The Making of a Soul | Page 7

grind. No acrimonious discussions, thinly-veiled in pedantry, should mar the harmony of the pages; no party cries should echo from the editorial offices; and although he aimed, in some measure, at instructing and uplifting his readers, it was their betterment as human beings, rather than as citizens--so far as the two may be divorced--with which he intended to concern himself.
He was fortunate in his collaborators. At his back he had an old friend of his fathers', a gifted, if somewhat inarticulate, man of letters, who had longed, in his early life, for the opportunity to do what Owen was doing; and was generous enough to feel that, though his own working days were over, he might well use a little of his wealth in helping another man to realize their mutual dream.
Everything was to be on a strictly business-like footing. Owen, as editor, was to receive a moderate salary--moderate because he felt that in the circumstances the backing he received was worth more than any emolument. Also he was sufficiently well-off to waive the matter if he chose until the review was on firm financial ground. Barry, as his personal secretary and general second-in-command, was to receive a generous sum; and the rest of the men, all young, ardent, and fired with a whole-hearted belief in Owen as their chief, were to be remunerated according to their work and ability.
A certain Miss Lucy Jenkins had been selected as typewriter and assistant at what seemed to her the princely sum of forty shillings a week; and by the beginning of February activity at headquarters, a pleasant, though not palatial suite of offices in Victoria Street, Westminster, was in full swing.
The first number of the Bridge was to make its appearance at Easter; and Owen was meditating one morning over the possible inclusion of a little set of verses which had reached him from a hitherto-unknown contributor, when Barry appeared in the doorway leading to his inner sanctum with a worried look in his frank blue eyes.
"Hallo, Barry, anything wrong?" Owen put down the paper he held and looked at his young colleague with a smile.
"Well, it's no end of a bore!" Barry frowned distastefully. "That stupid Jenkins woman has gone and landed herself in Holloway!"
"Holloway?" Owen repeated the word in surprise.
"Yes. I knew she was a Militant Suffragette, but I thought she would have more sense than to go mixing herself up in brawls with the police!"
"And she hasn't?"
"No. On Saturday afternoon"--this was Monday--"she went and marched in a procession of women out to smash windows or something of the sort, got into a row and kicked a bobby in the ribs. The end was she got locked up that night."
"Where is she now?"
"Brought up before the magistrate this morning and sentenced to fourteen days without an option for violence," said Barry laconically. "I've just had a note from her mother, who's nearly distracted, begging me to keep her place open for her, but I don't see how we can do that."
"Certainly not," said Owen decidedly. "I'll have no militant women on my staff, and the sooner they understand that the better. She wasn't any great treasure, either. She was too fond of revising the stuff she had to type; and her ideas and mine clashed considerably when it came to punctuation."
"I suppose I must advertise for someone to take her place, then," said Barry, with a sigh.
"Yes. Get a younger girl this time, if you can. Miss Jenkins had reached the certain--or uncertain--age when women take to militant suffragism. She didn't like being corrected when she made mistakes, and used to argue with me till you'd have thought it was she who ran the office, and not I."
"All right. I'll do my best."
"Not too young, though," said Owen, half-maliciously, "or she'll be thinking about her best boy all day instead of working. Of course that's a bit better than militancy, less upsetting; but women are so incomprehensible when they're in what they are pleased to call love that it's rather difficult to know what they're driving at."
"Oh, all right!" Owen's flippancy disturbed Barry, and he spoke shortly, whereupon Owen smiled meaningly, and Barry went out of the room rather hurriedly.
Once safe in his own sanctum he lamented the unkind Fate which had given Owen's heart as a plaything into the hands of an unscrupulous woman such as Miss Rees had proved herself to be. Although Owen rarely mentioned the subject, Barry knew well enough that he had not relinquished the idea of a speedy marriage. Once or twice Owen had asked him his opinion of this or that woman with whom they were both acquainted; but so far he had shown no signs of forming any new engagement, though Barry lived in a state of apprehension lest his friend should