women rule American men. I begin to see the reason for your confidence. You will enlist of course the eloquent young leader who addressed the mob in Union Square last week?”
“At once,” Waldron answered quickly. “Virginia Holland is one of the feminine gods at the moment. It’s amazing with what blind worship her disciples follow – ”
“She’s a stunning young woman, sir!” Villard broke in gallantly. “By Jove, she stirred me. You can’t neglect her – ”
“I shall cultivate her at once,” was the quiet answer. “In the meantime, Meyer” – Waldron paused and held the enthusiast’s eye for an instant and went on rapidly – “we will forget the ships – ”
Meyer frowned in surprise but had no time to answer before he received the curt order in an undertone.
“Wait for me – I’ve more important work for you.” Waldron rose and drew Villard and Mora aside.
Without ceremony he placed five yellow-backed one hundred dollar bills in Villard’s hands and a single one in Mora’s.
“We hold a great Peace rally to launch the popular movement against this bill to establish militarism in the United States. The classes who cherish varied theories of peace will join us. The Honorable Plato Barker is at the moment the leader of the peace yodelers. He is a professional lecturer who loves the sound of his own voice. He knows you, Villard, and prizes your opinions on Peace – ”
Villard gave a dry little laugh.
“You will personally see the Honorable Plato and secure him as our principal speaker. And you, Mora, happen to know the Reverend A. Cuthbert Pike, D.D., President of the American Peace Union. His church maintains some missionaries in your benighted native land. His office is at the Bible House. I want him to introduce the Honorable Plato Barker – ”
Mora smiled and bowed, and the two hurried to execute their orders. Villard’s car was waiting. The master of the house took Meyer’s arm, led him to the corner of the library and for half an hour gave explicit instructions in low tones.
Before showing Meyer to the door another roll of bills was duly delivered for defraying the expenses of his important work. The enthusiast brought his heels together with a sharp click, saluted and hurried down the broad stairs. He declined the offer of an automobile. He didn’t like millionaires. He only used them.
Waldron watched him go with a curious smile, drew on his gloves and called for his hat and cane.
The flunkey who hovered near obeyed the order with quick servility and stood watching his master go by the broad porte-cochère, wondering why the order had not been given him for the car.
Waldron signaled his night chauffeur, and the big limousine darted to the stoop. As the driver leaned out to receive his orders, Waldron spoke in low tones:
“To Miss Virginia Holland’s on Stuyvesant Square – ”
The driver nodded and closed the door of the limousine. He had been there before.
CHAPTER II
VIRGINIA HOLLAND, at her desk preparing an address on the Modern Feminist Movement, dropped her pencil and raised her head with a look of startled surprise at the cry of a newsboy in the street below. The whole block seemed to vibrate with his uncanny yell:
“Wuxtra! Wuxtra!”
A sense of impending calamity caught her heart for a moment. It was a morbid fancy, of course, and yet the cry of the boy kept ringing a personal warning.
Work impossible, she opened her door, called and asked her brother Billy to get a copy of the paper.
Before he returned her anxiety had increased to the point of pain. She rapidly descended the stairs and waited at the door.
Billy entered reading the headlines announcing Vassar’s new programme of military preparation. Virginia flushed and gazed at the announcement with increasing excitement. The name of John Vassar had caused a flush before the announcement of his bill had made an impression. Her handsome Congressman neighbor, though they had never formally met, had for some months past been a disturbing factor in a life of hitherto serene indifference to men. That he should have antagonized in this bill her well known position as the uncompromising advocate of peace and of universal disarmament was a shock. His proposal to arm the American Democracy came as a slap in her face. She felt it a personal affront.
Of course she had no right to such feeling. John Vassar was nothing to her! She had only seen him pass her window three times during the year. And yet the longer she gazed at the announcement the more furious she became. At least he might have consulted her as the leading public-spirited woman in his district on this measure of such transcendent importance. He had not done so, for a simple reason. He knew that she opposed militarism as the first article of her life faith. Her hand closed on the paper in a grip of resentment. She made up her mind instantly to force his hand on the suffrage issue. She would show him that she had some power in his District.
Her mood of absorbed anger was suddenly broken by Billy’s joyous cry:
“Hurrah for John Vassar, sis. Me for West Point! Will you make him appoint me?”
She turned in sudden rage and boxed her young brother’s ears, smiled at his surprise, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. She boxed his ears for crying hurrah for Vassar. She kissed him for the compliment of her supposed power over the coming statesman.
To hide her confusion she began at once a heated argument over the infamies of a military régime. The quarrel broke the peaceful scene of a game of checkers between the father and mother in the sitting-room, and brought the older people into the hall:
“In heaven’s name, Virginia!” her father exclaimed. “What is the matter?”
“Read it” – she answered angrily, thrusting the paper into his hand.
The Grand Army veteran read with sparkling eyes.
“Good!” he shouted.
“That’s what I say, father!” Billy echoed.
“It’s absurd,” Virginia protested. “War on this country is impossible. It’s unthinkable – ”
The old soldier suddenly seized her hand.
“Impossible, is it? Come with me a minute, Miss!”
He drew her into the library followed by Billy – the mother striving gently to keep the peace.
Holland led his eloquent daughter to the rack above the center bookcase and took from its place his army musket.
“That’s what they said, my girl, in ’61. Here’s the answer. That’s what your grandmother said to your grandfather. That’s why we’ve bungled every war we ever fought and paid for it in rivers of blood!”
The family row started anew – the father and boy for preparation against war, the daughter and mother for peace – peace at any price.
The quarrel was at its height when Waldron’s car arrived.
Old Peter, the stately negro butler of the ancient régime, closed the folding doors to drown the din before ushering the distinguished guest into the parlor. Waldron was a prime favorite of Peter’s. The
