The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 16, 1904, Page 1

wd he nstall- be Grafters,” a po- Sy by Francis Lynde, 3 s Tt unday $ tagazine on October 9, I will be compicted < Ms is a8 gradually increasing 35 and one i por- & reciully the power of & latter-day politics o3 n Pa- ) ch I L4 » fred r L ate at the nt d she liked him 1 the footing of R M hat is ex ¥y what of this one the passage it had chances gift of true Justic i aid t t half-absently; and tarted forward and said: beg 1 E Y €yes meet is " ing shadow of d TI'm afraid I wa But it is onc of w If T were a man I should "o purify then To do my part 1g. The great heart of the pe s honest and-well- meaning; I th ¢ all ‘admit that. d there is in ce, too. . Bt hu- 1 nature is the same asiitiusadito: when they set up a man whoscould d him a king. Gentle or sim- and called i st be led.” ¥ i There i8 no lack of uadenhiy, such ~l as itis,” he hazarded. v there -seems to be a piti- 1 of the right ud;.men who Jl put seif-seeking and unworthy bition aside and lift the standard of Are ight doing for own there any such men nowa- 1 temapted: to doubt it. scramble for place and ost part. The kind of in mind isn’t in it: uld a plag pot.” ted him firmly. » I have in he would take id try to make would put the selfish frantic the u have 1d wouldr n i temptations under foot and give the people a Jeader worth following—be the real mind andé hand of ‘the well- mea majc e 100k Not unless we admit’ a 1notive stronger than the abstraction which we call patriotism.” “l don’t understand,” she esaid; ning, rather, that she ref understand. I mean that such a‘'man. however exalted his views might be, would have to hawve object more personal to him than The mere dutiful promptings of patriotism to make him do his best.” “But that would be seif-seeking again.” ot necessarily in - the narrow The old knightly chivalry was eautiful thing in its way, and it gave an uplift to an age which would have been frankly brutal without it; vet it had its-well-spring in what ap- peals-to ‘us now as being rather a fan- tastic sentiment.” “And we are not sentimentalists?” she suggested. “No; and it's worse for use in some respects. You will not: find your ideal pelitician "until you find 2 man with pomewhat of the old knightly spirit in Lim. And I'll go further and say, that \\hun vou do find him he;will ;be ‘at rt:the chamipion of the woman:he es~rather thw that: of ‘a political - constituency."” She became silent at that, and for a time the low t harmonies of the mocturne Penelope was playing filled the gape. Kent left his and began to for Ormsby’s return. He the wound again, and the proc was. mo than commonly painful. They had been speaking in } v man and a woman will; yet he r sure the mask of meta- phor was trangparent. no less to her than to him. As mauy times before, hise heart was crying to. her; but now behind the ¢ % surging tidal wave of emotior strange; a toppling down of and 'a sweeping inrush of passionate rebellion. Why had she put it out of har pewer to make him her champion in the field of ‘the lust of m tery? Instantly, and like a re- vealing . lightning flash, ‘it dawned upon him that this was his a ken - ing. Something y of himself she had shown him in the former time; how he was rus g inactivein the smail field when he should be doin% a man's work, the work for whi his. train- ing had fitted him, in the lar But the glamor of sentiment had been over it all in-those days and to the’passion warped the high call is transmitted in terms’ of self seeking. He turned upon her suddenly. “Did you mean to reproach me?” he asked abruptly. “How absurd!" “No, it isn't. You are responsible for me, in a certain sénse. ‘ You sent me out into the world and somehow I feel as'if I had' disappointed you.” “But what went ye out for to see?” she quoted softly. “I'*know,” he' nodded, sitting down again. “You thought you were arous- ing a wonhy ambition, but it was only avaricé that was -quickened. I've been trying to Be a money: getter.” “You can be something vastly bet- ter.” . : “No, I'm'afraid not; it is too late.” Agaxn the piano mellowed silence su- pervened, and Kent put his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, - being very miserabie. He believed now what he had been slow to credit before, that he had had it in him to hew his W&y to the end of the line if only the motive were strong enough to call out all the reserves of battle might and courage. That motive she alone, of all the women in the world, might have supplied, he told himself in keen self- pity. With her love to. arm him, her r cyed faith to inspire him. . . * sat up straight and pushed the cup of bitter herbs aside. . There would be time enough to drain it farther on. “Coming back to the stock market andsthe present crisis,” he ‘said; break- ing*the silence in sheer self-defense; *Ormsby - and I—-" She lmd put the resurrécted topiu back into its grave with a little ges- ture of apathetic impatience she used now #nd thep'with Ormsby. “I suppose>I ought to be interested, but I am not,” she confessed. “Moth-~ er will do as-she thinks.best, and we shall calmly acqulesce, as we uwiy- do.” David Kent was not sorry 'to be re- lieved in so many words of the per- suasive responsibility, and the mu‘: drifted into , reminiscence, with’ the Croydon sunynsr for a background. . It was pastime ‘fir Kent; peri subversive of. Tous, ~ahd . many’ things. ~ One ‘of ‘his m“u”g « ‘comforts been the thought that lowever bitter his own disappeint- ment uu? Elinor at least was-happy, But in this new-old fleld of talk a change came over her and he was no longer sure she was .entirely happy. She was saying things with a flavor akin to cynidiém in them, as thus: “Do you rémember how we used to Bo into raptures:of pious indignatioa over the make-believe sentiment of the summer man and the summer gicl? I recoliect your saying once that it was wicked; a desecration of things which ought to be held sacred. (It isn't so very long ago, but-T think we were bothi very young that summer— younger th Don’t you? “Doubtles: said David Kent. He was at a pass in which he weuld have agreed with her if she had asserted that black was white. It was not weak- n we can ever be again. ness; it was merely that he was ab- sorbed in & groping search for the word which would fit her char_ed mood. “We have learned to be more chari- table sinck,” she went on; “‘more chari- table and less sentimental, perhaps. And yet we prided ourselves on our sineerity in that young time, don’t you “l, at .least, was sincere,” he re- joined bluntfy. He had found the mood- word at, last: it was. resentmen?; though, ‘being @ ‘man, he could see no good reason. why'the memories of the “Croydon''sufnmer should make her re- sentful. ' * : She was not looking at him when she said: ‘!No: sincerity is always just. ‘And you . were not quite it, T think.” “To you?” he demand: “Oh, no; to yourself.” Portia' Van Brock’'s accusation was hammering. itseif into his.brain. You have marred her between you. For your sake she can never be: quite all she ought to be to him; for his sake she could never be guite the same to you, A ‘cold wave of lpprehenlion sub- merged him, - In seeking t0'd6 the most unselfish thing - that offered, had he succeeded “only 'in making bher despise |2 The question was' still hnnun: an- A ‘when there came the sound of and c(oix&m Ormsby in upen them. g00d-night ayd joined him at once. “What ' luck was ' David Kent's anxious query when;they were free of the house and had turned their faces townward. “Just as much as we might have ex- pected. Mrs. Hepzibah refuses point- blank to sell her’ stock—won't talk about it. ‘The idea of parting with it now, when it is actually worth . more than it was when we Bought it!"" he quoted, mimicking ~ithe ~ thin-lipped, acidulous protest. “Later,’ in an evil minute, I tried to . drag . yeu in, and she let you have it square on the point of the jaw-——intimated that it was a deal in which some of you inside peopld need- ed her block of stock ‘to make you whole. She did, by Jove!" Kent’s laugh was mirthless. “lI was never down in -her good books,” he said by way of accounting for the accusation. If Ormsby thought he knew the reason why, he was’ magnanimous enough to steer clear of that shoal. “It's a mess,” he growled. " *T don't fancy you had any better luck with Elinor.” “She seemed mot to , care much about it either way.' She said: her mother would have the casting vote.” “I know. What ¥ don’'t know'is, what remains to be done."” “More waiting,” said Kent, definit- ively, “The fight is fairly. on. now— as between the Bucks crowd and the corporations, I mean—but there will probably bé ups and down enough to scare Mrs. Brentwood into letting go. ‘We must be ready to strike when the iron is hot; that’s all.” The New Yorker tramped a full ‘Square in thoughtful silence before he_ said: *“Candidly, Kent, Mrs. Hepazi- bah's little stake in Westetn Pacific isn’t altogether a matter ‘f life and death to mée, don't you know? If it ‘comes to the worst I can have my ‘breker play the part of the god in the car./ .Happily, or unhappily, which- ever way you like to put it, I sha'n't miss what he may have to put up to make good on her 3000 shares.” David Kent ' stopped short and wheeled sudder upon his com- panio “Ormsb) T've been afraid of and it's the one thing you Why not the straight- forw Ke 1s skati thin fee Eiinor made him fear) “If thout being told it proves th mfl'm' has spoiled you to tha It is be- you have ne right te rap 3 Brentwood into obligation that would make ur debtor for the very food sh 4 the clothes she wear 3 will sny she need never know; be very sure she would find oul, one ay or another; and she would never forgive you.” “Um.” said Ormsby, turning visi- bly arim. “You are frank enough— to draw it mildly Another man in my place migh est that it isn't adr and caught step Mr. David Keut's a Kent turned abou again. ‘ve had my say Ul of it he rejoined st “We've been de- cently mo up to new, and we won't go be to the elemental things so late in the d AN the same, you'll not tak amiss if 1 say that [ know Mis: ntwood r Dbetter than you do.” nsby did » ay ther he would or would 1 d talkk’ went aside to less summary ways and means pre- servative twood fortunmes. But at the archway of the Camelot Club, where Kent sed. Ormsby went back to the debatal und in an out= spoken word “1 know pr now what there is between nd we mustn't quarrel if we “he said. “If you a hat I didn’t dare Are you s ' .8aid David Kent; and-with they separated. VIIL CHAPTEI The ‘ld\llldn y the terms of its dating clause the v trust and corporation law became ctive at once, “the public welfare requiring it”; and though. there was an Immediate sympathetic decline. In the securities involved, there was'no pahie, financial or industrial, to.marl the change from the old to the new. Contrary to the expectations of the alarmists and the lawyers, and some= whet to the disappointment of the-lat ter, the vested interests showed no dis- position to test the constiutionality of the act in the courts. So far, indeed, from making difficuities, the varioup alien corporations affected by the new aw wheeled promptly into line in'com- pliance with its provisions, vying with one another in proving, or seeming' to prove, the time-worn aphorism that capital can never afford to be otherwise than strictly law-abiding. In the reorganization of the West- ern Pacific, David Kent developed at once and hearfily into that rare and much-sought-for quantity, a' man for an emergency. Loring, #so,*was a busy man in this transition period, yet'he found time to keep an-appreciative eye on Kent, and, true to his implied prom- ise, pushed him vigorously for the first Pplace in the legal department of the lo- calized company. Since the resident manager stood high ' in the .Boston counsels of the company, the pushing ‘was not without results; and while Da- vid Kent was still up to his eyes In the work of flogging the “affairs of the newly named Transwestern into con- formity with the law, his appointment as general counsel came from:the Ad- visory Board. - At one time, when success in his chosen voeation meant' more to him than he thought it could ever mean again, the promoted subordinate would have had an attack of jubilance lttle in keeping with the grave responsibili- ties of his office. As it fell out, he was too busv to celebrate, and too sore on the sentimental side to rejoice. Hence, his recognition of the promotion was merely a deeper plunge into the flood of legalities and the adding of twe s,