Part 41 (1/2)

”Has he consented to let them give him a salary yet?” asked Adelaide, not because she was interested, but because she desperately felt that the conversation must be kept alive. Perhaps Ross was even now on his way to Saint X.

”He still gets what he fixed on at first--ten dollars a week more than the foreman.”

”Honestly, Madelene,” said Adelaide, in a flush and flash of irritation, ”don't you think that's absurd? With the responsibility of the whole business on his shoulders, you know he ought to have more than a common workman.”

”In the first place you must not forget that everyone is paid very high wages at the university works now.”

”And he's the cause of that--of the mills doing so well,” said Del. She could see Ross entering the gates--at the house--inquiring--What was she talking to Madelene about? Yes, about Arthur and the mills. ”Even the men that criticise him--Arthur, I mean--most severely for 'sowing discontent in the working cla.s.s,' as they call it,” she went on, ”concede that he has wonderful business ability. So he ought to have a huge salary.”

”No doubt he earns it,” replied Madelene. ”But the difficulty is that he can't take it without it's coming from the other workmen. You see, money is coined sweat. All its value comes from somebody's labor. He deserves to be rewarded for happening to have a better brain than most men, and for using it better. But there's no fund for rewarding the clever for being cleverer than most of their fellow-beings, any more than there's a fund to reward the handsome for being above the average in looks. So he has to choose between robbing his fellow-workmen, who are in his power, and going without riches. He prefers going without.”

”That's very n.o.ble of you both, I'm sure,” said Adelaide absently.

The Chicago express would be getting in at four o'clock--about five hours. Absurd! The morning papers said Mr. Whitney had had a relapse.

”Very n.o.ble,” she repeated absently. ”But I doubt if anybody will appreciate it.”

Madelene smiled cheerfully. ”That doesn't worry Arthur or me,” said she, with her unaffected simplicity. ”We're not looking for appreciation.

We're looking for a good time.” Del, startled, began to listen to Madelene. A good time--”And it so happens,” came in Madelene's sweet, honest voice, ”that we're unable to have it, unless we feel that we aren't getting it by making some one else have a not-so-good time or a very bad time indeed. You've heard of Arthur's latest scheme?”

”Some one told me he was playing smash at the mills, encouraging the workmen to idleness and all that sort of thing,” said Del. Somehow she felt less feverish, seemed compelled to attention by Madelene's voice and eyes. ”But I didn't hear or understand just how.”

”He's going to establish a seven-hours' working day; and, if possible, cut it down to six.” Madelene's eyes were sparkling. Del watched her longingly, enviously. How interested she was in these useful things. How fine it must be to be interested where one could give one's whole heart without concealment--or shame! ”And,” Madelene was saying, ”the university is to change its schedules so that all its practical courses will be at hours when men working in the factory can take them. It's simply another development of his and Dory's idea that a factory belonging to a university ought to set a decent example--ought not to compel its men to work longer than is necessary for them to earn at honest wages a good living for themselves and their families.”

”So that they can sit round the saloons longer,” suggested Adelaide, and then she colored and dropped her eyes; she was repeating Ross's comment on this sort of ”concession to the working cla.s.ses.” She had thought it particularly acute when he made it. Now--

”No doubt most of them will spend their time foolishly at first,”

Madelene conceded. ”Working people have had to work so hard for others--twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours a day, just to be allowed to live--that they've had really no free time at all; so they've had no chance to learn how to spend free time sensibly. But they'll learn, those of them that have capacity for improvement. Those that haven't will soon drop out.”

”The factories can't make money on such a plan as that,” said Adelaide, again repeating a remark of Ross's, but deliberately, because she believed it could be answered, wished to hear it answered.

”No, not dividends,” replied Madelene. ”But dividends are to be abolished in that department of the university, just as they are in the other departments. And the money the university needs is to come from tuition fees. Everyone is to pay for what he gets. Some one has to pay for it; why not the person who gets the benefit? Especially when the university's farms and workshops and factories give every student, man and woman, a chance to earn a good living. I tell you Adelaide, the time is coming when every kind of school except kindergarten will be self-supporting.

And then you'll see a human race that is really fine, really capable, has a real standard of self-respect.”

As Madelene talked, her face lighted up and all her latent magnetism was radiating. Adelaide, for no reason that was clear to her, yielded to a surge of impulse and, half-laughing, half in tears, suddenly kissed Madelene. ”No wonder Arthur is mad about you, stark mad,” she cried.

Madelene was for a moment surprised out of that perfect self-unconsciousness which is probably the rarest of human qualities, and which was her greatest charm to those who knew her well. She blushed furiously and angrily. Her and Arthur's love was to her most sacred, absolutely between themselves. When any outsider could observe them, even her sister Walpurga, she seemed so much the comrade and fellow-worker in her att.i.tude toward him that people thought and spoke of their married life as ”charming, but cold.” Alone with him, she showed that which was for him alone--a pa.s.sion whose strength had made him strong, as the great waves give their might to the swimmer who does not shrink from adventuring them. Adelaide's impulsive remark, had violated her profoundest modesty; and in the shock she showed it.

”I beg your pardon!” exclaimed Adelaide, though she did not realize wherein she had offended. Love was an unexplored, an unsuspected mystery to her then--the more a mystery because she thought she knew from having read about it and discussed it and reasoned about it.

”Oh, I understand,” said Madelene, contrite for her betraying expression.

”Only--some day--when you really fall in love--you'll know why I was startled.”

Adelaide shrank within herself. ”Even Madelene,” thought she, ”who has not a glance for other people's affairs, knows how it is between Dory and me.”

It was Madelene's turn to be repentant and apologetic. ”I didn't mean quite that,” she stammered. ”Of course I know you care for Dory--”

The tears came to Del's eyes and the high color to her cheeks. ”You needn't make excuses,” she cried. ”It's the truth. I don't care--in _that_ way.”

A silence; then Madelene, gently: ”Was this what you came to tell me?”

Adelaide nodded slowly. ”Yes, though I didn't know it.”