The Conflict [47]
his degradation must of necessity weaken his aversion to degradation. Just as the worst kings were the best kings because they hastened the fall of monarchy, so the worst capitalists, the most rapacious, the most rigid enforcers of the economic laws of a capitalistic society were the best capitalists, were helping to hasten the day when men would work for what they earned and would earn what they worked for--when every man's pay envelope would contain his wages, his full wages, and nothing but his wages.
Still, where judgment was uncertain, he certainly had been unjust to that well meaning girl. And was she really so worthless as he had on first sight adjudged her? There might be exceptions to the rule that a parasite born and bred can have no other instructor or idea but those of parasitism. She was honest and earnest, was eager to learn the truth. She might be put to some use. At any rate he had been unworthy of his own ideals when he, assuming without question that she was the usual capitalistic snob with the itch for gratifying vanity by patronizing the ``poor dear lower classes,'' had been almost insultingly curt and mocking.
``What was the matter with me?'' he asked himself. ``I never acted in that way before.'' And then he saw that his brusqueness had been the cover for fear of of her--fear of the allure of her luxury and her beauty. In love with her? He knew that he was not. No, his feeling toward her was merely the crudest form of the tribute of man to woman--though apparently woman as a rule preferred this form to any other.
``I owe her an apology,'' he said to himself. And so it came to pass that at three the following afternoon he was once more facing her in that creeper-walled seclusion whose soft lights were almost equal to light of gloaming or moon or stars in romantic charm.
Said he--always direct and simple, whether dealing with man or woman, with devious person or straight:
``I've come to beg your pardon for what I said yesterday.''
``You certainly were wild and strange,'' laughed she.
``I was supercilious,'' said he. ``And worse than that there is not. However, as I have apologized, and you have accepted my apology, we need waste no more time about that. You wished to persuade your father to----''
``Just a moment!'' interrupted she. ``I've a question to ask. WHY did you treat me--why have you been treating me so--so harshly?''
``Because I was afraid of you,'' replied he. ``I did not realize it, but that was the reason.''
``Afraid of ME,'' said she. ``That's very flattering.''
``No,'' said he, coloring. ``In some mysterious way I had been betrayed into thinking of you as no man ought to think of a woman unless he is in love with her and she with him. I am ashamed of myself. But I shall conquer that feeling--or keep away from you.
. . . Do you understand what the street car situation is?''
But she was not to be deflected from the main question, now that it had been brought to the front so unexpectedly and in exactly the way most favorable to her purposes. ``You've made me uneasy,'' said she. ``I don't in the least understand what you mean. I have wanted, and I still want, to be friends with you--good friends--just as you and Selma Gordon are--though of course I couldn't hope to be as close a friend as she is. I'm too ignorant--too useless.''
He shook his head--with him, a gesture that conveyed the full strength of negation. ``We are on opposite sides of a line across which friendship is impossible. I could not be your friend without being false to myself. You couldn't be mine unless you were by some accident flung into the working class and forced to adopt it as your own. Even then you'd probably remain what you are. Only a small part of the working class as yet is at heart of the working class. Most of us secretly--almost openly--despise the life of work, and dream and hope a time of fortune that will put us up among the masters and the idlers.'' His expressive eyes became eloquent. ``The false and shallow ideas that have been
Still, where judgment was uncertain, he certainly had been unjust to that well meaning girl. And was she really so worthless as he had on first sight adjudged her? There might be exceptions to the rule that a parasite born and bred can have no other instructor or idea but those of parasitism. She was honest and earnest, was eager to learn the truth. She might be put to some use. At any rate he had been unworthy of his own ideals when he, assuming without question that she was the usual capitalistic snob with the itch for gratifying vanity by patronizing the ``poor dear lower classes,'' had been almost insultingly curt and mocking.
``What was the matter with me?'' he asked himself. ``I never acted in that way before.'' And then he saw that his brusqueness had been the cover for fear of of her--fear of the allure of her luxury and her beauty. In love with her? He knew that he was not. No, his feeling toward her was merely the crudest form of the tribute of man to woman--though apparently woman as a rule preferred this form to any other.
``I owe her an apology,'' he said to himself. And so it came to pass that at three the following afternoon he was once more facing her in that creeper-walled seclusion whose soft lights were almost equal to light of gloaming or moon or stars in romantic charm.
Said he--always direct and simple, whether dealing with man or woman, with devious person or straight:
``I've come to beg your pardon for what I said yesterday.''
``You certainly were wild and strange,'' laughed she.
``I was supercilious,'' said he. ``And worse than that there is not. However, as I have apologized, and you have accepted my apology, we need waste no more time about that. You wished to persuade your father to----''
``Just a moment!'' interrupted she. ``I've a question to ask. WHY did you treat me--why have you been treating me so--so harshly?''
``Because I was afraid of you,'' replied he. ``I did not realize it, but that was the reason.''
``Afraid of ME,'' said she. ``That's very flattering.''
``No,'' said he, coloring. ``In some mysterious way I had been betrayed into thinking of you as no man ought to think of a woman unless he is in love with her and she with him. I am ashamed of myself. But I shall conquer that feeling--or keep away from you.
. . . Do you understand what the street car situation is?''
But she was not to be deflected from the main question, now that it had been brought to the front so unexpectedly and in exactly the way most favorable to her purposes. ``You've made me uneasy,'' said she. ``I don't in the least understand what you mean. I have wanted, and I still want, to be friends with you--good friends--just as you and Selma Gordon are--though of course I couldn't hope to be as close a friend as she is. I'm too ignorant--too useless.''
He shook his head--with him, a gesture that conveyed the full strength of negation. ``We are on opposite sides of a line across which friendship is impossible. I could not be your friend without being false to myself. You couldn't be mine unless you were by some accident flung into the working class and forced to adopt it as your own. Even then you'd probably remain what you are. Only a small part of the working class as yet is at heart of the working class. Most of us secretly--almost openly--despise the life of work, and dream and hope a time of fortune that will put us up among the masters and the idlers.'' His expressive eyes became eloquent. ``The false and shallow ideas that have been