The Crimson Tide: A Novel

“Very well. Others also can unite to combat you. A league of evil is not the only league that can be formed under this roof. Nor are the soldiers and police the only or the better weapons to use against you. What you agitators and mischief makers are really afraid of is that somebody may really educate your audiences. And that’s exactly what such people as I intend to do!”

A score or more of people had crowded around her while she was speaking. Shotwell and Brisson, too, had risen and stepped to her side. And the entire audience was on its feet, craning hundreds of necks and striving to hear and see.

Somewhere in the crowd a shrill American voice cried: “Throw them guys out! They got Wall Street cash in their pockets!”

Sondheim levelled a finger at Brisson:

“Look out for that man!” he said. “He published those lies about Lenine and Trotsky, and he’s here from Washington to lie about us in the newspapers!”

The I. W. W. lurched out of his seat and shoved against Shotwell.

“Get the hell out o’ here,” he snarled; “–go on! Beat it! And take your lady-friends, too.”

Brisson said: “No use talking to them. You’d better take the ladies out while the going is good.”

But as they moved there was an angry murmur: the I. W. W. gave Palla a violent shove that sent her reeling, and Shotwell knocked him unconscious across a bench.

Instantly the hall was in an uproar: there was a savage rush for Brisson, but he stopped it with levelled automatic.

“Get the ladies out!” he said coolly to Shotwell, forcing a path forward at his pistol’s point.

Plain clothes men were active, too, pushing the excited Bolsheviki this way and that and clearing a lane for Palla and Ilse.

Then, as they reached the rear of the hall, there came a wild howl from the audience, and Shotwell, looking back, saw Sondheim unfurl a big red flag.

Instantly the police started for the rostrum. The din became deafening as he threw one arm around Palla and forced her out into the street, where Ilse and Brisson immediately joined them.

Then, as they looked around for a taxi, a little shrimp of a man came out on the steps of the hall and spat on the sidewalk and cursed them in Russian.

And, as Palla, recognising him, turned around, he shook his fists at her and at Ilse, promising that they should be attended to when the proper moment arrived.

Then he spat again, laughed a rather ghastly and distorted laugh, and backed into the doorway behind him.

They walked east–there being no taxi in sight. Ilse and Brisson led; Palla followed beside Jim.

“Well,” said the latter, his voice not yet under complete control, “don’t you think you’d better keep away from such places in the future?”

She was still very much excited: “It’s abominable,” she exclaimed, “that this country should permit such lies to be spread among the people and do nothing to counteract this campaign of falsehood! What is going to happen, Jim, unless educated people combine to educate the ignorant?”

“How?” he asked contemptuously.

“By example, first of all. By the purity and general decency of their own lives. I tell you, Jim, that the unscrupulous greed of the educated is as dangerous and vile as the murderous envy of the Bolsheviki. We’ve got to reform ourselves before we can educate others. And unless we begin by conforming to the Law of Love and Service, some day the Law of Hate and Violence will cut our throats for us.”

“Palla,” he said, “I never dreamed that you’d do such a thing as you did to-night.”

“I was afraid,” she said with a nervous tightening of her arm under his, “but I was still more afraid of being a coward.”

“You didn’t have to answer that crazy anarchist!”

“Somebody had to. He lied to those poor creatures. I–I couldn’t stand it!–” Her voice broke a little. “And if there is truly a god in me, as I believe, then I should show Christ’s courage … lacking His wisdom,” she added so low that he scarcely heard her.

Ilse, walking ahead with Brisson, looked back over her shoulder at Palla laughing.

“Didn’t I tell you that there are some creatures you can’t educate? What do you think of your object lesson, darling?”

CHAPTER XII

On a foggy afternoon, toward midwinter, John Estridge strolled into the new Overseas Club, which, still being in process of incubation, occupied temporary quarters on Madison Avenue.

Officers fresh from abroad and still in uniform predominated; tunics were gay with service and wound chevrons, citation cords, stars, crosses, strips of striped ribbon.

There was every sort of head-gear to be seen there, too, from the jaunty overseas bonnet de police, piped in various colours, to the corded campaign hat and leather-visored barrack-cap.

Few cavalry officers were in evidence, but there were plenty of spurs glittering everywhere–to keep their owners’ heels from slipping off the desks, as the pleasantry of the moment had it.

Estridge went directly to a telephone booth, and presently got his connection.

“It’s John Estridge, as usual,” he said in a bantering tone. “How are you, Ilse?”

“John! I’m so glad you called me! Thank you so much for the roses! They’re exquisite!–matchless!–”

“Not at all!”

“What?”

“If you think they’re matchless, just hold one up beside your cheek and take a slant at your mirror.”

“I thought you were not going to say such things to me!”

“I thought I wasn’t.”

“Are you alone?” She laughed happily. “Where are you, Jack?”

“At the Overseas Club. I stopped on my way from the hospital.”

“Y–es.”

A considerable pause, and then Ilse laughed again–a confused, happy laugh.

“Did you think you’d–come over?” she inquired.

“Shall I?”

“What do you think about it, Jack?”

“I suppose,” he said in a humourous voice, “you’re afraid of that tendency which you say I’m beginning to exhibit.”

“The tendency to drift?”