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.

You rs,

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. The ir father had been professor of economics in a college in that part of the United States which Easterners describe as the"Middle We st."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.