A Poor Wise Man Part 26

She was hating herself very vigorously on that Sunday afternoon.

Mademoiselle and she had lunched alone in Lily's sitting-room, and Mademoiselle had dozed off in her chair afterwards, a novel on her knee.

Lily was wandering about downstairs when the telephone rang, and she had a quick conviction that it was Louis Akers. It was only w.i.l.l.y Cameron, however, asking her if she cared to go for a walk.

"I've promised Jinx one all day," he explained, "and we might as well combine, if you are not busy."

She smiled at that.

"I'd love it," she said. "In the park?"

"Wait a moment." Then: "Yes, Jinx says the park is right."

His wholesome nonsense was good for her. She drew a long breath.

"You are precisely the person I need to-day," she said. "And come soon, because I shall have to be back at five."

When he came he was very neat indeed, and most scrupulous as to his heels being polished. He was also slightly breathless.

"Had to sew a b.u.t.ton on my coat," he explained. "Then I found I'd sewed in one of my fingers and had to start all over again."

Lily was conscious of a change in him. He looked older, she thought, and thinner. His smile, when it came, was as boyish as ever, but he did not smile so much, and seen in full daylight he was shabby. He seemed totally unconscious of his clothes, however.

"What do you do with yourself, w.i.l.l.y?" she asked. "I mean when you are free?"

"Read and study. I want to take up metallurgy pretty soon. There's a night course at the college."

"We use metallurgists in the mill. When you are ready I know father would be glad to have you."

He flushed at that.

"Thanks," he said. "I'd rather get in, wherever I go, by what I know, and not who I know."

She felt considerably snubbed, but she knew his curious pride. After a time, while he threw a stick into the park lake and Jinx retrieved it, he said:

"What do you do with yourself these days, Lily?"

"Nothing. I've forgotten how to work, I'm afraid. And I'm not very happy, w.i.l.l.y. I ought to be, but I'm just--not."

"You've learned what it is to be useful," he observed gravely, "and now it hardly seems worth while just to live, and nothing else. Is that it?"

"I suppose."

"Isn't there anything you can do?"

"They won't let me work, and I hate to study."

There was a silence. w.i.l.l.y Cameron sat on the bench, bent and staring ahead. Jinx brought the stick, and, receiving no attention, insinuated a dripping body between his knees. He patted the dog's head absently.

"I have been thinking about the night I went to dinner at your house,"

he said at last. "I had no business to say what I said then. I've got a miserable habit of saying just what comes into my mind, and I've been afraid, ever since, that it would end in your not wanting to see me again. Just try to forget it happened, won't you?"

"I knew it was an impulse, but it made me very proud, w.i.l.l.y."

"All right," he said quietly. "And that's that. Now about your grandfather. I've had him on my mind, too. He is an old man, and sometimes they are peculiar. I am only sorry I upset him. And you are to forget that, too."

In spite of herself she laughed, rather helplessly.

"Is there anything I am to remember?"

He smiled too, and straightened himself, like a man who has got something off his chest.

"Certainly there is, Miss Cardew. Me. Myself. I want you to know that I'm around, ready to fetch and carry like Jinx here, and about as necessary, I suppose. We are a good bit alike, Jinx and I. We're satisfied with a bone, and we give a lot of affection. You won't mind a bone now and then?"

His cheerful tone rea.s.sured the girl. There was no real hurt, then.

"That's nice of you, you know."

"Well," he said slowly, "you know there are men who prefer a dream to reality. Perhaps I'm like that. Anyhow, that's enough about me. Do you know that there is a strike coming?"

"Yes. I ought to tell you, w.i.l.l.y. I think the men are right."

He stared at her incredulously.

"Right?" he said. "Why, my dear child, most of them want to strike about as much as I want delirium tremens. I've talked to them, and I know."

"A slave may be satisfied if he has never known freedom."

"Oh, fudge," said w.i.l.l.y Cameron, rudely. "Where do you get all that?

You're quoting; aren't you? The strike, any strike, is an acknowledgment of weakness. It is a resort to the physical because the collective mentality of labor isn't as strong as the other side. Or labor thinks it isn't, which amounts to the same thing. And there is a fine line between the fellow who fights for a principle and the one who knocks people down to show how strong he is."

"This is a fight for a principle, w.i.l.l.y."

"Fine little Cardew you are!" he scoffed. "Don't make any mistake. There have been fights by labor for a principle, and the principle won, as good always wins over evil. But this is different. It's a direct play by men who don't realize what they are doing, into the hands of a lot of--well, we'll call them anarchists. It's Germany's way of winning the war. By indirection."

"If by anarchists you mean men like my uncle--"

"I do," he said grimly. "That's a family accident and you can't help it.

But I do mean Doyle. Doyle and a Pole named Woslosky, and a scoundrel of an attorney here in town, named Akers, among others."

"Mr. Akers is a friend of mine, w.i.l.l.y."

He stared at her.

"If they have been teaching you their dirty doctrines, Lily," he said at last, "I can only tell you this. They can disguise it in all the fine terms they want. It is treason, and they are traitors. I know. I've had a talk with the Chief of Police."

"I don't believe it."

"How well do you know Louis Akers?"

"Not very well." But there were spots of vivid color flaming in her cheeks. He drew a long breath.