Kitabı oku: «The Fall of a Nation», sayfa 5

“The American Republic is but a little over a hundred years old. We reckon in years, they reckon by centuries. The founding of this nation was one of the happiest accidents in the history of the world. But it was an accident. The kings were too busy fighting one another in the stirring years of the American Revolution to give their attention to you. Your fathers won on a lucky fluke. And thanks to the barriers of two vast oceans you grew and waxed strong with incredible rapidity. You were safe as long as these oceans protected you and no longer. The genius of man has abolished the ocean barrier. There is no more sea. The ocean is now the world’s highway and transport by water is swifter and safer than by land. The oceans no longer protect you. They are a constant menace to your existence – ”

“You are assuming that the world is not civilized – that we are still living in the Dark Ages,” Virginia interrupted.

“I am assuming only the facts of modern life: that force still rules the world; that government is force; that there are two forms of government and only two, and that they are irreconcilable – government by the people and government of the people by imperial masters. These systems can no more mix than fire and water. The world must yet be conquered by one of them. You assume that we have settled our form of government for all time. We have – provided we are ready to demonstrate to the imperial rulers that we can defend it against all comers – ”

Virginia threw up her hands in a gesture of despair.

“You’re hopeless!”

“Can you not see this?” he pleaded.

“I refuse to see it. I still have faith in God and my fellow man.”

He looked at her flushed exquisite face with deep tenderness – lifted his eyes and saw Zonia and Marya the center of an admiring group of children.

“You like my little Zonia?” he asked in apparently irrevelent tones.

“I love her – ”

“Her father, my elder brother, lived in Poland’s happiest tomb – in German Poland – ”

He stopped abruptly and gave a bitter little laugh.

“His home took fire one night and burned to the ground. By decree of his Imperial master he was not permitted to build a dwelling on his own land. He loved this land, poor fool. His wife and babies loved it. He couldn’t be dragged away. He took refuge in a barn. Through the summer they managed to live without a fire inside. They cooked in the open. But when the winter came and the snows fell, he was forced to smuggle a little stove into the barn to boil some eggs and cabbage and make tea for his children. He hid the stove in a deep hole under the floor. Ten days later an officer of the Imperial government, passing, saw the smoke, forced his way in and uncovered the secret. The stove had made the barn a dwelling and he had forfeited his estate and his liberty. He fought – as any man with a soul must fight – for his own! The end was sure. He shot the officer. But there were legions of these Imperial soldiers. They assaulted his frail barricade and riddled his body with bullets. His faithful wife died with him. And little Zonia and Marya were sent to me in free America. And so you see I lack faith in some men – ”

He stopped abruptly at the sight of Waldron’s heavy face with its arctic smile.

The millionaire lifted his hat, bowed slightly and disappeared from the doorway.

“Come with me to Mr. Waldron’s house, we must have a final conference there – ”

“Waldron’s house?” he asked incredulously.

“Certainly. His library has become our campaign headquarters – ”

“You’ll have to excuse me – ”

“But I won’t excuse you. We’re going to fight this thing out today.”

“I’ve nothing to say to Waldron.”

“But he has something very important to say to you – ”

“All right – he knows where I live – ”

Virginia laid her hand on his arm in a gesture of appeal that was resistless.

“Won’t you come with me?”

The frown slowly faded, and he smiled an answer.

“With you – yes.”

CHAPTER X

BILLY volunteered to take the children home, Vassar waved his farewell to the crowd and hurried to the waiting automobile.

Virginia presented him to the banker.

“Our irreconcilable foe, Mr. Waldron!”

The millionaire merely touched his hat with the barest suggestion of a military salute and Vassar bowed. It was not until they were seated in the car that Waldron spoke – the same cold smile about his lips.

“I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time, Mr. Vassar – ”

“I’m surprised to hear that,” was the light reply. “Our views could hardly be the same on any subject within my scope of knowledge – ”

Waldron smiled patronizingly.

“Anyhow, let us hope that we’ll get together today – ”

“We must,” Virginia responded.

The one thing Vassar couldn’t endure was patronage. The tone Waldron assumed was offensive beyond endurance. If he tried it again the young leader had made up his mind to find an excuse, stop the car and go back to his office.

To his relief the man of money made no further attempt at conversation, save for an occasional whispered order to his liveried chauffeur. Vassar’s eyes rested on the military cut of this chauffeur’s clothes with new resentment. The gilded coat of arms on the door of the tonneau had not escaped him as he took his seat beside Virginia. Nor was the lordly manner in which the new master of men condescended to talk with his servant at the wheel lost on the young leader of democracy.

He wondered what Virginia Holland could see in such a man. He refused utterly to believe that she could love him. Elemental brute strength and stark physical courage he undoubtedly possessed. The solid mass of his bull neck and the cold brilliance of his gray eyes left no doubt on that score.

There could be but one explanation of her association with Waldron. He had generously loosed his purse strings and given her cause the unlimited credit needed under modern conditions to conduct a great political movement. No one could blame her for that. It was good politics.

All the same he would give a good deal just now to know whether she cared for the man. He must yield the devil his due. Waldron was the type of domineering brute that appealed to many women. He wondered if Virginia Holland had felt the spell of his commanding character.

For the hundredth time he asked himself the question why should he care. There was the rub. Devil take it, he did care. He had never been so foolishly happy in his life as in the hours he had spent by this girl’s side. It infuriated him to think how easy had been his conquest. But yesterday he had scorned her name. They had met and talked a few hours and he had become her lackey. At her bidding he was now on his way to the house of the man he hated.

He caught himself grinning for sheer joy to find himself seated close beside her in the smooth gliding car of his enemy. He could have enjoyed this wonderful ride had they been alone.

The afternoon was one of glorious beauty. The rains of the first days of July had swept the city clean. The sun had broken the clouds into billowing banks of snow-white against the dazzling azure of the skies. A brisk inspiriting breeze swept in from the sea and rippled the waters of the North River into little white lines of foam. The trees along the Drive flashed in splendor.

The temptation was all but resistless to touch her hand. He started with terror at the crazy thought. She was anything but an Amazon, but he could see her pitching him headforemost into the road for daring the impertinence. He glanced at her furtively, alarmed lest she had read his thoughts.

Well, there was no help for it now. He was in for a fight for his life with this demure, quiet, dangerous little woman, who could sit calmly by his side mistress of her thoughts and no doubt perfectly conscious of her power over his.

Anyhow she was worth a fight. It was worth any man’s best to win the heart of such a woman and to make her his own. Could any man really do it? Of course he could! With the next breath he doubted it, and trembled at the happiness he felt bubbling in his soul when he felt the nearness of her exquisite figure.

“Why so grave, Mr. Congressman?” she asked banteringly.

“To tell you the truth, I’m scared,” he answered in low tones.

“Of the great man in front?” she whispered.

Vassar’s jaw closed with decision.

“Far from it, I assure you!”

“You’re not afraid of an automobile?”

“One more guess – ”

“You couldn’t be afraid of little me?” she asked demurely.

“Yesterday I would have said no with a very loud emphasis. I’m free to confess the more I’ve seen of you the more I dread your opposition – ”

She laughed in his face with a deliberate provoking challenge.

“Now that’s unkind of you! I expected a much more gallant answer from a tall handsome apostle of romance and chivalry.”

“Perhaps I was afraid you’d laugh at me – ”

“No. I hold that the age of true chivalry is only dawning – the age in which man will honor woman by recognizing her as worthy to be his pal and best friend as well as his toy.”

There was something so genuine to the appeal of her personality that the man who intellectually disagreed with her philosophy yet found himself in foolish accord with every demand she made.

Vassar was silent a moment, and glanced at her to see if she were chaffing or sparring to uncover his defenses.

He was about to say too much – to confess too much and do it clumsily in the presence of the man he hated when the machine suddenly swung toward the cliff, swept up to a massive iron gate and stopped.

The chauffeur sounded his horn and an old man dressed in the peasant costume of the lodge-keeper of a feudal estate of Central Europe emerged from the cottage built into the walls of the cliff and opened the gates without a word. He bowed humbly to the lord of the manor. Waldron nodded carelessly.

The banker’s medieval castle, perched on the highest hill on upper Manhattan, was one of the sights of the metropolis. Vassar lifted his eyes and caught the majestic lines of the granite tower thrusting its grim embattlements into the skies. An ocean-going yacht lay at her anchor in the river like a huge swan with folded wings. The Italian boathouse which he had built at the water’s edge was connected with his castle by an underground passage bored through the granite cliff into a hall cut out of the stone a hundred feet beneath the foundations of the structure above. A swift elevator connected this hall with the house.

The machine shot gracefully up the steep winding roadway and stopped beneath the vaulted porte-cochère.

Liveried flunkies hurried down the stone landing to greet their master and his guests. There was nothing for them to do but open the door of the tonneau with obsequious bows.

“Will you kindly make our prisoner as comfortable as possible, Miss Holland,” Waldron said in his even metallic voice, “while I give some orders outside. You’ll find the library at your disposal.”

“Thank you,” Virginia answered, mounting the steps without further ceremony.

A feeling of resentment swept John Vassar. How dare this bully assume such familiarity with Virginia Holland! She had met him as a patron of the cause of woman’s suffrage. One would think he had the right to her soul and body by the way he asked her to act as the hostess of his establishment. The thought that enraged him was that the banker was so cocksure of himself, his position. No robber baron of the Middle Ages could have felt more irresponsible in the exercise of his power. The consciousness of this power oozed from the fat pores of Waldron’s skin. He exuded the idea as he breathed.

Vassar’s first impression on entering the great house confirmed his idea of the man’s character. The whole conception of the place rested squarely on the royal splendors of the Old World. The lines of the huge building were a combination of two famous castles of medieval France, both the homes of kings. The great hall was an exact copy in form and decoration of the throne room of Napoleon in the palace at Versailles.

His library walls above the bookcases bristled with arms and armor. Anything more utterly undemocratic could not have been found in the centers of Europe.

The atmosphere of the place was stifling.

Vassar turned to Virginia with a movement of impatience.

“You like this?” he asked.

“I think it very imposing,” was the diplomatic answer.

“So do I,” he snapped, “and that’s why I loathe it. Such ostentation in a democracy whose life is just beginning can mean but one thing. The man who built this castle to crown the highest hill of a city is capable of building a throne in the East Room of the White House if the time ever comes that he dares – ”

Virginia shook her head good-humoredly.

“I’m afraid you’re prejudiced against our patron saint.”

“No,” Vassar answered steadily, “I’m not prejudiced. I hate him with the hatred that is uncompromising – that’s all. There’s not room for the two things for which we stand in this republic. One of us must live, the other die.”

“I suppose a woman doesn’t look on such a house as this with your eyes,” she answered smiling.

“No, that’s just it – you don’t – and it’s one of the reasons why I’m afraid of you – ”

Vassar turned to examine the collection of chain armor at the end of the room without waiting for her answer. He was in a bad humor. The place had gotten on his nerves.

When he returned again, regretting his curt speech, she was standing at the entrance talking in low tones to Waldron. His footstep had made no sound on the cushion of oriental rugs which covered the inlaid marble floor.

Without so much as a look his way she passed Waldron and left the library.

The banker walked briskly toward Vassar and waved his short, heavy arm toward a chair.

“Won’t you sit down, sir?” he asked coldly.

With mechanical precision he opened a jeweled cigarette box and extended it.

“Thanks,” Vassar answered carelessly, “I have a cigar.”

He struck a match on his heel, lit the cigar and seated himself leisurely.

Waldron sat down opposite and began his attack without delay.

“Miss Holland has just informed me that you are unalterably opposed to woman’s suffrage?”

“Until I see it differently, I am,” was the tense reply.

“I take it then that it will be a waste of words for us to discuss that question?”

“Yes – and before we waste words on any other question I must ask whom you represent in this conference concerning my career?”

“I’ll tell you with pleasure,” was the quick answer. “I am perhaps the largest contributor to the cause of woman’s suffrage – ”

“Do you believe in it?” Vassar interrupted sharply.

Waldron weighed his answer and spoke with metallic emphasis.

“Whether I do or do not is beside the mark for the moment. You have settled that issue between us, and my views are of no importance. I am pressing for a woman’s victory for a more important reason than my faith in her ballot or my lack of faith in its ultimate effects. The immediate result of women’s vote will be to make war remote. My big purpose is to prevent this nation from sinking into the abyss of militarism in which Europe now flounders – ”

“In other words,” Vassar broke in, “you mean to prevent this country from preparing to defend herself from the power of Imperial Europe?”

Waldron searched his opponent for a moment of intense silence and slowly answered:

“If you care to put it that way – yes. I represent the combined forces of peace and sanity in this nation. We have determined that America shall not be cursed by the military caste. We are determined that our country shall not follow in the mad blind race of the Old World in building armaments with which to murder our fellow men. I have made no secret of my purpose and I am going to win. I am going to defeat your bill to place our army and navy on the footing of war-cursed Europe – ”

“My bill does not propose to establish a military caste,” Vassar protested. “It only demands a trained citizen soldiery for adequate defense, armed and ready to enter the field, an effective wall of patriotic fire if we are assailed. I ask a navy that will be absolutely sure to sink the fleet of any power that may attack us. I do not ask that this fleet shall be in constant commission, only that it shall be built and ready for service.”

“Your demand is preposterous,” Waldron coldly answered. “You ask for a bond issue of $500,000,000 for naval purposes only – ”

“Anything less will be inadequate. We are behind the world in guns, behind the world in aircraft, behind the world in submarines. We invented the aeroplane. We invented the machine gun. We invented the iron-clad. We invented the submarine. We must lead the world in these arms of defense – not follow, the last lame duck in the march! An inadequate navy no matter how great its size is worse than none. It will merely lead us into trouble and murder our defenders. War is now a merciless science. Skill, not physical courage, wins. The machine has become the master of the world – ”

“Please!” Waldron cried with hand uplifted in a gesture of impatience. “I know your speech by heart. It’s old. It doesn’t interest me. Come to the point. If you’ll agree as chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs to modify your bill to train and arm a million citizen soldiers, and reduce your naval programme to two battleships, four cruisers, twenty-four submarines and twenty-four aeroplanes, we can come to terms – ”

Vassar rose, fixed his opponent with a searching look and said:

“I’ll see you in hell first – ”

“All right,” Waldron snapped. “I’m going to wipe you off the map. There’ll be a new chairman of your Committee when Congress meets in December – ”

Vassar held his enemy with a steady gaze.

“You haven’t enough dirty money to buy my district, Waldron,” he answered. “We’re a humble people on the East Side, but I’ll show you that there are some things in this town that are not for sale – ”

A smile of contempt played about the banker’s cold lips as he rose.

“I’ll be there when you make the demonstration,” he responded with careful emphasis.

“You’ll excuse me now?” Vassar said politely.

“Certainly. My car will drop you at any address you name.”

“Thank you, I prefer the subway.”

“As you like,” the metallic voice clicked.

CHAPTER XI

VASSAR turned with a quick movement, passed into the hall and ran squarely into Virginia who was about to enter the library.

“Your interview at an end so soon? I took a turn in the garden for only five minutes. I was to join your conference. You have quarreled?”

“No – just agreed to fight, that’s all – ”

“A compromise is impossible?”

“Utterly – ”

“I am sorry,” she answered gravely.

The iron doors of the elevator softly opened with a low click and two slender young men of decidedly foreign features stepped briskly out, accompanied by the tall, straight figure of Villard. They crossed the hall and ascended the broad stairway as if at home. The clothes of the younger men were fitted with extreme care. The waist line was gracefully modeled. It was evident that they both wore corsets. They walked with the quick, measured tread of the trained soldier. From their yachting caps it was evident they had just entered the house through the tunnel from the river landing. Their slight waxed mustaches particularly caught Vassar’s attention and brought a smile of contempt. Undoubtedly they were the pampered darlings of a foreign court, friends of Waldron’s whom he was cultivating for some purpose. The Congressman wondered what the devil they could be doing in America when all the Old World was at war? He also wondered who Villard was – Villard with his fierce upturned mustache after the style of von Hindenberg. They might be South Americans or from the Balkan states of course. Waldron’s banking house was one of the international group and his agents came from every corner of the globe.

When they had passed Virginia quietly asked:

“May I go downtown with you?”

In the tumult of anger that still raged within over Waldron’s challenge the incongruity of the proposal struck him with new force. The offer seemed almost brazen. Under conditions of a normal environment it would have meant nothing more than a pretty attempt to console him in an hour of disappointment. Coming at the moment of his departure from the sinister establishment of the man he hated, it struck him as suggestive of a secret understanding between the two.

His one desire now was to be alone and breathe clean air.

“You’ll not like the long rough walk to the subway I’m afraid,” he protested.

“You will not return in the car?” she asked in surprise.

“I prefer to walk – ”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” she answered firmly. “You’ll go with me – and I’m not going to walk.”

“You must excuse me” – he persisted.

“I will not. And I’ll never speak to you again unless you obey my orders for this one afternoon at least.”

He searched her face to see if she meant it, caught the look of determination and answered in quick tones of apology.

“Of course, if you really wish it, you know that it will give me pleasure – ”

Virginia returned to the library, spoke to Waldron and in a few minutes they were again seated by each other’s side swiftly gliding down the Drive.

“Stop at the Claremont,” she called to the chauffeur. “I’m starved. We would have had lunch served in the library if your lordship had not been so proud and particular – ”

“I couldn’t eat at Waldron’s table. I’d choke,” he answered in low tones.

“I’m afraid you’re not a good politician after all,” she observed. “You are too emotional. You allow your temperament to betray you into errors of diplomacy. You should have cultivated Waldron, flattered his vanity and studied his character – ”

“I know it already – ”

“I thought so at first myself,” she answered thoughtfully. “The more I see of him the less I know him. He’s a puzzle – ”

“He’s merely an ape of foreign snobs – that’s all.”

“You utterly misjudge him,” Virginia protested. “He has too much strength for that. His ambitions are too great.”

“Then he’s more dangerous than I have thought.”

“What do you mean?” she asked in surprise.

“Nothing that I could put into words without making myself ridiculous in your eyes perhaps, yet the idea grows on me – ”

Virginia laughed.

“You can’t do an opponent justice, can you?”

“No – can you?”

The car swept gracefully up the roadway to the rose-embowered white cottage on the hill. They leaped out and found a table in the corner overlooking the majestic sweep of the river and Jersey hills beyond.

Vassar was moody in spite of the inspiring view and the radiant face opposite. Again and again he tried to pull himself out of the dumps and enjoy this wonderful hour with the most fascinating woman he had ever met. It was no use. Waldron’s frozen smile, his royal establishment, his corseted pets, his big friend with the fierce mustache, his white yacht and the soft click of the doors of that elevator filled his mind with sinister suggestions.

“I’m so disappointed in you,” Virginia said at last.

“Why?”

“I’d planned to relax a little this afternoon. It’s Saturday you know. I thought you might be human enough just to play for a few hours. I wanted to find the real man side of you – not the statesman or the politician – ”

“To study me under the microscope as another specimen of the species and plan my extermination?”

“No – to get acquainted in the simplest kind of old-fashioned way. But I see it’s no use today. You’re a greater enigma to me than Waldron. But I’m not going to be beaten so easily. I’m going to find you out now that I’ve made up my mind. I’ve a proposal to make before we begin the scrap in your district – ”

“A proposal?” he asked mischievously.

“Yes! It’s hardly decent I know. Anyhow, I’m not wholly responsible for it. You’ve made a wonderful hit with my old soldier Dad. He has talked nothing else but your bill for an adequate national defense. He has positively ordered me to make you our guest for a couple of weeks at our country place on Long Island – ”

Vassar blushed like a schoolboy.

“I should be only too happy – ”

“I warn you that the Old Guard will talk you into a spell of sickness about war and the certainty of this country being captured by the Germans or Japs – ”

“He can’t say too much to me on that subject,” Vassar declared.

“And if you’ll bring your father and the children I’m sure we could keep you until I’ve wormed the last secret out of you – ”

“It wouldn’t be imposing on you?”

“You would do us a favor. Zonia would keep Billy at home. Marya and your father would be an endless source of joy to my mother. We’ve a big old house and a lot of vacant rooms. You’ll bring them all?”

“My dear Miss Holland,” he answered gratefully, “you overwhelm me with your kindness. My father and the kids have never been so honored. You will make them supremely happy – ”

“You see,” Virginia interrupted, “I’ve a scheme back of this invitation. I’ve not only determined to find you out, but I’m a politician whether you like it or not. I’m going to make it just as difficult as I possibly can for you to fight me. You’ll walk into the trap with your eyes wide open – ”

“I absolve you from all responsibility for my ruin,” he laughed.

“You’ll join us at Babylon on Sunday?”

“Tomorrow?”

“The sooner the better. We go down this evening – ”

The clouds suddenly lifted. Vassar couldn’t keep his face straight. He was so happy it was absurd. An hour ago he was in the depths of despair. The foundations of the nation’s life were sinking. The sky had cleared. The sun was sparkling on the waters of the river in dazzling splendor. The world was beautiful and the country safe.

His mind was planning absurd programs for each day. He wondered for just a moment if she could be capable of plotting with Waldron to remove him from the district for two weeks, to lay the foundations of a movement to wreck his career —

He looked into the depths of her brown eyes and threw the ugly thought to the winds.