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"I beg your pardon. Is this a private raft?"]
THE BEAUTY AND THE BOLSHEVIST
By ALICE DUER MILLER_Author of_"_ The Charm School_""_Ladies must Live_""_Come out of the Kitchen_"_etc_.
Illustrated
1920
ILLUSTRATIONS
"I beg your pardon. Is this a private raft?" "Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty" "I'll be there in five minutes, in a little blue car" "Suppose you find you do hate being poor?"
THE BEAUTY AND THE BOLSHEVIST
CHAPTER I
The editor of that much-abused New York daily, _Liberty_, pushed backhis editorial typewriter and opened one letter in the pile which theoffice-boy--no respecter of persons--had just laid upon the desk whilewhistling a piercing tune between his teeth.
The letter said:
DEAR BEN,--I hate to think what your feelings will be on learning that I am engaged to be married to a daughter of the capitalistic class. Try to overcome your prejudices, however, and judge Eugenia as an individual and not as a member of a class. She has very liberal ideas, reads your paper, and is content to go with me to Monroe College and lead the life of an instructor's wife. You will be glad to know that Mr. Cord disapproves as much as you do, and will not give his daughter a cent, so that our life will be as hard on the physical side as you in your most affectionate moments could desire. Mr. Cord is under the impression that lack of an income will cool my ardor. You see he could not think worse of me if he were my own brother.
Yours,
DAVID.
The fine face of the editor darkened. It was the face of anidealist--the deep-set, slowly changing eyes, the high cheek bones,but the mouth closed firmly, almost obstinately, and contradicted therest of the face with a touch of aggressiveness, just as in Lincoln'sface the dreamer was contradicted by the shrewd, practical mouth. Hecrossed his arms above the elbow so that one long hand dangled on oneside of his knees and one on the other--a favorite pose of his--andsat thinking.
The editor was often called a Bolshevist--as who is not in these days?For language is given us not only to conceal thought, but often toprevent it, and every now and then when the problems of the worldbecome too complex and too vital, some one stops all thought on asubject by inventing a tag, like "witch" in the seventeenth century,or "Bolshevist" in the twentieth.
Ben Moreton was not a Bolshevist; indeed, he had written severaleditorials to show that, in his opinion, their doctrines were notsound, but of course the people who denounced him never thoughtof reading his paper. He was a socialist, a believer in governmentownership, and, however equably he attempted to examine any disputebetween capital and labor, he always found for labor. He was muchdenounced by ultraconservatives, and perhaps their instinct was sound,for he was educated, determined, and possessed of a personality thatattached people warmly, so that he was more dangerous than those whosedoctrines were more militant. He was not wholly trusted by the extremeradicals. His views were not consistently agreeable to either group.For instance, he believed that the conscientious objectors were reallyconscientious, a creed for which many people thought he ought to bedeported. On the other hand, he doubted that Wall Street had startedthe war for its own purposes, a skepticism which made some of hisfriends think him just fit for a bomb.
The great problem of his life was how to hold together a body ofliberals so that they could be effective. This problem was going to beimmensely complicated by the marriage of his brother with the daughterof a conspicuous capitalist like William Cord.
He pushed the buzzer on his desk and wrote out the following telegram:
David Moreton, Care William Cord, Newport, R.I.
Am taking boat Newport to-night. Meet me.
Ben.
No one answered his buzzer, but presently a boy came in collectingcopy, and Moreton said to him:
"Here, get this sent, and ask Klein to come here. He's in thecomposing room."
And presently Mr. Klein entered, in the characteristic dress of thenewspaper man--namely, shirt sleeves and a green shade over his eyes.
"Look here, Ben!" he exclaimed in some excitement. "Here's athousand-dollar check just come in for the strike fund. How's that forthe second day?"
"Good enough," said Ben, who would ordinarily have put in a good hourrejoicing over such unexpected good fortune, but whose mind was nowon other things. "I have to go out of town to-night. You'll be here,won't you, to lock the presses? And, see here, Leo, what is the matterwith our book page?"
"Pretty rotten page," replied Klein.
"I should say it was--all about taxes and strikes and economic crises.I told Green never to touch those things in the book reviews.Our readers get all they want of that from us in the news and theeditorials--hotter, better stuff, too. I've told him not to touch'em in the book page, and he runs nothing else. He ought tobe beautiful--ought to talk about fairies, and poetry, andtwelfth-century art. What's the matter with him?"
"He doesn't know anything," said Klein. "That's his trouble. He'sclever, but he doesn't know much. I guess he only began to read booksa couple years ago. They excite him too much. He wouldn't read a fairystory. He'd think he was wasting time."
"Get some one to help him out."
"Who'd I get?"
"Look about. I've got to go home and pack a bag. Ask Miss Cox whattime that Newport boat leaves."
"Newport! Great heavens, Ben! What is this? A little week-end?"
"A little weak brother, Leo."
"David in trouble again?"
Moreton nodded. "He thinks he's going to marry William Cord'sdaughter."
Klein, who was Ben's friend as well as his assistant, blanched at thename.
"Cord's daughter!" he exclaimed, and if he had said Jack-the-ripper's,he could not have expressed more horror. "Now isn't it queer," he wenton, musingly, "that David, brought up as he has been, can see anythingto attract him in a girl like that?"
Ben was tidying his desk preparatory to departure--that is to say, hewas pushing all the papers far enough back to enable him to close theroller top, and he answered, absently:
"Oh, I suppose they're all pretty much the same--girls."
"Why, what do you mean?" said Leo, reproachfully. "How can a girlwho's been brought up to be a parasite--to display the wealth of herfather and husband, and has never done a useful thing since she wasborn--Why, a woman was telling me the other day--I got caught in ablock in the subway and she was next me--awfully interesting, she was.She sewed in one of these fashionable dressmaking establishments--andthe things she told me about what those women spend on theirclothes--underclothes and furs and everything. Now there must besomething wrong with a woman who can spend money on those things whenshe knows the agony of poverty right around her. You can't comparethat sort of woman with a self-respecting, self-supporting girl--"
At this moment the door opened and Miss Cox entered. She wore ashort-sleeved, low-neck, pink-satin blouse, a white-satin skirt,open-work stockings, and slippers so high in the heels that her anklesturned inward. Her hair was treated with henna and piled untidilyon the top of her head. She was exactly what Klein had described--aself-respecting, self-supporting girl, but, on a superficialacquaintance, men of Cord's group would have thought quite as badly ofher as Klein did of fashionable women. They would have been mistaken.Miss Cox supported her mother, and, though only seventeen, deniedherself all forms of enjoyment except dress and an occasional movie.She was conscientious, hard-working, accurate, and virtuous. She lovedBen, whom she regarded as wise, beautiful, and generous, but she wouldhave died rat
her than have him or anyone know it.
She undulated into the room, dropped one hip lower than the other,placed her hand upon it and said, with a good deal of enunciation:
"Oh, Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty."
"Thank you very much, Miss Cox," said Ben, gravely, and she went outagain.
"Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty"]
"It would be a terrible thing for Dave to make a marriage like that,"Klein went on as soon as she had gone, "getting mixed up with thosefellows. And it would be bad for you, Ben--"
"I don't mean to get mixed up with them," said Ben.
"No, I mean having Dave do it. It would kill the paper; it