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big that we can't expect to do more than make a start, but if I can even do that I shall be satisfied. If the American Legion would only throw its weight to force the issue nothing could stop it. This is just the kind of constructive work they ought to do. The Legion was formed 'to combat the autocracy of both the classes and the masses; to make right the master of might; to promote peace and good-will on earth; to safeguard and transmit to posterity the principles of justice, freedom, and democracy.' Its members, pledged to these articles of incorporation are to be found among the employers and the employed. Industrial peace means production, and production means the solution of the world's problem today."

"Oh, Dick!" Lola cried, fired by his enthusiasm. "If that could only be spread over the country, over the world! Isn't there some little way I could help?"

"Of course, Lola," he answered with unconscious patronage, oblivious to the part she had already played; "but I particularly need your father. I also need every one who can see beyond himself and his own petty little personal interests. For the struggle will not be with Capital alone. The labor organizations are handicapped by those who think only of themselves. The mass of the workers are honest and sincere in seeking a fair return for their efforts, and are willing to give a full equivalent. Those who influence them to do otherwise are traitors to their own brothers, and must be weeded out. But they'll fight, and by confusing the real issue will divide the men and endanger our success."

"You have your own men back of you

99

"Only partially. Tony Lemholtz and his radicals are against me from the start. Sterling and the conservatives are with me. Little Olga Mirovich is my right-hand man. I don't know what I'd do without her."

Richard was too obsessed by his subject to notice the expression which passed over Lola's face, so her question surprised him.

"Is Olga only a right-hand man, Dick?" she asked pointedly. "Olga is a woman, and a very pretty one."

Richard looked at her a moment and then laughed. "If I didn't know you so well, Lola, I'd think you were jealous! No; there's nothing like that. Olga and I have a big common interest, but aside from that the child simply amuses me."

"She is no child, Dick," Lola said gravely, .. "and people are talking."

A wave of angry color surged through Richard's face.

"They're talking, are they? Well... let them talk! There's nothing between Olga and me which isn't thoroughly respectable, even measured by standards you and I know are stupid. Until the world learns the difference between essentials and non-essentials, and to mind its own business, people will waste their breath like that. A man's life is made up of his work and his pleasures. It's clear to me now what my work is to be; my pleasures I will pluck as I can, for there are to be few enough for me at best . . . Cheer up, O mentor o'mine! I'm feeling very happy today, . .

'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying,

And this same flower that smiles today

Tomorrow will be dying,'

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he quoted irrelevantly. "Let's talk of real things." "Can't we talk a little about ourselves, Dick?" she began. "Surely that is real. I haven't seen you for nearly two weeks."

"That subject is taboo, Lola," was the quick answer. "It leads to but one conclusion, and that you've asked me to avoid."

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"I have come to see things your way, Lola," Richard went on. "It hasn't been easy, but I've brought myself to believe that you are right in saying that neither one of us in ready yet to think of marriage. What you said is true: we must prove ourselves faithful to what the war taught us before we earn the right to consider ourselves. The men seem to think that I can lead them. This may be the call you spoke of, which you urged me not to ignore. I will try to live up to the best there is in me, Lola, and I am satisfied, now that I realize that this is what you want me to do."

III

Lola let him leave her without further protest. While in this mood, it was useless for her to explain to him that since their last conversation circumstances had removed the single obstacle to their marriage. What Richard said showed how little he understood the pur

pose of her insistence . . . had he found himself earlier there would have been no need of postponement. Today she not only stood ready but was as eager as he had been for the union which would permit them to work out their problem jointly, . . but now Richard saw in their marriage a hindrance to his plans. He seemed to feel that he had simply fallen in with her ideas, when in reality he had established a new basis of his own. The situation had taken an unexpected turn, and she must think it out. . . Had his intimacy with Olga been a factor in his decision? . . . People said . . .

"I am just like every one else," Lola declared to herself, indignant that she had permitted her thoughts to run along this line, . . "How can I ever expect to accomplish anything with others if I am so inconsistent myself?"

CHAPTER XI

I

I

T MUST not be supposed that Henry Cross dropped out of town affairs after his historic bat

tle with James Norton over the baptismal name. On the contrary, Norton would have told you with some degree of feeling that Henry Cross was distressingly omnipresent. The Cross ancestry went back in too direct a line in New England genealogy to make it possible for the present family head to accept an eclipse without enforcing a price which should be felt in the paying. James Norton had been the shadow which had blotted out the disk of Henry Cross's sun, and for twenty years the offended Dorian had quietly but effectively enforced almost daily reprisals. Let Norton undertake to secure a coveted piece of land, and it would develop that Cross had anticipated him or the price had doubled; let him, as president, propose any action for the bank, and Cross, as director, straightway and as a matter of principle put himself in opposition. If a Norcrossian made an enemy of James Norton by that act he became a friend of Henry Cross. The other citizens of the town recognized the antagonism and enjoyed it, a favorite form of salutation being, "What's the latest

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