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CHAPTER VIII

H

I

OW often we conscientiously believe ourselves at variance with the judgment of others yet, when the test comes, prove by our action that this apparent difference in opinion is superficial rather than basic! It is usually the conflict between the head and the heart crowding us into a corner, from which coign of disadvantage the heart looks out with crooked eyes!

Richard had declared to Lola that his idealism had been shown to be so thoroughly impractical that he had discarded it; that as he could not change the world's attitude he must accept its standard, false though he knew it to be. When he was called upon to accept as fact that which he declared inevitable, Lola's prescience proved keener than his!

It was his father who forced it. As the days passed, the relations between the two became more and more intolerable. James Norton knew that the labor cauldron was seething, and endeavored to secure through Richard information as to its nature. This Richard steadfastly refused to give.

"Take your choice, my boy, and take it now," the

older man finally said. "If I've got to fight against my own flesh and blood, the sooner I know it the better. If you are going to side with the men, then you are against the Company and me. You can't carry water on both shoulders. Which side do you take?"

Richard could not fail to detect the underlying note of appeal in his father's voice, domineering as it was, nor could he fail to realize that all future relations between them depended upon his answer. In the seconds of tense silence which followed the question, it seemed to him as if the events of his life thus far, as between his father and himself, marshalled themselves in a vivid series of unforgetable pictures.

II

There was his first and only physical punishment for some act of childish disobedience, when his mother's flashing eyes belied the calm firmness with which she held his angry father at bay and left so strong an impression that James Norton never again laid hands upon his son. There was that ever-present loneliness which every child inevitably feels when a parent is too preoccupied by other duties to give of himself in the thousand and one little ways in which youth takes delight. There were the constant verbal castigations which seared their marks upon the developing and sensitive negative of the growing boy's mind and heart. Into this brief moment of introspection came two fleeting memories which had contained elements of hope. One was the tragic moment after his mother's funeral, ten years before, when he and his father returned alone

to the great empty house. For the first time in his life the older man threw his arms about his son and drew the boy to him.

"You are all I have left," he said brokenly, . . "you must never disappoint me."

Richard had great expectations from that spontaneous expression of feeling; but, as the weeks and months went by, his father found the relief from his loneliness in longer business hours and more intense application to his work rather than in his son. Neither father nor son knew how to break down the intangible barrier between them, and the pregnant moment passed, leaving each thrown more than ever upon his own resources.

The unhappy curve of Richard's life took the second turn upward when he left for France. For the first time his father seemed pleased and gratified by an act of the boy's own volition, and showed a pride in him which raised hopes upon which Richard lived during those long months. He was certain that this time, when he returned, his father would treat him as a man, and that the great house would be robbed of its emptiness by the companionship each would give the other. But Richard had not been home twenty-four hours before he realized that he had again proved himself a disappointment, even though he could not discover in what way he had fallen short of expectations; and as time went on there came an absolute conviction that he could never find in his father nor could he give that which each sought and craved. Now, in the question his father put to him, Richard saw the final breach which would destroy even the semblance of amicable relations.

III

"Don't put it that way, father," Richard begged. "I have never been disloyal to you or to the Company. What I urge for the men is of equal importance to the business, only you can't see it that way. There is no reason why the Company should be against the men or the men against the Company. The interests are identical, and knowing both sides better than any one else ought to make me of even greater value to you."

"It would, if you were willing to use your knowledge for my benefit; but you won't tell me what the men's plans are."

"Nor will I tell the men what your plans are. You wouldn't have me yellow either way, would you?" "You're paid by the Company . . ."

"Not to spy on the men."

"You're paid to do as you're told, and I've told you to find out what the men plan to do, so that we can head them off."

Richard was silent.

"You still refuse?"

"Why don't you let the men appoint a committee and lay the situation squarely before them? They can't believe that things have turned as you and I know they have, but they would believe it if you showed them that bunch of cancelations and let them see how our inventories have dropped. Then listen to what they have to say on their side .. That's all I ask."

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"You'd have me treat them as partners, I suppose,"

Norton retorted.

"They are partners. They always have been, and they are entitled to your confidence."

"Why not turn the business over to them and be done with it? If you are going to preach sovietism you might as well go the whole hog."

"Please, father," Richard implored. "You know I'm no bolshevist. This means more to me than anything that has ever come into my life. I have lived a century these last two years, and I have been face to face with conditions which have never come even to you. The war has given the men a new viewpoint, while many of those who are running our great industrial plants, like you, father, have stood still. Your methods may have been all right before the new viewpoint came, but you must take it into account now. F didn't create it, the men didn't create it, . . the war did. I don't need to say whether I approve of it or not, but it exists, and you can't get away from it. Why not recognize the fact now voluntarily before you are forced to do so by the men themselves? Why not make use of me and my experience to put the new arrangement across ?"

James Norton had been ominously calm. Richard knew his moods, and the present one precluded the possibility of successful argument.

"You're wasting your time and mine," Norton said with determination. "I have listened to you because you are my son. I would have thrown any one else

out of the room who tried to talk such damned nonsense to me. Now get this . . . there may be a possibility of compromise in some things, but never in loyalty. You

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