With her determined little chin thrust into the palm of her hand, and her elbow propped upon the window ledge of the railroad car, Phyllis made a delightful picture of country simplicity. She was dressed in a plain gown of some soft, dark blue material, and flung back from her shoulders was a heavy, plaid-lined cape, a garment she had borrowed for the journey. On the seat in front of her was a well-worn suit case of cheap compressed cane. It had evidently seen much service, though such service could hardly have been given in the city world toward which she was speeding. Reposing on top of this was her black felt hat. Here, again, her western farm upbringing was evidenced. It was a mixture, contrived out of a man's prairie hat into something of that modern product affected by young girls, beneath which its wearer reveals little but nose and chin. It was Phyllis's "best," and she rather liked it.
But she was quite unconscious of the country brand she bore. She was at all times unconscious of herself, in spite of her youth. Yet she attracted a good deal of notice among her fellow-passengers.
A commercial drummer had vainly striven for hours to attract her attention, his florid face set ready at a moment's notice to wreath itself into an engaging smile, should she chance to glance in his direction.
Then, too, a youth, in the company of an elderly female relative, had gone through a severe process of neck wringing, several seats in front of her, in the vain hope that her interest in the absurd fields of wheat through which they were passing might abate in his favor.
Besides these it was a curious fact that this particular car demanded so much attention from the train crew. One official bore down on her, and, with unusual courtesy, asked her if he should open a window near her to cool the air. Having achieved his purpose of receiving smiling thanks, he added a few remarks, passed on, and another came along and threatened pleasantly to close it, as he was sure she was in a draught. A third brought her a pillow and refused to take money for it, the significance of which left her wholly unconscious.
But the guard. Well, the guard seemed to have nothing in the world to do but examine her ticket. The railroad officials certainly did their very best for her.
Through it all, the girl's whole interest seemed to lay in the wonderful cloth of gold spread over the world through which they were passing. That and its trimmings in the shape of farm houses, small settlements, townships just starting, verdant bluffs and gleaming rivers, all of which glided swiftly by, a delightful panorama before her wondering eyes, as the transcontinental mail swept across the prairie lands upon its east-bound journey.
It was all fresh to her, but none of it was new. She had been brought up in a corner of this very wheat world, so she knew it all. Sometimes it was grander and looked more prosperous, sometimes it was smaller and poorer. But the method of it was always the same.
Still, she was traveling abroad for the first time in her young life, and she wanted to see everything there was to see. Thus, she had traveled for more than two whole days, nor had she yet exhausted the resources of Canada's great granary. Indian Head, Moosejaw, Regina, Moosemin, Brandon, all these places, miles and miles apart, had vanished into the dim distance behind her, but still the cloth of golden wheat remained, as she knew it would remain until Winnipeg was reached.
Funds had not permitted her the luxury of a "sleeper," so she had faced the discomforts of long days and longer nights in the ordinary day car. But with her heart set upon a definite purpose such things were no real hardships to Phyllis. Just now her one desire in life was to reach Winnipeg, so nothing else mattered.
It was nearly noon when the conductor of the train entered the car for perhaps the tenth time that morning. Phyllis saw him moving down the aisle, and, from force of habit, got her ticket ready. But the amiable man spared her this time. He hurried along toward her, and, with the sigh of an overworked man, dropped into the seat beside her suit case.
"Guess you'll soon be in Winnipeg, now," he observed, having learned her anxiety to reach her destination some twenty or thirty visits to her before.
Phyllis smiled, and her whole face lit up. The conductor grinned his pleasure at the sight.
"I'm so glad," the girl sighed. "Still, I've had a real pleasant journey," she added quickly. "You folks have been very kind to me."
The man's delight was written all over his face.
"Why, that's good of you. But 'tain't just nothin'. Gals travelin' on their lonesome, it ain't all pie for 'em. We just like to do our best—when they ain't on the grouch."
Phyllis had abandoned her study of the view.
"I haven't been a grouch, have I?" she demanded.
"Never in your life. Say—you couldn't grouch. 'Tain't your nature."
Phyllis became aware of the "drummer." His grin was in full blast. But she quickly ignored him.
"I s'pose you know Winnipeg well?" she hazarded to her companion, with some eagerness.
"Live there," the man replied, comprehensively.
"Ah, I'm glad. Maybe you know Grand Avenue?"
The man's eyes opened wide.
"Sure I know Grand Avenoo. That's where the big fellers live. All small houses. Sort o' Fifth Avenoo, Noo York." Then he grinned. "Say, you ain't figurin' on a hotel in Grand Avenoo?"
Phyllis flushed.
"Oh, no," she disclaimed hurriedly. "I just want to get there to—to see a lady who lives there."
The conductor nodded his understanding.
"Sure," he said. "Service. Domestic."
Phyllis's flush deepened.
"Oh, no," she cried. "I'm—I'm just on a visit."
The conductor realized his mistake, and tried to glide over the fence.
"If you were to tell me the part of Grand Avenoo you're needing, maybe I could give you the right surface car to take."
"That would be very kind," Phyllis said earnestly. Then her dark brows drew together perplexedly. "It's rather difficult," she went on. "You see, I don't really know just whereabouts Mrs. Hendrie lives."
"Mrs. Hendrie, d'you say, miss? Mrs. Alexander Hendrie?"
"Yes, yes. That's the lady," Phyllis cried eagerly. "Do you know where her house is?"
"Gee!"
"What did you say? I didn't——"
"Beg pardon, miss—I—I just said 'Gee!'" The man rose from his seat rather hurriedly. "You see, I didn't just figure you were goin' to Mrs. Alexander Hendrie. You see, Mr. Hendrie is just about the biggest man in the country, and—well——"
Phyllis laughed.
"And it seemed queer me going to see them. Of course it does," she went on, to help the man's confusion. "But if you'll tell me best how to find Grand Avenue, why, you'll be doing me a real kindness, just one more."
The girl's tact had prompt effect.
"I'll sure be most pleased miss," the conductor said, with some emphasis on the last word. "You just go right out of the booking hall at the depot, and get on to the first Main Street car you see. It'll take you along up to Grand. Just give word to the ticket man, an' he'll see you get off right. We'll be in in less than two hours. We're plumb on time."
He moved away quickly, and Phyllis vaguely understood that his going had something to do with the fact that she was going to see the wife of one of the biggest men in the country. But she quite missed the necessity for the railroader's exchange of attitude.
Grand Avenue was bathed in sunlight when Phyllis stepped off the car and looked about her. Automobiles and pair-horse carriages sped upon their dazzling ways down the great wide road with a speed and frequency that, for some moments, left the country girl almost dazed. Her unaccustomed eyes were wide and wondering, and she clung to her cane suit case as though for support against the overwhelming tide of traffic.
After a while, either the stream slackened, or her nerves became more accustomed, for she made a dash for the sidewalk, and reached safety once more. Then further dismay attacked her. She gazed along at the great detached mansions, which lined the avenue, and the sight gave her understanding of the train conductor's suggestion that she was about to enter domestic service. It was in one of these splendid palaces, she thought, that Mrs. Hendrie lived, and probably one of the biggest. For a moment she looked down at her suit case as though she hated it.
Her weakness, however, was quickly passed. She remembered the object of her visit, and clenched her small white teeth. All she cared for in the world was at stake in this desperate visit, and nothing should daunt her.
A large policeman was passing. Noting the girl's evident hesitation he slackened his pace. He was a genially rubicund specimen of the force, and inspired confidence. Phyllis promptly set her suit case down, drew a letter from her pocket-book and went up to him.
"Will you tell me in which direction that number is, sir?" she inquired, awed by the man's authority as she held up the address for his inspection.
The officer's bulging eyes surveyed her from head to foot. That "sir" had tickled his vanity, and he approved of her.
"One thousand and one?" he said. "Why, that's Alexander Hendrie's house. Right here behind you—er—miss. That's Mr. Hendrie's house."
Phyllis thanked him warmly. Then she went back to her suit case, picked it up, and made for the house with a rapidly beating heart. It was almost as if everything had been made especially easy for her, and, in spite of her growing nervousness, she was very thankful.
The house was well back from the road. It was approached by a short, unenclosed carriage sweep, lined on each side by smooth turf, dotted with shrubs and young trees. The air of wealth was conveyed in the splendidly kept condition of everything rather than any ostentatious display. The house itself was a modern production of decorative architecture, built of massive, beautifully cut gray stone. The entrance door was beneath a glass and wrought-iron shelter, which stretched out across the drive and was supported on massive wrought-iron columns of exquisite design.
It was not without many heart quakings that Phyllis ascended the white marble steps and pressed the great button of the electric bell. Nor were these lessened when the door was opened with magical abruptness, and she found herself gazing up at the liveried footman in wonder and dismay.
The man's cold survey of her was disheartening. Plainly as looks could speak, he regarded her visit as an impertinent intrusion, while he waited for her to speak.
It was a critical moment, and Phyllis knew it. The situation demanded all her courage. Assuming a decision which quite belied her real feelings, she endeavored to overawe the man, quite forgetful of the strange hat and stranger costume she was arrayed in; to say nothing of the deplorable suit case.
"I want to see Mrs. Hendrie," she demanded shortly.
The man's reply was slow in coming. He devoured her with eyes which plainly conveyed a definite and contemptuous refusal.
"Can't be done," he said at last, and prepared to close the door.
But Phyllis had not traveled all these hundreds of miles to be defeated by a mere footman.
"Oh, yes, it can," she declared tartly. "And you'll do best if you remember that you're speaking to a lady. Mrs. Hendrie is expecting me. Please to tell her Miss Phyllis Raysun is here—from Gleber."
The absurd dignity of this quaint figure was not without its effect. The man's manner underwent a slight change, but he still remained barring the way. At his sign a boy in uniform stepped forward from some dark corner where he had been lurking unseen by Phyllis. He stood ready with a silver tray in his hand.
"Inquire if Mrs. Hendrie is at home," said the footman loftily. "If she is, will she receive Miss—er—Phyllis Raysun?"
The boy remained with his tray held out. Phyllis was at a loss. Then she nodded.
"Yes. That's right," she said, failing to understand the silent demand for a card.
With a smile, which somehow added further to the girl's angry feelings, the youth hurried away. But the man still kept her waiting on the step.
Without knowing what she ought to have expected, Phyllis felt that she was being treated shamefully. She knew that these liveried underlings were treating her as if she were some undesirable tramp. It was quite infuriating. But with so much at stake she felt it safest not to display too much resentment, so she choked back her indignation and accepted the affront.
Then quite suddenly a wonderful change came upon the scene. A change that was evidently utterly unexpected by the churlish man-servant.
There was a sound of rustling skirts hurrying downstairs. Then some one brushed the man aside and seized Phyllis's two ungloved hands, one of which still held the deplorable suit case.
"My dear, my dear, however did you get here?"
It was Monica. Then she turned angrily upon the discomforted footman as she drew the girl into the house.
"How dare you keep this lady standing out on the door-step? How dare you? It's an outrage. It is an outrage I won't permit in my house. I never heard of such a thing."
Then she turned upon the scared-faced boy, waiting just behind her.
"Tell the housekeeper I wish to see her in the library in an hour's time." Then, in a moment, she was back again to Phyllis. "Come along, dear. Come up to my room, and get your things off. Henson will see to your grip."
But Phyllis clung to the suit case, which she was growing to hate more and more every moment. She was sure now that it had had something to do with the rude treatment she had been subjected to.
"But I—I can carry it, M—Mrs. Hendrie," she cried, the inevitable "mam" nearly slipping out in spite of her best efforts.
Monica laughed. She remembered how she, herself, had felt once upon a time facing an army of servants.
"Very well, dear," she said gently, "but come along."
She took the bewildered girl by the arm, and hurried her through the great entrance hall. Then up the wide staircase, and, having left the sharp-eared servants well behind, opened out a battery of eager questions.
"How ever did you get here all by yourself from that little far-away farm of yours?" she demanded. "How—how dared you attempt such a thing, my dear?" she went on, with genuine concern. "You shouldn't have done it. You really shouldn't, without letting me know, so that I could have arranged for your comfort."
They had reached the first floor, and Monica's arm was about the girl's supple waist.
"I never heard of such a thing," she hurried on, pushing open the door of her boudoir. "Weren't you frightened to death? How—how ever did you manage to find this house—you, who've never been away from your prairie home in your life?"
"I—I had to come, mam," Phyllis cried. "I—I hope you're not angry, but I just had to come. I got a letter from—from Frank, and he told me he was never coming back to me, and was going to—to—enlist—or something, in the army of workers and give his life to bettering their lot, and—and a lot of other silly nonsense like that. And—and I just had to come and see you—since I knew that—that you loved him, too."
There were tears crowding the girl's beautiful, appealing eyes as she looked up into Monica's face.
Monica stooped and kissed her quite suddenly. Then she unfastened and removed the unsightly cape and took the offending suit case from her. She laid them aside, and then strove to reassure this child, who, though she had only seen her once before in her life, and only knew her through writing to her, somehow seemed to have become a part of her life.
"I'm so glad you came to me, Phyl," she cried. "There's so much to say—so much for us both to think of. Oh, my dear, my dear, my heart is broken. I don't know what to think, or what to do. My poor, poor boy."
An hour passed. The housekeeper waited to see Mrs. Hendrie in the library, but she did not come. Two hours passed. Monica and Phyllis still remained together in the former's room. As Monica had said, there was much for both to think of. Again she poured out the dreadful story of Frank's disaster. She was thankful, too, for the girl's sympathetic ears. It eased her own feelings, and helped her to think more clearly, which she had not been able to do since receiving Frank's curt note refusing her money. But at last there was nothing more left to tell, and Monica broke down, weeping over the havoc she felt that she alone had wrought.
"Oh, Phyl, Phyl," she cried desperately. "It is all my doing; all through my wretched selfishness. You—even you can't blame my husband. The fault was mine alone."
Phyllis's dark eyes were hard as she flung in her denial.
"But I do blame him," she cried. "Even if Frank had been guilty it was a wicked, cruel thing to do. I can't help it if it hurts you, Mrs. Hendrie. I do certainly blame your husband."
Monica shook her head.
"He was in a fury of jealousy, and no man is quite sane under such circumstances." Phyllis's challenge had given Monica the firmness of decision, which, in her grief, she had utterly lacked. "Iamto blame. I can see it all now. Had I never lied to Frank in my ridiculous sense of duty to my dead sister, and my selfish desire to marry my husband; had I never told the boy that I was his mother—this would never have happened. In his great goodness and chivalry, the poor boy sacrificed himself for what he believed was my honor. It—is—too terrible. Just God, what a punishment for my lies. Never, never, never, as long as I live, can I forgive myself. And now? Oh, what can I do? Whatever can we do?"
Monica's tears flowed fast, and in sympathy for the suffering woman Phyllis wept, too. Her anger, her resentment against those who had injured her love were powerless to resist the appeal of this woman's grief. However she loved Frank, she remembered that Monica loved him, too. All his life she had struggled and slaved for him.
But she was there for a greater purpose than to help another woman in her suffering. She was there to help the man she loved. More than that, she was there to win him back to herself, to that happiness she believed she alone could give him. She knew him so well. She felt in her simple way that he needed her, in spite of his long, long letter giving her back her promise, and full of his unalterable resolve to put his past and all that belonged to it, behind him forever. She intended to pit herself against his desperate purpose. She was determined to restore the old Frank she knew, the old Frank she loved better than her life.
"What can you do?" she cried, a glowing light of strength and love shining in her beautiful, half-tearful eyes. "What can we do? Why, everything. But we're not going to do it by writing letters, mam. You love him? You? And you can just sit at home right here, and hand him words written on paper, and push money into the envelope, money which means nothing to either of you, when he comes out of the prison you helped to send him to? Oh, mam, mam, how could you? Your place was at the gates of Alston prison as it was mine, if I had known, like you did. It was for us to have been along there, ready to reach out, and—and help him. What can we do? What can I do? I'll tell you. Oh, I know it's not for me to tell you things. Maybe I'm young and foolish. Maybe I don't know much. I'm just not going to write my Frank in answer to his—his nonsensical stuff. But I won't take back my promise to be his wife. I'm—I'm going to marry him—because I know he wants me, and I want him. Oh, no, I'm not going to marry a man who gets worrying to make strikes and things, and calls it helping labor. I'm not going to marry a man who's always making trouble in the world, who leaves kiddies starving for what he calls a 'principle,' and most folks generally—miserable. But I'm going to marry my Frank, and I'm going right on to Toronto to find him—if I have to walk there."
The girl finished up breathlessly. All her love and courage were shining in her eyes. Monica had been held spellbound by the force and determination underlying every unconsidered word Phyllis uttered, and now she sprang from her seat, caught in the rush of the other's enthusiasm.
"Oh Phyl, Phyl," she cried, catching the girl by the shoulders, and looking down into her ardent face. "You brave, brave child. I never thought. I could never have thought, fool that I am. Yes, yes, we will go to him. Not you alone. I will go, too. You are the bravest, wisest child in the world, and—I love you for it."
The street care hummed in the still summer air. The sun awnings were stretched out from the endless array of stores, across the super-heated sidewalk. A busy life perspired beneath them. Toronto's central shopping areas were always crowded about midday, not with the smart woman shopper, but with the lunching population of the commercial houses.
It was more than a month since Frank's memorable journey from the hopeless precincts of Alston to one of Canada's gayest cities; a month during which he had found his days far easier than he expected, if more full of the responsibilities of life. From the moment of his meeting with Austin Leyburn he had permitted himself a looking forward, if not with anything approaching youthful hope and confidence, at least to a life full of that work which his understanding suggested to him might serve to deaden bitter memories, and help him to face a useful future.
His new aspirations, his new convictions, sprang from a simple, impulsive heart rather than from any deep study of Socialistic doctrine. He had no logic on the matters of his beliefs, he needed none. It was sufficient that he had seen, had felt, and he hugged to himself the thoughts thus inspired.
For the moment the man Leyburn, with his narrow eyes, his purposeful face, was something little less than a god to young Frank. Here was a champion of those very people whom he believed needed all the help forthcoming. Here was a man who, from sheer belief in his own principles, had devoted himself, nay, perhaps, sacrificed himself, to those very ideals which he, Frank, had only just awakened to. His official positions in the organized societies of labor surely testified to the sincerity of his purpose. Thus it was certainly the work of Providence that he, Frank, had been thrown into such contact at the moment of his need.
On that eventful train journey, Leyburn had promised to enroll him among the workers for the good of the submerged ranks of labor. Moreover he had proved as good as his word. He had done more. For some unexplained reason he took Frank into his own personal office, keeping him under his direct supervision, associating with him, and treating him to a confidence that was by no means usual in one of the most powerful heads of the labor movement in Canada.
It was a strange association, these two. On the one hand a man of great organizing powers, of keen, practical understanding of Socialistic principles; and, on the other, a youth of lofty ideals which had little enough to do with the bitter class hatred belonging to the sordid modern product of Socialism. Yet the older man's interest was very evident, and was displayed in many different ways. He frequently lunched with his protégé, and never failed to take him to any demonstration of labor at which it was his duty to speak.
Frank responded readily to this kindly treatment. Nor did it ever occur to him to wonder at it. So it came about, that, bit by bit, this kindly man with the narrow eyes and hard smile, drew from him the complete story of his life's disaster.
It was on the occasion when the last detail of the story was passionately poured into his apparently sympathetic ears that Austin Leyburn treated his protégé to something of his platform oratory.
"Out of evil comes good—sometimes," he said, with a twisted, satirical smile. "You certainly have been the victim of the class against which all our efforts are directed. Think of it," he went on, thrusting his elbows upon the luncheon table which stood between them—they were in the fly-ridden precincts of the cheap restaurant which Leyburn always affected—and raising his voice to a denunciatory pitch. "Think of it. Every man with power to think, with power to work, who comes within the web of this wealthy man you speak of—whoever he is—is open to the possibilities for evil of his accumulations of wealth. That man, a millionaire, openly confesses to being able to buy the law sufficiently to legally crush the moral, almost the physical life out of those who offend him." Then he smiled whimsically. "Can you wonder at the class hatred existing, and of which I know you do not wholly approve?" Then he shrugged, as though to dismiss the matter. "As I said, good out of evil—sometimes. But for that experience you would undoubtedly have joined the ranks of the oppressors and assimilated their creed."
"Yes, yes," cried Frank eagerly. "I see all that. I see the iniquity of it all that such tyranny should be possible. I agree entirely. It is against the very principles of all creation that any one man should possess such power. No man, woman, or child is safe with such possibilities in our midst. But this class hatred. The opposition of labor is not directed sufficiently against the principle. It is directed against the individual, and so becomes class hatred."
"Remember you are dealing with human nature," Leyburn objected. "When such forces as we control are put into active protest against a principle, the principle must become merged in the individual who represents it. It is the tangible evidence which an ignorant mass of labor needs of the existence of offense against the principle which causes the bitterness of its lot."
"My objection is against that fact," Frank persisted, in the blindness of enthusiasm. "Class hatred! It is dreadful. Christ never preached class hatred; and no man who ever walked this earth had a greater understanding of real life than He. Listen, I read in one of your books, written by a man reputed to be a great thinker, that—if the working men and women of the world were wiped out, capital and its class would become useless, paralyzed. He also said that if, on the other hand, those who represent capital were wiped out, if all but the working men and women were exterminated, the world would still go on undisturbed, because of the worker left behind."
Leyburn nodded.
"That is one of the strongest bases of the labor movement. Why should the man or woman who lives by the sweat of others enjoy the luxury which is denied to the people who make that luxury possible? Is the argument not perfectly, humanly just?"
Frank leaned back in his hard chair. This man was damping some of his enthusiasm by the argument which seemed to him as purely selfish as were the existing conditions of the methods of capital.
"Then the husbandman in the vineyard was all wrong?" he demanded.
"On the contrary, he was quite right—if he could got no more than the penny he engaged for," replied Leyburn cynically.
Frank returned again to the attack.
"Now you are preaching for the worker the very methods of present-day capital. You are telling him to—grab."
"So long as capital—grabs, labor must do likewise. Unfortunately this is an age of grab, and until evolution carries it away, like any other pestilential influence, we must all grab, or die in the gutter."
Frank shook his head.
"No, no," he cried desperately. "I can't believe it. This war of classes is all wrong. It is against all the ethics of brotherhood. It is the war of body against brain. Leave out the individual and stick to the principle. If the working class were wiped out to-morrow the brain, which is really the life of the world, would only change its tactics. After a brief stagnation it would evolve a fresh condition of things. It would throw itself into the necessary work, and, after a while, its powers would contrive a means whereby the world's work would still go forward. On the other hand, if the great minds, the thinking minds of those who represent capital, were wiped out, after a brief spell of chaos, the vitality of the body would recreate a guiding system, and things would become the same as they were before. There would again be capital and labor, with its endless problem. All that we can humanly demand is equality and brotherhood for the human race in their various conditions of life. If a man works his best he must be able to enjoy life as he sees life. The rest belongs to a Divine Power over which we can have no control. The world's goods must be proportionately divided, according to all requirements. Nor do we all need the same, because of that unequal distribution by divine hand of the power to do. Oh, maybe I cannot make it plain. But I can see it all, if only man will work in a common interest, as I feel sure he was intended to do. It is a government of common good we need. One that will provide as well for the laborer as the thinker. They are two portions of one whole, without either of which the other cannot exist. Sever them, destroy either, and the lot of the other is to be deplored."
Frank waited with flushed face and anxious eyes for the other's reply.
Leyburn's cynical eyes looked up from the stained tablecloth on which the remains of the meal were still scattered.
"And in the meantime?" he inquired.
"What do you mean?"
"How are you going to achieve this government, this good and merciful government that is going to provide for us, each according to our needs? By sitting down and submitting to the sweaters who rule the lives of the present-day laboring world, making its condition just what their own quality of selfishness demands, just because the Divine Hand has bestowed upon them a greater power to think than It has upon the worker? I tell you, boy, we are fighting for all that which you have outlined; and we are fighting—which is the only way. I said that this was an age of grab—and, as far as I can see, it is a pestilential influence that must remain for years to come. The brain must be forced to yield up its selfish desires by the body; it will never be persuaded. You used the analogy. I will use it, too. As you say, the brain represents the thinkers. In human life the brain thinks, it is selfish in its desires, and its desires grow. They frequently grow beyond the endurance of the body, and finally it submits the body to such conditions of disease that at last the poor stricken thing rebels. Harmony and well-being cannot endure in human life with the domination of any one part of it. Capital is dominating labor now, so that the disease of hopelessness has spread to every section. Life is a burden. Therefore labor has rebelled, is rebelling, will continue to rebel, until capital is abolished and the harmony of equality is restored. Believe me, I am only viewing your ideals through practical eyes. Come, my boy, we must to work again. There is that case of tyranny to be looked into. The discharge of that fireman for drinking when off duty on the North Saskatchewan Railroad. There is also the question of colored agricultural workers to be considered. You, my friend, are young. You are enthusiastic and idealistic, and I like you for it. But you will soon see that that which a long experience has taught me is right."
Leyburn rose from his seat and beckoned the waiter. He settled the bill, while Frank picked up his hat. The youngster had no longer need to press it down to his ears. His hair was rapidly growing to that luxuriant, wavy mass, which had always been Monica's pride.
At the door of the restaurant, Leyburn turned to him with his peculiarly ungracious smile, and sniffed the sickening atmosphere of hot food.
"We've satisfied our appetites, and now we hate the smell," he said, with a laugh. "Human nature is ungrateful. By the way, you'd best go on to the Saskatchewan Railroad offices and ask for that report they promised to send me. I'll go back to the office." Then, as an afterthought: "Say," he added, with a laugh, "I'm going to send you up West later. Along the line. To do some—talking. But you'll need to cut all that stuff right out. I mean the ideal racket. So long."
He turned sharply away, and hurried down the heat-laden street.
Left alone, Frank looked after him. He shook his head.
"He's a good feller," he said to himself. "But he's wrong—dead wrong—in some things."
At that moment somebody bumped into him, and he turned to apologize. Seeing it was a woman, he raised his hat. Then an exclamation, half joyous, half of dismay, broke from him.
"Phyl!" he cried. "You? In Toronto?"
In her turn the girl started and stared.
"Frank!" she cried incredulously. Then, regardless of the passers-by: "Thank God, I've found you! Oh, Frank, I'm so—so glad. We have been hunting Toronto these weeks; and now—now——"
"We?"
The girl's delight and evident love almost seemed to have passed Frank by. With a rush all the old pain of parting from her, all the dreary heartache he had endured when writing his farewell to her, was with him once more, as his troubled eyes searched the sweet face looking so radiantly up into his.
"Yes, 'we,' dear."
Phyllis, her pretty face wreathed in a happy, confident little smile, was studying him closely.
"Well?" she cried, as the great fellow stared back at her, rather like a simple babe.
Frank tried to pull himself together. It was like the ponderous shake of a St. Bernard dog, rousing himself to activity.
"I don't know what to say or do." The man's dilemma was struggling with the joy of this unexpected reunion. "Why have you come here? Oh, Phyl, it is so hard. It has been so terribly hard. I tried to explain it all in my letter, I never thought——"
The girl nodded. Not for a moment did she permit any other emotion than her delight at seeing him again, appear in her smiling eyes. She tilted her head slightly on one side, so that the shadow of her wide-brimmed hat was removed from her face. Frank became aware of the movement, also of the hat. He also became aware of the smartly tailored costume she was wearing, even the pointed toes of her exquisite shoes, and the white kid gloves upon her hands. She intended him to notice these things.
"Oh, Frank," she cried, deliberately ignoring his protest, "Toronto's just the loveliest place ever to buy dress fixings. Mrs. Hendrie has just made me buy and buy, till—well, till I don't know how much she's spent on me. You see," she went on naïvely, "she said I just couldn't get hunting my beau in Toronto with hayseed sticking all over my hair. Don't you think I—I look better this way?"
This strange child from a "way-off" western farm had her own methods of campaign. She was playing for a big stake, the biggest she could think of—the man she loved.
Frank breathed a deep sigh.
"You—you just look wonderful, Phyl," he cried, for a moment all else smothered in the background.
"True? Sure?"
"True? Say, you just couldn't look more lovely," the boy cried.
Phyllis laughed.
"Then come right along. See, we're bumping folks, standing here. I'm going to take you to where your—where Mrs. Hendrie is waiting for you. The——"
But the mention of Monica left Frank once more alive to realities.
"No, no, Phyl," he cried. "It is useless. Don't you understand? I love my—I love Mon as dearly as ever son loved a mother, but—the barrier has been set up between us, and can never be removed. Oh, believe me, it is no resentment, or bitterness against her. She just belongs to a different world from mine—now. It would give her pain. I know what she would say—and I know what I must say."
In spite of all his protests, Frank was walking beside Phyllis, moving unquestioningly in the direction she selected.
The girl looked round laughingly. Phyllis had never perhaps smiled so joyously, so sweetly as she was smiling now. But every look, every word she spoke, was full of definite purpose.
"I haven't recovered from the shock you handed me—in that—that letter," she said, without a shadow of distress in her smiling eyes. "I haven't, true as true. Say, I just kind of wonder if you've got half a notion how it feels for a girl to be thrown over by letter? Say, I just won't be thrown over by—by letter. That's why I've come here to Toronto. I've come right here so you can tell me with your own two very determined lips, I'm not wanted. When you've told me that I'm not wanted, that you just don't love me any more, then I'm going right away to Gleber, and get on with my plowing. I'll just pack up all the elegant suits Mrs. Hendrie's bought me, and never see them again. Then I'll fix myself up in black and bugles—whatever they are—and be a widow woman for the rest of my life. Now, truth! You don't love me—any more; and you don't want me?"
Just for a moment the girl's mask was dropped as she made her final demand.
It was only for a moment, but long enough for Frank to see the depth of her love for him shining in her dark eyes. The desire then and there to take her in his arms, and throw every resolution to the winds, was well-nigh overpowering, but he put it from him, and the effort left him speechless.
"Frank?" she urged.
But still the man remained silent.
"Do you know, dear, you'd have been more merciful if you'd brutally struck me in the face with your great big fist, instead of sending me that letter. You see, you'd sure have left me senseless."
The subtle appeal was too much for the man. His face flushed with a shame that swept through his heart.
"But what could I do, Phyl? I had to tell you. I had to give you—your freedom. You could never marry a—convict."
Phyllis's mask of lightness returned to her face. She meant to hit this man she loved, hard. It took all her courage to do it, and the only possible chance she had was to laugh with it.
"A convict?" she cried. "Oh, Frank, I could marry a convict far, far easier than a—present-day Socialist."
The thrust drove straight home, and, witnessing the havoc she had wrought, the girl consoled herself with the thought that hers had been the plunging of the surgeon's knife that the healing of this man might be the surer, the more complete.
"Phyl!"
The man's look was one of dreadful pain. He felt as if every ideal and honest feeling he had ever had, had fallen upon him, crushing him beneath its burden. Phyl's ridicule was worse, far worse than any suffering he had endured, however unjust.
"You can't—you don't mean that," he cried hoarsely. "No, no, Phyl, you don't mean it. You——"
"But I do—I do," the girl cried, with sudden passion. "Oh, I know you've suffered. God only knows just how you've suffered! And since I've heard all you've gone through, I've suffered every moment of it with you. Yes, I know I've hurt you now, and I meant to hurt you—not because you hurt me, not because of all you wrote me in your letter, but because I want to tell you all I feel about—about this new life you figure to mix up with. Frank, your own honest notions are just too big for words. They're like you—all of them. But how—how are you going to carry them out? Say, I'll tell you. Maybe I'm just seeing things as they happen, and not as folks guess they're going to figger out. You're going to help fix things right by tying yourself to the ranks of labor, so as to fight capital. That's how you're going to bring about brotherly and sisterly love in the world! By fighting! Say, you said you were going to enlist in the army. You have. And it's a fighting army, facing all the horrors of a war far more dreadful than the life-and-death struggle of nations. Do you need me to tell you of the wretched, self-seeking leaders of the working men? The men who lead them like a flock of silly sheep so they may personally prosper and feed on them? Do you need me to tell you, what every paper in the world tells you, of the awful sufferings the helpless women and kiddies go through? All just because these grabbing leaders, yearning for publicity and power, order their men-folk to stop work, and resort to violence for a few odd cents more pay, or because some wretched scallawag, who richly deserves it, no doubt, has fallen under the rules of his employers. That's not your Socialism, if I know you. Oh, this horrible, horrible bitterness and hatred going on everywhere about us. Why should it be? You ask that, too, and you get right up against one little fact of life—the power of money—and guess that's the root of it. It isn't! It isn't! I tell you there's just one cause. It's selfishness. It's the selfishness of one class just as sure as it's the selfishness of another. And they bring all sorts of arguments about principle to prop themselves up on. There's no principle about it. It's just self, self, self, all the time. Everybody wants something they don't honestly earn. And when they can't get it, if they think they're strong enough, they just start right out to fight for it, like a lot of savages, while those who look to them for support and comfort are left to starve, and put up with all the horrors caused by savage passions, inflamed to frenzy by those leaders who are the only creatures to obtain worldly advantage and benefit from their disgraceful doings. Oh, Frank, it's just awful to think that you have become one of these—these—villains."
The girl's passionate denunciation came to an end just as she halted at the foot of the great flight of steps leading up to the entrance of the Eldorado Hotel. But she waited for no comment from her silent companion. She just glanced up and pointed at the building. Then, with an almost kaleidoscopic return to her lightest, smiling manner, she announced their arrival at their destination.
"Say, Frank," she cried, with an air of absurd importance. "This is my hotel. We've a suite of elegant apartments right on the first floor. And, dear," with a sudden tenderness, "Mrs. Hendrie—Monica—your Mon, who loves you nearly as much as I do, is just waiting right there—for you. You'll come along in?"
Frank looked up into the tenderly pleading eyes, and his last objection melted before them.
He nodded.