Victor Dorn," said she, "no doubt he's seated in some dry, comfortable place enjoying the thought of his men making fools of themselves for him."

They were drawing up to the curb before the Opera House where were the a.s.sembly rooms. "There he is now," cried Hull.

Jane, startled, leaned eagerly forward. In the rain beyond the edge of the awning stood a dripping figure not unlike that other which had so disappointed her. Underneath the brim of the hat she could see a smooth-shaven youngish face--almost boyish. But the rain streaming from the brim made satisfactory scrutiny impossible.

Jane again sank back. "How many carriages before us?" she said.

"You're disappointed in him, too, I suppose," said Hull. "I knew you would be."

"I thought he was tall," said Jane.

"Only middling," replied Hull, curiously delighted.

"I thought he was serious," said Jane.