The Mutable Many E-Book

Robert Barr

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

First published in 1896 and considered one of Robert Barr’s best works, this historical novel set in London at the beginning of the 20th century and centering on an industrial strike and a love triangle. The men in Monkton and Hope’s factory strike. Sartwell, their manager, refuses to compromise with them, but discusses the situation with Marsten, one of their number, who clings to his own order, at the same time that he avows his love for Sartwell’s daughter Edna. Sartwell forbids him to speak to her. The strike is crushed, Marsten is dismissed, and becomes secretary to the Labor Union. He sees Edna several times, she becomes interested in him, and her father sends her away to school... A great read, „The Mutable Many” is thoroughly recommended for inclusion on the bookshelf of any home and for lovers of historical novels.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXVI

CHAPTER XXXVII

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CHAPTER I

The office of Monkton & Hope’s great factory hung between heaven and earth, and, at the particular moment John Sartwell, manager, stood looking out of the window towards the gates, heaven consisted of a brooding London fog suspended a hundred feet above the town, hesitating to fall, while earth was represented by a sticky black-cindered factory-yard bearing the imprint of many a hundred boots. The office was built between the two huge buildings known as the “Works.” The situation of the office had evidently been an after-thought–it was of wood, while the two great buildings which it joined together as if they were Siamese twins of industry, were of brick. Although no architect had ever foreseen the erection of such a structure between the two buildings, yet necessity, the mother of invention, had given birth to what Sartwell always claimed was the most conveniently situated office in London. More and more room had been acquired in the big buildings as business increased, and the office–the soul of the whole thing–had, as it were, to take up a position outside its body.

The addition, then, hung over the roadway that passed between the two buildings; it commanded a view of both front and back yards, and had, therefore, more light and air than the office Sartwell had formerly occupied in the left-hand building. The unique situation caused it to be free from the vibration of the machinery to a large extent, and as a door led into each building, the office had easy access to both. Sartwell was very proud of these rooms and their position, for he had planned them, and had thus given the firm much additional space, with no more ground occupied than had been occupied before–a most desirable feat to perform in a crowded city like London.

Two rooms at the back were set apart for the two members of the firm, while Sartwell’s office in the front was three times the size of either of these rooms and extended across the whole space between the two buildings. This was as it should be; for Sartwell did three times the amount of work the owners of the business accomplished, and, if it came to that, had three times the brain power of the two members of the firm combined, who were there simply because they were the sons of their fathers. The founders of the firm had with hard work and shrewd management established the large manufactory whose present prosperity was due to Sartwell and not to the two men whose names were known to the public as the heads of the business.

Monkton and Hope were timid, cautious, somewhat irresolute men, as capitalists should be all the world over. They had unbounded confidence in their manager, and generally shifted any grave responsibility or unpleasant decision to his shoulders, which bore the burdens placed upon them with equanimity. Sartwell was an iron man, with firm resolute lips, and steely blue eyes that were most disconcerting to any one who had something not quite straight to propose. Even the two partners quailed under these eyes and gave way before them if it came to a conflict of opinion. Sartwell’s rather curt “It won’t do, you know” always settled things.

Sartwell knew infinitely more about the works than they did; for while they had been at college the future manager was working his way up into the confidence of their fathers, and every step he took advanced his position in the factory. The three men were as nearly as possible of the same age, and the hair of each was tinged with grey; Sartwell’s perhaps more than the others.

It was difficult to think of love in connection with the two partners, yet it is pleasing to know that when love did come to them at the proper time of life, it had come with gold in one hand and a rigid non-conformist conscience in the other. The two had thus added wealth to wealth by marrying, and, as their wives were much taken up with deeds of goodness, done only after strict and conscientious investigation, so that the unworthy might not benefit, and as both Monkton and Hope were somewhat timorous men who were bound to be ruled by the women they married, some of their wealth found its way into the coffers of struggling societies and organizations for the relieving of distress.

Thus there came to impregnate the name of Monkton & Hope (Limited) a certain odour of sanctity which is most unusual in business circles in London. The firm, when once got at, could be counted on for a subscription almost with certainty, but alas! it was not easy to get at the firm. The applicant had to come under the scrutiny of those searching eyes of Sartwell’s, which had a perturbing habit of getting right at the heart of a matter with astonishing quickness; and when once he said “It won’t do, you know,” there was no going behind the verdict.

A private stairway led from the yard below to the hall in the suspended building which divided the large office of the manager from the two smaller private rooms of the firm. This stairway was used only by the three men. The clerks and the public came in by the main entrance, where a watchful man sat behind a little arched open window over which was painted the word “Enquiries.”

Outside in the gloom the two great lamps over the gateposts flared yellow light down on the cindery roadway and the narrow street beyond. Through the wide open gateway into the narrow stone-paved street poured hundreds of workingmen. There was no jostling and they went out silently, which was unusual. It seemed as if something hovered over them even more depressing than the great fog cloud just above their heads. Sartwell, alone in his office, stood somewhat back from the window, unseen, and watched their exit grimly, sternly. The lines about his firm mouth tightened his lips into more than their customary rigidity. He noticed that now and then a workman cast a glance at his windows, and he knew they cursed him in their hearts as standing between them and their demands, for they were well aware that the firm would succumb did Sartwell but give the word. The manager knew that at their meetings their leader had said none was so hard on workingmen as a workman who had risen from the ranks. Sartwell’s name had been hissed while the name of the firm had been cheered; but the manager was not to be deterred by unpopularity, although the strained relations between the men and himself gave him good cause for anxiety.

As he thought over the situation and searched his mind to find whether he himself were to blame in any way, there was a rap at his door. He turned quickly away from the window, stood by his desk, and said sharply, “Come in.”

There entered a young man in workman’s dress with his cap in his hand. His face was frank, clear-cut, and intelligent, and he had washed it when his work was done, which was a weakness not indulged in by the majority of his companions.

“Ah, Marsten,” said the manager, his brow clearing when he saw who it was. “Did you get that job done in time?”

“It was off before half-past five, sir.”

“Right. Were there any obstacles thrown in your way?”

“None that could not be surmounted, sir.”

“Right again. That’s the way I like to have things done. The young man who can accomplish impossibilities is the man for me, and the man who gets along in this world.”

The young fellow turned his cap over and over in his hands, and, although he was evidently pleased with the commendation of the manager, he seemed embarrassed. At last he said, hesitatingly:

“I am very anxious to get on in the world, sir.”

“Well, you may have an opportunity shortly,” replied the manager.

Then he suddenly shot the question:

“Are you people going to strike?”

“I’m afraid so, sir.”

“Why do you say ‘afraid’? Are you going out with the others, or do you call your soul your own?”

“A man cannot fight the Union single-handed.”

“You are talking to a man who is going to.”

The young man looked up at his master.

“With you it is different,” he said. “You are backed by a wealthy company. Whether you win or lose, your situation is secure. If I failed the Union in a crisis, I could never get another situation.”

Sartwell smiled grimly when the young man mentioned the firm. He knew that there lay his weakness rather than his strength, for although the firm had said he was to have a free hand, yet he was certain the moment the contest became bitter the firm would be panic-stricken. Then, if the women took a hand in, the jig was up. If the strikers had known on which side their bread was buttered they would have sent a delegation of their wives to Mrs. Monkton and Mrs. Hope. But they did not know this, and Sartwell was not the man to show the weakness of his hand.

“Yes,” said the manager, “I have the entire confidence of Mr. Monkton and Mr. Hope. I wonder if the men appreciate that fact.”

“Oh yes, sir; they know that.”

“Now, Marsten, have you any influence with the men?”

“Very little, I’m afraid, sir.”

“If you have any, now is the time to exert it; for their sakes, you know, not for mine. The strike is bound to fail. Nevertheless I don’t forget a man who stands by me.”

The young man shook his head.

“If my comrades go, I’ll go with them. I am not so sure that a strike is bound to fail, although I am against it. The Union is very strong, Mr. Sartwell. Perhaps you do not know that it is the strongest Union in London.”

The manager allowed his hand to hover for a moment over a nest of pigeon-holes, then he drew out a paper and handed it to Marsten.

“There is the strength of the Union,” he said, “down to the seventeen pounds eight shillings and twopence they put in the bank yesterday afternoon. If you want any information about your Union, Marsten, I shall be happy to oblige you with it.”

The young man opened his eyes as he looked at the figures.

“It is a very large sum,” he said.

“A respectable fighting fund,” remarked Sartwell, impartially. “But how many Saturdays do you think it would stand the drain of the pay-roll of this establishment?”

“Not very many perhaps.”

“It would surprise you to know how few. The men look at one side of this question only, while I am compelled to look at two sides. If any Saturday their pay was not forthcoming, they would not be pleased, would they? Now I have to scheme and plan so that the money is there every Saturday, and besides there must be enough more to pay the firm for its investment and its risk. These little details may not seem important to a demagogue who knows nothing of business, but who can harangue a body of men and make them dissatisfied. I should be very pleased to give him my place here for a month or two while I took a rest, and then we would see whether he thought there was anything in my point of view.”

“Mr. Sartwell,” said Marsten, looking suddenly at the manager, “some of the more moderate men asked me to-night a similar question to one of yours.”

“What question was that?”

“They asked if I had any influence with you.”

“Yes? And you told them–?”

“That I didn’t know.”

“Well, you will never know until you test the point. Have you anything to suggest?”

“Many are against a strike, but even the more moderate think you are wrong in refusing to see the delegation. They think the refusal seems high-handed, and that if you were compelled to reject any requests made, you ought not to let things come to a crisis without at least allowing the delegation to present the men’s case.”

“And do you think I am wrong in this?”

“I do.”

“Very well. I’ll settle that in a moment. You get some of the more moderate together–head the delegation yourself. I will make an appointment with you, and we will talk the matter over.”

The young man did not appear so satisfied with this prompt concession as might have been expected. He did not reply for some moments, while the elder man looked at him critically, with his back against the tall desk.

At last Marsten spoke:

“I could not lead the delegation, being one of the youngest in the employ of the firm. The secretary of the Union is the leader the men have chosen.”

“Ah! The secretary of the Union. That is quite a different matter. He is not in my employ. I cannot allow outsiders to interfere in any business with which I am connected. I am always willing to receive my own men, either singly or in deputation, and that is no small matter where so many men are at work; but if I am to open my office doors to the outside world–well, life is too short. For instance, I discuss these things with you, but I should decline to discuss them with any man who dropped in out of the street.”

“Yes, I see the difficulty, but don’t you think you might make a concession in this instance, to avoid trouble?”

“It wouldn’t be avoiding trouble, it would merely be postponing it. It would form a precedent, and I would have this man or that interfering time and again. I would have to make a stand some time, perhaps when I was not so well prepared. If there is to be a fight, I want it now. We need some new machinery in, and we could do with a week’s shut-down.”

Marsten shook his head.

“The shut-down would be for longer than a week,” he said.

“I know that. The strike will last exactly three weeks. At the end of that time there will be no Union.”

“Perhaps there will also be no factory.”

“You mean there will be violence? Very well. In that case the strike will last but a fortnight. You see, my boy, we are in London, and there are not only the police within a moment’s call, but, back of them, the soldiers, and back of them again the whole British Empire. Oh no, Marsten, it won’t do, you know, it won’t do.”

“The men are very determined, Mr. Sartwell.”

“All the better. I like a determined antagonist. Then you get things settled once for all. I don’t object to a square stand-up fight, but eternal haggling and higgling and seeing deputations and arbitrations, and all that sort of thing, I cannot endure. Let us know where we are, and then get on with our work.”

“Then you have nothing to propose, Mr. Sartwell? Nothing conciliatory, I mean.”

“Certainly I have. Let the men request that blatant ass Gibbons to attend to his secretarial duties and then let a deputation from our own workshops come up and see me. We’ll talk the matter over, and if they have any just grievance I will remedy it for them. What can be fairer than that?”

“It’s got to be a matter of principle with the men now–that is, the inclusion of Gibbons has. It means recognizing of the Union.”

“Oh, I’ll recognize the Union and take off my hat to it; that is, so far as my own employees are concerned. But I will not have an outsider, who knows nothing of this business, come up here and spout his nonsense. It’s a matter of principle with me as well as with the men.”

Marsten sighed.

“I’m afraid there is nothing for it then but a fight,” he said.

“Perhaps not. One fool makes many. Think well, Marsten, which side you are going to be with in this fight. I left a Union, and although I was older than you are at the time, I never repented it. It kept me out of employment, but not for long, and they kept me out of it in the very business of which I am now manager. The Union is founded on principles that won’t do, you know. Any scheme that tends to give a poor workman the same wages as a good workman is all wrong.”

“I don’t agree with you, Mr. Sartwell. The only hope for the workingman is in combination. Of course we make mistakes and are led away by demagogues, but some day there will be a strike led by an individual Napoleon, and then we will settle things once for all, as you said a while ago.”

Sartwell laughed, and held out his hand.

“Oh, that’s your ambition is it? Well, good luck attend you, my young Napoleon. I should have chosen Wellington, if I had been you. Good-night. I am waiting for my daughter, to whom I foolishly gave permission to call for me here in a cab.”

Marsten held the hand extended to him so long that the manager looked at him in astonishment. The colour had mounted from the young man’s cheeks to his brow and his eyes were on the floor.

“Mr. Sartwell,” he said, with an effort, “I came to-night to speak with you about your daughter and not about the strike.”

The manager dropped his hand as if it had been red-hot, and stepped back two paces.

“About my daughter?” he cried, sternly. “What do you mean?”

Marsten had to moisten his lips once or twice before he could reply. His released hand opened and shut nervously.

“I mean,” he said, “that I am in love with her.”

The manager sat down in the office chair beside his table. All the former friendliness had left his face, and his dark brows lowered over his keen eyes, into which their usual cold glitter had returned.

“What folly is this?” he cried, with rising anger. “You are a boy, and from the gutter at that, for all I know. My daughter is but a child yet; she is only–” He paused. He had been about to say seventeen when it occurred to him that he had married her mother when she was but a year older.

Marsten’s colour became a deeper red when the manager spoke so contemptuously of the gutter. He said slowly, and with a certain doggedness in his tone:

“It is no reproach to come from the gutter–the reproach is in staying there. I have left it, and I don’t intend to return.”

“Oh, ‘intend’!” cried the manager, impatiently. “We all know what is paved with intentions. Why; you have never even spoken to the girl!”

“No, but I mean to.”

“Do you? Well, I shall take very good care that you do not.”

“What have you against me, Mr. Sartwell?”

“What is there for you? Perhaps you will kindly specify your recommendations.”

“You are very hard on me, Mr. Sartwell. You know that if I came from the gutter, what education I have, I gave to myself. I have studied hard, and worked hard. Does that count for nothing? I have a good character, and I have a good situation–”

“You have not. I discharge you. You will call at the office to-morrow, get your week’s money, and go.”

“Oh!”

“Yes, ‘oh!’ You did not think that of me, did you?”

“I did not.”

“Well, for once you are right. I merely wish to show you how your good situation depends on the caprice of one man. I have no intention of discharging you. I am not so much afraid of you as that. I’ll look after my daughter.”

Marsten said bitterly:

“Gibbons, ass as he is, is right when he says that no one is so hard on a workman as one who has risen from the ranks. You were no better off than I am, when you were my age.”

Sartwell sprang to his feet, his eyes ablaze with anger.

“Pay attention, young man,” he cried. “All the things you have done, I have done. All the things you intend to do, I have already done. I have, in a measure, educated myself, and I have worked hard night and day. I have attained a certain position, a certain responsibility, and a certain amount of money. I have had little pleasure and much toil in my life, and I am now growing old. Yet as I look back I see that there was as much luck as merit in what success I have had. I was ready when the chance came, that was all; if the chance hadn’t come, all my readiness would have done me little good. For one man who succeeds, a dozen, equally deserving, fail. Now, why have I gone through all this? Why? For myself? Not likely. I have done it so that she may not have to be that tired drudge–a workman’s wife–so that she may begin where I leave off. That’s why. For myself, I would as soon wear a workman’s jacket as a manager’s coat. And now, having gone through all this for her sake–you talk of love! What is your love for her compared to mine? When I have done all this that she might never know what it means, shall I be fool enough, knave enough, idiot enough, to thrust her back where I began, at the beck of the first mouthing ranter who has the impudence to ask for her? No, by God, no! Now you have had your answer, get out, and don’t dare to set foot in this office until you are sent for.”

Sartwell in his excitement smote the desk with his clenched fist to emphasize his sentences. Marsten shrank before his vehemence, realizing that no workman had ever seen the manager angry before, and he dreaded the resentment that would rise in Sartwell’s heart when the coldness returned. He felt that he would have been more diplomatic to have left sooner. Nevertheless, seeing that things could be no worse, he stood his ground.

“I thought,” he said, “that it would be honourable in me to let you know–”

“Don’t talk to me of honour. Get out.”

At that moment the door from the private stairway opened and a young girl came in. Her father had completely forgotten his appointment with her, and both men were taken aback by her entrance.

“I knocked, father,” she said, “but you did not hear me.”

“In a moment, Edna. Just step into the hall for a moment,” said her father, hurriedly.

“I beg of you not to leave, Miss Sartwell,” said Marsten, going to the other door and opening it. “Good-night, Mr. Sartwell.”

“Good-night,” said the manager, shortly.

“Good-night, Miss Sartwell.”

“Good-night,” said the girl sweetly, with the suggestion of a bow.

The eyes of the two men met for a moment, the obstinacy of the race in each; but the eyes of the younger man said defiantly:

“I have spoken to her, you see.”

CHAPTER II

We speak of our individuality as if such a thing really existed–as if we were actually ourselves, forgetting that we are but the sum of various qualities belonging to ancestors, most of whom are dead and gone and forgotten. The shrewd business-man in the City imagines that his keen instincts are all his own; he does not recognize the fact that those admirable attributes which enable him to form a joint-stock company helped an ancestor in the Middle Ages to loot a town, or a highwayman of a later day to relieve a fellow-subject of a full purse on an empty heath.

Edna Sartwell possessed one visible, undeniable, easily recognized token of heredity: she had her father’s eyes, but softened and luminous and disturbingly beautiful–eyes to haunt a man’s dreams. They had none of the searching rapier-like incisiveness that made her father’s eyes weapons of offence and defence; but they were his, nevertheless, with a kindly womanly difference, and in that difference lived again the dead mother.

“Edna,” said her father, when they were alone, “you must not come to this office again.”

There was more sharpness in his tone than he was accustomed to use toward his daughter, and she looked up at him quickly.

“Have I interrupted an important conference?” she asked. “What did the young man want, father?”

“He wanted something I was unable to grant.”

“Oh, I am so sorry! He did appear disappointed. Was it a situation?”

“Something of the sort.”

“And why couldn’t you give it to him? Wasn’t he worthy?”

“No, no. No, no!”

“He seemed to me to have such a good face–honest and straightforward.”

“Good gracious! child, what do you know about faces? Do not interfere in business matters; you don’t understand them. Don’t chatter, chatter, chatter. One woman who does that is enough in a family–all a man can stand.”

The daughter became silent; the father pigeonholed some papers, took them out again, rearranged them, and placed them back. He was regaining control over himself. He glanced at his daughter, and saw tears in her eyes.

“There, there, Edna,” he said. “It is all right. I’m a little worried to-night, that’s all. I’m afraid there’s going to be trouble with the men. It is a difficult situation, and I have to deal with it alone. A strike seems inevitable, and one never can tell where it will end.”

“And is he one of the strikers? It seems impossible.”

A look of annoyance swept over her father’s face.

“He? Why the–Edna, you return to a subject with all the persistency of a woman. Yes. He will doubtless go on strike to-morrow with all the rest of the fools. He is a workman, if you want to know; and furthermore, he is going on strike when he doesn’t believe in it–going merely because the others go. He admitted it to me shortly before you came in. So you see how much you are able to read in a man’s face.”

“I shouldn’t have thought it,” said the girl, with a sigh. “Perhaps if you had given him what he wanted he would not go on strike.”

“Oh, now you are making him out worse than even I think him. I don’t imagine he is bribable, you know.”

“Would that be bribery?”

“Suspiciously like it; but he can strike or not as he wishes–one more or less doesn’t matter to me. I hope, if they go, they will go in a body; a few remaining would only complicate things. Now that you understand all about the situation, are you satisfied? It isn’t every woman I would discuss it with, you know, so you ought to be flattered.”

Sartwell was his own man once more, and he was mentally resolving not to be thrown off the centre again.

“Yes, father, and thank you,” said the girl. “The cab is waiting,” she added, more to let him know that so far as she was concerned the discussion was ended, than to impart the information conveyed in her words.

“Let it wait. That’s what cabs are for. The cabby usually likes it better than hurrying. Sit down a moment, Edna; I’ll be ready presently.”

The girl sat down beside her father’s table. Usually Mr. Sartwell preferred his desk to his table, for the desk was tall where a man stands when he writes. This desk had three compartments, with a lid to each. These were always locked, and Sartwell’s clerks had keys to two of them. The third was supposed to contain the manager’s most private papers, as no one but himself ever saw the inside of it. The lid locked automatically when it was shut, and the small key that opened it dangled at Sartwell’s watch-chain.

Edna watched her father as he unlocked one after another of the compartments and apparently rearranged his papers. There was always about his actions a certain well-defined purpose, but the girl could not help noticing that now he appeared irresolute and wavering. He seemed to be marking time rather than making progress with any definite work. She wondered if the coming strike was worrying him more than he had been willing to admit. She wished to help, but knew that nothing would be more acceptable to him than simply leaving him alone. She also knew that when her father said he would be ready to go home with her at a certain hour he usually was ready when that hour came. Why, then, did he delay his departure?

At last Sartwell closed down the lid of one desk and locked it as if he were shutting in his wavering purpose, then he placed the key from his watch-guard in the third lock and threw back the cover. An electric light dangling by a cord from the ceiling, threw down into the desk rays reflected by a circular opal shade that covered the lamp. The manager gazed for a few moments into the desk, then turning to his daughter, said:

“Edna, you startled me when you came in to-night.”

“I am very sorry, father. Didn’t you expect me?”

“Yes, but not at that moment, as it happened. You are growing very like your mother, my girl.”

There was a pause, Edna not knowing what to say. Her father seldom spoke of his dead wife, and Edna could not remember her mother.

“Somehow I did not realize until to-night–that you were growing up. You have always been my baby to me. Then–suddenly–you came in. Edna, she was only four years older than you when she died. You see, my dear, although I grow older, she always remains young–but I sometimes think that the young man who was her husband is dead too, for there is not much likeness to him in me.”

Sartwell had been drumming lightly with his fingers on the desk top as he spoke; now he reached up and turned off the electric light as if its brilliancy troubled him. The lamp in the centre of the room was sufficient, and it left him in the shadow.

“I suppose there comes a time in the life of every father, when he learns, with something of a shock, that the little girl who has been playing about his knee is a young woman. It is like when a man hears himself alluded to as old for the first time. I well remember how it made me catch my breath when I first heard myself spoken of as an old man.”

“But you are not old,” cried the girl, with a little indignant half sob in her voice. She wished to go to her father and put her arms around his neck, but she felt intuitively that he desired her to stay where she was until he finished what he had to say.

“I am getting on in that direction. None of us grows younger, but the dead. I suppose a daughter is as blind to her father’s growing old, as he to her advancing womanhood. But we won’t talk of my age. We are welcoming the coming, rather than speeding the going, to-night. You and I, Edna, must realize that we, in a measure, begin life on a new line with each other. We are both grown-up people. When your mother was a little older than you are, I had her portrait painted. She laughed at me and called me extravagant. You see, we were really very poor, and she thought, poor girl, that a portrait of herself was not exactly a necessity. I have thought since that it was the one necessary thing I ever bought. I had it copied, when I got richer, by a noted painter, who did it more as a favour to me than for the money, for painters do not care to copy other men’s work. Curiously enough he made a more striking likeness of her than the original was. Come here, my girl.”

Edna sprang to her father’s side and rested her hand lightly on his shoulder. Sartwell turned on the electric light. At the bottom of the desk lay a large portrait of a most beautiful woman. The light shone down on the face, and the fine eyes looked smilingly up at them.

“That was your mother, Edna,” said the father, almost in a whisper, speaking with difficulty.

The girl was crying softly, trying not to let her father know it. Her hand stole from the shoulder next her to the other, his hand caressed her fair hair.

“Poor father!” she said, trying to speak bravely. “How lonely you must have been. I seem to–to understand things–that I didn’t before–as if I had suddenly grown old.”

They looked at the picture for some time together in silence, then she said:

“Why did you never show me the portrait before?”

“Well, my dear, it was here and not at the house, and when you were a small girl, you did not come to the office, you know. Then, you see, your step-mother had the responsibility of bringing you up–and–and–somehow I thought it wouldn’t be giving her a fair chance. The world is rather hard on step-mothers.” He hurriedly closed the desk. “Come, come,” he cried, brusquely, “this won’t do, you know, Edna. But this is what I want to say. I want you to remember–to understand rather–that you and I are, as it were, alone in the world; there is a bond between us in that, as well as in the fact that we are father and daughter. I want you always to feel that I am your best friend, and there must never come any misunderstanding between us.”

“There never could, father,” said the girl, solemnly.

“That’s right, that’s right. Now if anything should happen to trouble you, I want you to come to me and tell me all about it. I wish there to be complete confidence between us. If anything perplexes you, tell me; if it is trivial I want to know, and if it is serious I want to know. Sometimes an apparently trivial problem is really a serious one, and vice-versa; and remember, it is almost as important to classify your problem as to solve it. That’s where I can help you; for even if I could not disentangle the skein, I could perhaps show you that it was not worth unravelling.”

The girl regarded her father earnestly while he spoke, and then, as if to show that woman’s intuition will touch the spot around which a man’s reason is elaborately circling, she startled him by saying:

“Father, something has happened concerning me, that has made you anxious on my account. What is it? I think I should know. Has my step-mother been saying–”

“No no, my child, your step-mother has been saying nothing about you. And if she had I would not–that is, I would have given it my best attention, and would have no hesitation in letting you know what it was. You mustn’t jump at conclusions; perhaps I am talking with unnecessary seriousness; all I wish to impress upon you is that although I am seemingly absorbed in business, you are much more important to me than anything else–that, in fact, since your mother died, you are the only person who has been of real importance to me, and so if you want anything, let me know–a new frock, for instance, of exceptional expensiveness. I think you will find that where your happiness is concerned, I shall not allow any prejudices of mine to stand in the way.”

The girl looked up at her father with a smile.

“I don’t think my happiness will be endangered for lack of a new gown,” she said.

“Well, dress is very important, Edna, we mustn’t forget that; though I merely instanced dress for fear you would take me too seriously. And now, my girl, let us get home. This is our last conference in this office, you know, and there has somehow entered into it the solemnity that pertains to all things done for the last time. Now if you are ready, I am.”

“Not quite, father. You see, I like this office–I always did,–and now–after to-night–it will always seem sacred to me. All this talk has been about an insignificant person and her clothes–but what impresses me, father, is how much alone you have been nearly all your life. I never realized that before. Now after this you must talk over your business with me; I may not be able to help, at first, but later on, who can tell? Then it will flatter me by making me think our compact is not one-sided. Is it a bargain, father?”

“It is a bargain, Edna.”

The father drew the daughter towards him and the bargain was sealed. He turned out the lights, and they hurried down the stair to the slumbering cabman. The fog had reached down almost to the top of his head.

“Waterloo Station, Main Line,” cried Sartwell, sharply.

“Yessir,” said the cabby, exceedingly wide awake, as he gathered up the reins. The porter opened the gates.

“Everything all right, Perkins?”

“All right, sir,” answered the porter, touching his cap.

“Keep a sharp look-out, you know.”

“Yes, sir.”

The rapidly lessening rattle of the hansom down the narrow street came back to Perkins as he closed the big gates for the night.

CHAPTER III

As father and daughter approached Wimbledon a mutual silence came over them. Perhaps this was because they had talked so much in the office. When they passed the station gates, Sartwell said:

“We’ll have a cab, Edna, and blow the expense.”

“I don’t mind walking in the least; there is no fog here.”

“We’re late, so we’ll have a cab.” Once inside, he added, reflectively: “I wonder why it is that a cab seems extravagance in Wimbledon and economy in London.”

This apparently was a problem neither of them could solve, so nothing more was said until the vehicle drew up at the door of a walled garden in a quiet street near the breezy common. Sartwell put his key in the door, held it open, and let his daughter pass in before him. A square house stood about a hundred yards back from the street, surrounded by shrubbery and flower-beds. The two walked somewhat gingerly up the crunching gravel path, opened the front door, and entered a dimly-lighted hall. Sartwell placed his hat on the rack, pushed open the dining-room door and went in, this time preceding his daughter. There were many comfortable chairs in the room, and one that was not comfortable. On that chair sat a woman, tall and somewhat angular, past the prime of life. She sat exceedingly upright, not allowing her shoulders to rest against the chair back. On her face was a patient expression of mitigated martyrdom, the expression of one who was badly used by a callous world, but who is resolved not to allow its ill treatment to interfere with her innate justice in dealing with her fellows.

“I thought I heard a cab drive up and stop,” she said mildly, in the tone of one who may be wrong and is willing to be corrected.

“You did,” said Sartwell, throwing himself down in an arm-chair. “Being late, I took a cab from the station.”

“Oh!”

Much may be expressed by an apparently meaningless interjection. This one signified that Mrs. Sartwell, while shocked at such an admission, bowed to the inevitable, recognizing that she was mated with a man not amenable to reason, and that, while she might say much on the influence of unnecessary lavishness, she repressed herself, although she knew she would have no credit for her magnanimity.

After a few moments of silence, during which Mrs. Sartwell critically examined the sewing on which she was engaged, she looked across at her husband, and said:

“I may ask, I suppose, if it was business kept you so late.”

“Important business.”

She sighed.

“It always is. I should know that by this time without asking. Some men make business their god, although it will prove a god of clay to call upon when the end comes. There is such a thing as duty as well as business, and a man should have some little thought for his wife and his home.”

This statement seemed so incontrovertible that Sartwell made no effort to combat it. He sat there with his head thrown back, his eyes closed, and his hands clasped supporting his knee. This attitude Mrs. Sartwell always regarded as the last refuge of the scoffer–an attitude he would be called upon to account for, as a sinner must account for evil deeds.

“Father has had more than usual to worry him at the office to-day,” said Edna. She stood by the table, having removed her hat and gloves.

A look of mild surprise came over Mrs. Sartwell’s face. She turned her head slowly around, and coldly scrutinized her step-daughter from head to foot. She apparently became aware of her presence for the first time, which may be explained by the fact that the young woman entered the room behind her father.

“Edna,” said Mrs. Sartwell, “how often have I told you not to put your hat and gloves on the dining-room table? There is a place for everything. I am sure that when you visit your father’s office, which you are so fond of doing, you find everything in its place, for he is at least methodical. You certainly do not take your disorderly habits from him, and everybody, except perhaps your father and yourself, admits that you live in an orderly household. How did you get that stain on your frock?”

Edna looked quickly down at her skirt; the hansom wheel had, alas! left its mark. Two-and-six an hour does not represent all the iniquities of a hansom on a muddy day.

“You are my despair, Edna, with your carelessness, and no one knows how it hurts me to say so. That frock you have had on only–”

“Edna,” cried her father, peremptorily, “are you hungry?”

“No, father.”

“Sure?”

“Quite sure. I am not in the least hungry.”

“Then go to bed.”

Edna came around the table to where her step-mother sat and kissed her on the cheek.

“Good-night,” she said.

“Good-night, my poor child,” murmured Mrs. Sartwell, with a sigh.

The girl kissed her father, whispering as she did so, “I’m afraid I’m your little girl again by the way you order me off to bed.”

“You will always be my little girl to me, my dear,” he said. “Good-night.”

Mrs. Sartwell sighed again as Edna closed the door.

“I suppose,” she said, “you think it fair to me to speak in whispers to Edna when I am in the room, or you wouldn’t do it. How you can expect the child to have any respect for me when you allow her to whisper–”

“Is there anything to eat in the house?”

“You know there is always something to eat in the house.”

“Then will you ring, or shall I?”

“You can’t expect servants to sit up all night–”

“Very well; give me the keys and I will get something for myself.”

Mrs. Sartwell’s lips trembled as she folded her work methodically, enclosing needle, thimble and various paraphernalia of sewing in the bundle, placing it exactly where it should be in the workbasket. The keys jingled at her waist as she rose.

“I am ready, and always have been, to get you what you want whenever you want it. Perhaps I expect too much, but I think you might ask for it civilly. If you treat your men as you do your wife, it’s no wonder they strike.”

Sartwell made no reply, sitting there with his eyes closed until his wife, with a quaver in her voice, told him his supper was ready. It was a plentiful spread, with a choice of beer or spirits to drink; for one of Sartwell’s weaknesses was the belief that to work well a man must eat well. Although his wife did not believe in nor approve of this pampering, she nevertheless provided well for him, for is not a woman helpless in such a case? As the man of the house ate in silence, she looked at him once or twice over her sewing, and finally said, pathetically:

“I am sure Edna was hungry, but was afraid to say so, you were so gruff with her. One would think that if you had no feeling for your wife, you would have some for your only daughter.”

Sartwell cut another slice from the cold joint, and transferred it to his plate.

“I am accustomed to it, I hope, by this time, but she is young and nothing warps the character of the young like uncalled-for harshness and unkindness. You are blind to her real faults, and then you are severe when there is no occasion for severity. What had the child done that you should order her off to bed in that fashion?”

There was a pause for a reply, but no reply came. Mrs. Sartwell was accustomed to this, as she had said, for there is a brutality of silence as well as a brutality of speech; so she scanned her adversary, as one does who searches for a joint in the armor where the sword’s point will enter. Then she took a firm grasp of the hilt, and pressed it gently forward. Turning over her sewing, and sighing almost inaudibly to it, she remarked, quietly:

“As I said to Mrs. Hope when she called–”

“Said to whom?” snapped Sartwell, turning round suddenly.

“Oh, I thought you were never interested in my callers. I suppose I am allowed to have some private friends of my own. Still, if you wish me to sit in the house all day alone, you have but to say so, and I will obey.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, if you can help it. What was Mrs. Hope doing here?”

“She was calling on me.”

“Quite so. I think I understand that much. What was her mission? What particular fad was on this time?”

“I should think you would be ashamed to speak like that about your employer’s wife, when she did your wife the honour to consult her–”

“About what? That is the point I want to get at.”

“About the strike.”

“Ah!” A glint of anger came into Sartwell’s eyes, and his wife looked at him with some uneasiness.

“Mrs. Hope is a woman who goes about doing good. She is much interested in the men at the ‘works,’ and thinks of calling on their wives and families to see for herself how they live. She thinks perhaps something may be done for them.”

“Does she?”

“Yes. She wonders if you are quite patient and tactful with them.”

“And came to find out? You told her, no doubt, that I studied tact from you and was therefore all right as far as that was concerned.”

“I told her the truth,” cried Mrs. Sartwell, hotly.

“Which was–?”

“That you were an obstinate, domineering man who would brook no opposition.”

“You hit the bull’s-eye for once. What did she say?”

“She said she hoped you considered the men’s helpless families.”

“And you answered that not having any consideration for my own, it was not likely I would give much thought to the wives and families of the men.”

“I didn’t say so, but I thought it.”

“Admirable self-restraint! Now look here, Sarah, you’re playing with fire and haven’t the sense to know it. Mrs. Hope is a meddling, hysterical fool, and–”

“You wouldn’t dare say that to your employer.”

“Now that remark shows that a woman of your calibre can live for years with a man and not begin to understand him. The trouble is that I shall say just that very thing to my employer, as you delight to call him, the moment his wife puts her finger in the pie. Then what follows?”

“You will lose your situation.”

“Exactly. Or, to put it more truthfully, I resign–I walk out into the street.”

“You surely would do nothing so foolish.”

“That follows instantly when I am compelled to give Mr. Hope my opinion regarding his domestic relations. Then what will become of your income? Will Mrs. Hope contribute, do you think? Do you aspire to a place on her charity list? Whatever your opinion has been of me, privately held or publicly expressed, you must admit that I have at least provided money enough to keep the house going, and you have surely the sense to appreciate that. You never could see an inch ahead of your nose, or realize that effect follows cause as inevitably as fate. How a woman can describe a man as obstinate and domineering, impatient of all control, and then deliberately wag her tongue to bring about the very interference that she must know, if she believes what she has said, he will not stand, passes my comprehension. The result of your gossip to-day may be that I shall be looking for another situation to-morrow.”

Mrs. Sartwell had been weeping during the latter part of this harangue.

“It is always me,” she sobbed, “that is to blame for everything wrong. Your hasty ungovernable temper is never at fault. If you made me more of a confidante in your affairs–other men consult their wives, better men than you, and richer than you will ever be. Mrs. Hope says that her husband–”

“I don’t want to hear any more about Mrs. Hope.”

“You insisted on talking about her. I didn’t want to say anything, but you cross-questioned me till I had to, and now you blame me.”

“Very well, let it rest there. Bring me a jug of milk, if you please.”

“You are surely not going to drink milk after beer?”

“I claim the liberty of a British subject to drink any mortal thing I choose to drink. Don’t let us have an argument about it.”

“But you won’t sleep a wink, John, if you do. It’s for your own good I speak.”

“Everything is for my own good, Sarah; perhaps that’s what makes me so impatient.”

“Well, you know how you are after a bad night.”

“Yes, yes. I think I have earned my bad night anyhow. Get the milk or tell me where to get it.”

Mrs. Sartwell always rose when her husband offered to help himself from the larder. She placed the jug of milk at his elbow.

“I’ve got a number of things to think over,” he said. “I want to be alone.”

She stood by the table looking at him.

“Good-night, John,” she faltered at last.

“Good-night,” he answered.

She gazed at him reproachfully in silence, but he did not raise his head, so turning at last with a deep sigh, she left him to his meditations.

Sartwell sat there with deep anxiety on his brow. Silence fell on all the house. At last the master roused himself and turned to the table. He buttered two slices of bread and cut a piece of dainty cake, placing them on a plate with a drinking glass. Lighting a candle and turning out the gas, he set to himself the acrobatic feat of carrying plate, jug, and candle. First he softly opened the door and kicked off his slippers. Awkwardly laden, he mounted the stair with the stealthy tread of a burglar, but in spite of his precautions the stairs creaked ominously in the stillness. He noiselessly entered a room, and, placing the difficult load on a table, softly closed the door. When the light shone on the sleeping girl’s face she opened her eyes very wide, then covered them with her hand, laughing a quiet, sleepy little laugh, and buried her face in the white pillow.

“H–s–sh,” said her father.

Instantly she was wide awake.

“I was afraid you were hungry after all,” he whispered.

“I wasn’t then, really, but I am now a little.”

“That’s good.”

He placed a small round gypsy table near the bed and put the plate and jug of milk upon it.

“You knew of course when I spoke, that–I merely wanted you to get a long night’s rest. You were tired, you know.”

“Oh, I know that, father.”

“Then, good-night, my dear; perhaps it was foolish to wake you up, but you will soon drop off asleep again.”

“In a minute, and this does look tempting. I just wanted a glass of milk. It’s so good of you, father.”

She drew his head down and kissed him.

“I hope you’ll sleep well,” she added.

“I’ll be sure to.”

At the door he stopped; then after a moment, whispered cautiously:

“Edna, you’ll take the things down in the morning yourself, quietly. The servants, you know–well, they don’t like extra trouble–sometimes.”

“Yes, father, I understand.”

Sartwell stole quietly out like a thief in the night.

CHAPTER IV

Barnard Hope, commonly known as Barney, never quite got over his surprise at finding himself the son of James Hope and Euphemia his wife. James Hope, the junior member of the firm of Monkton & Hope, was an undersized man with a touch of baldness and an air of constant apology. He seemed to attach a mental string to every hesitating opinion he uttered, so that he might instantly pull it back if necessary. Meeting him on the street, one would take him for a very much bullied, very much underpaid clerk in the City. In his office he lived in fear of his manager; at home he lived in fear of his wife. The chief characteristic of his wife was uncompromising rigidity. She was a head taller than her husband, and when one met them on the way to church, he had the meek attitude of an unfortunate little boy who had been found out, and was being taken to church as a punishment by a just and indignant school-mistress. Mrs. Hope joined in none of the fashionable frivolities of Surbiton, where she lived. She had a mission and a duty towards her fellow-creatures–that is, towards those who were poor, and who could not very well resent her patronage. She had an idea that if all the well-to-do did their duty, the world would be a brighter and a better place–which is doubtful.

We may all be more or less grateful that Mrs. Hope has not been intrusted with the task of making this world over again; many interesting features would in that case have been eliminated. Hope himself was not an example of unmitigated happiness. The lady always had a number of prótegées on hand, whom she afterwards discovered, as a usual thing, to be undeserving, which discovery caused them to be thrown over for new cases that in turn went bad. She was also constantly in demand by organizations needing members with long purses, but Mrs. Hope had a wonderful talent for managing which was not always recognized by those with whom she associated. This often led to trouble, older members claiming, as they vulgarly put it, that she wanted to run the whole show, and one outspoken person advised her to ameliorate the condition of her husband’s workmen, if she desired fit subjects for her efforts. This remark turned Mrs. Hope’s attention to the manufactory of Monkton & Hope, and led to her calling upon Mrs. Sartwell, in the neighbouring suburb of Wimbledon.

Now the son of these two dissimilar but estimable persons ought to have been a solemn prig, whereas he was in fact a boisterous cad, and thus does nature revel in unexpected surprises.

Barney was a broad-shouldered, good-natured giant, who towered over his shrinking father as the Monument towers over the nearest lamp-post. He was hail-fellow well-met, and could not shake hands like an ordinary mortal, but must bring down his great paw with an over-shoulder motion, as if he were throwing a cricket-ball, and, after the resounding whack of palm on palm, he would crunch the hand he held until its owner winced. Friends of the young fellow got into the habit, on meeting him, of placing their hands behind them and saying, “I’m quite well, thank you, Barney,” whereupon Barney laughed and smote them on the shoulder, which, though hard to bear, was the lesser of two evils.

“Boisterous brute,” his comrades said behind his back, but the energetic shoulder-blow or hand-clasp merely meant that Barney was very glad indeed to meet a friend, and to let the friend know that although he was very poor and Barney very rich this circumstance need not make the slightest difference between them.

It is possible that in the far West, or in the Australian bush, where muscle counts for something, there was a place yawning for Barney; perhaps there was a place for him even in London, but if there was, fate and Barney’s own inclinations removed him from it as far as possible. Barney was an artist; that is to say, he painted, or rather he put certain colours on canvas. For some years Barney had been the amazement of Julian’s school in Paris. He had a suite of rooms at the Grand Hotel, and he drove to the school in the Rue du Dragon every morning with a coachman and footman, the latter carrying Barney’s painting kit, while the former sat in a statuesque position on the box with his whip at the correct angle. Of course the art students were not going to stand that sort of thing, so they closed the gates one day and attacked the young man in a body. Barney at first thought it was fun, for he did not understand the language very well, and his good-natured roar sounded loud over the shrill cries of his antagonists. He reached for them one by one, placed them horizontally in a heap, then he rolled them over and over, flattening any student who attempted resurrection with a pat of his gigantic paw.

Whatever admiration they may have had for art at Julian’s, they certainly had a deep respect for muscle, and so left Barney alone after that. He invited them all to dinner at the Grand Hotel, and they came.

When his meteoric career as an art student in Paris was completed, he set himself up in an immense studio in Chelsea. The studio was furnished regardless of expense; there was everything in it that a studio ought to have–rich hangings from the East, tiger-skins from India, oriental rugs, ancient armour, easels of every pattern, luxurious lounges covered with stuffs from Persia.

“There,” cried Barney to Hurst Haldiman, with a grand sweep of his hand: “what do you think of that?”

Haldiman, one of the most talented students he had met in Paris, had now a garret of his own in London, where he painted when he got time, and did black and white work for the magazines and illustrated weeklies to keep himself in money. Barney had invited all his own old Parisian friends, one by one, to see his new quarters.

“Wonderful!” said Haldiman. “I venture to say there is not another studio in London like it.”