The Conflict | Page 7

all the time.''
``He must be tremendously clever.''
``I've given you an exaggerated idea of him,'' Davy hastened to say. ``He's really an ordinary sort of chap.''
``I should think he'd get rich,'' said Miss Hastings. ``Most of the men that do--so far as I've met them-- seem ordinary enough.''
``He says he could get rich, but that he wouldn't waste time that way. But he's fond of boasting.''
``You don't think he could make money--after all he did--going to college and everything?''
``Yes--I guess he could,'' reluctantly admitted Davy. Then in a burst of candor: ``Perhaps I'm a little jealous of him. If I were thrown on my own resources, I'm afraid I'd make a pretty wretched showing. But--don't get an exaggerated idea of him. The things I've told you sound romantic and unusual. If you met him--saw him every day--you'd realize he's not at all--at least, not much--out of the ordinary.''
``Perhaps,'' said Miss Hastings shrewdly, ``perhaps I'm getting a better idea of him than you who see him so often.''
``Oh, you'll run across him sometime,'' said Davy, who was bearing up no better than would the next man under the strain of a woman's interest in and excitement about another man. ``When you do, you'll get enough in about five minutes. You see, he's not a gentleman .''
``I'm not sure that I'm wildly crazy about gentlemen-- AS gentlemen,'' replied the girl. ``Very few of the interesting people I've read about in history and biography have been gentlemen.''
``And very few of them would have been pleasant to associate with,'' rejoined Hull. ``You'll admire Victor as I do. But you'll feel--as I do--that there's small excuse for a man who has been educated, who has associated with upper class people, turning round and inciting the lower classes against everything that's fine and improving.''
It was now apparent to the girl that David Hull was irritatedly jealous of this queer Victor Dorn-- was jealous of her interest in him. Her obvious cue was to fan this flame. In no other way could she get any amusement out of Davy's society; for his tendency was to be heavily serious--and she wanted no more of the too strenuous love making, yet wanted to keep him ``on the string.'' This jealousy was just the means for her end. Said she innocently: ``If it irritates you, Davy, we won't talk about him.''
``Not at all--not at all,'' cried Hull. ``I simply thought you'd be getting tired of hearing so much about a man you'd never known.''
``But I feel as if I did know him,'' replied she. ``Your account of him was so vivid. I thought of asking you to bring him to call.''
Hull laughed heartily. ``Victor Dorn--calling!''
``Why not?''
``He doesn't do that sort of thing. And if he did, how could I bring him here?''
``Why not?''
``Well--in the first place, you are a lady--and he is not in your class. Of course, men can associate with each other in politics and business. But the social side of life--that's different.''
``But a while ago you were talking about my going in for politics,'' said Miss Hastings demurely.
``Still, you'd not have to meet SOCIALLY queer and rough characters----''
``Is Victor Dorn very rough?''
The interrupting question was like the bite of a big fly to a sweating horse. ``I'm getting sick of hearing about him from you,'' cried Hull with the pettishness of the spoiled children of the upper class.
``In what way is he rough?'' persisted Miss Hastings. ``If you didn't wish to talk about Victor Dorn, why did you bring the subject up?''
``Oh--all right,'' cried Hull, restraining himself. ``Victor isn't exactly rough. He can act like a gentleman-- when he happens to want to. But you never can tell what he'll do next.''
``You MUST bring him to call!'' exclaimed Miss Hastings.
``Impossible,'' said Hull angrily.
``But he's the only man I've heard about since I've been home that I've taken the least interest in.''
``If he did come, your father would have the servants throw him off the place.''
``Oh, no,'' said Hiss Hastings haughtily. ``My father wouldn't insult a guest of mine.''
``But you don't know, Jen,'' cried David. ``Why, Victor Dorn attacks your father in the most outrageous way in his miserable little anarchist paper--calls him a thief, a briber, a blood-sucker--a--I'd not venture to repeat to you the things he says.''
``No doubt he got a false impression of father because of that damage suit,'' said Miss Hastings mildly. ``That was a frightful thing. I can't be so unjust as to blame him, Davy--can you?''
Hull was silent.
``And I guess father does have to do a lot of things in the course of business---- Don't all the big men --the leaders?''
``Yes--unfortunately they do,'' said Hull. ``That's what gives plausibility to the shrieks of demagogues like Victor Dorn--though Victor is too well educated not to know better than to stir up the ignorant classes.''
``I