Comrade Yetta

"Why, Walter, I did tell you. I said he asked me to marry him—two years ago."

"But I didn't realize that he loved you as much as this."

"Walter," she said, taking fright at his tone, "I never gave him any encouragement. I never—"

"It isn't that, Yetta," he interrupted her. "Oh! I don't mean that. But why didn't you marry him?"

It was her turn to be dazed and bewildered. She stood up before him, but he had covered his face with his hands.

"Why? How could I when I loved you?"

"Loved me? Yetta, you hardly knew me."

There was an earthquake in Dreamland. Just what was happening in his soul she did not know, but all things were a-tremble.

"Walter? Walter? What do you mean?"

He looked up at her with a haggard face.

"Don't you understand?" he asked seriously. "I'm more than a dozen years older than you are, close to ten years older than Isadore. Years don't always mean much, but these last ones have been very long for me.

"Youth counts for very much in this dreary world of ours. It means undimmed faith, it means courage, it means vibrancy and reserve power. Isadore has never been really defeated, Yetta, and I'm a mass of poorly healed wounds. The best of me is gone, some of it expended, more of it wasted. I come to you like a beggar, asking for all these precious things—faith, hope, incentive. My hands are empty. But Isadore could give you these things, when you need them—as you surely will some day, Yetta. If I'd been here all these years, you'd have seen the difference between us.

"A long time ago, when you were very young, I seemed wonderful to you. I went away—stop and think a moment how very little you know of me—and you made a romance about me. Romance is a very dangerous thing. It's a sort of Lorelei song, Yetta. After all, our business is to push on down the River, not to stop and play with the fairies on the rocks. It's a real world we must live in, Yetta dear, not a dream, and the facts must be faced. Youth is worth more than anything else. Your kisses made me forget to think of you—Isadore reminded me."

"What are you trying to do, Walter?" she asked. "Don't you want me to marry you?"

"I want you to be happy, Little One."

Once more he buried his face in his hands, but she knelt before him and pulled his hands away.

"Do you think anything in all the world could make me as happy as your love?"

Suddenly—with a great rush of weariness—he saw clearly the gulf between them. He knew from his own experience what thrilling things the word "love" may mean. And he could no longer lay claim to it.

"What do you mean by love?" he asked drearily.

Yetta crumpled up in a heap at his feet. If he did not know what "love" meant, the Palace of Dreams was indeed crumbling.

"Don't you know?" she whispered.

The clock ticked dolefully while she waited for his answer.

"Yes. I'm afraid I do know what it means to you, Yetta. And I haven't got that to give you. I think love means romance to you. That is what Isadore and Youth have to offer. I had it once—years ago—enough and to spare. I gave it all away—where it wasn't wanted. There isn't any glitter left.

"I came to you, Yetta, in quest of this very thing—which I have lost. I can't tell you how beautiful, how dazzling you look to my tired eyes—how much to be desired—how much above price—like the Song of Songs. And being selfish, I thought only of my want, of my hungry loneliness. I did not remember—till Isadore came in—that you too had a right—a much better right than my desire—to Youth.

"It would not be honest, Yetta, to accept your love, unless I made quite sure that you know me, know what you are doing, the choice you are making—stripped of romance, in its cold nakedness. It isn't a choice, Yetta, between me and Isadore. It's deeper than that, deeper than individuals. I must see that you make your choice with clear eyes. If you want romance—the grand passion—well—I haven't that to offer you. I—"

His voice trailed off into silence. Perhaps he was a fool. But for the first time in his life he was giving up something he wanted, something he could have for the asking. For the first time in his life he had utterly cleansed himself of selfishness. It was a momentous triumph over his nature, but it was only momentary. His desire for the girl at his feet came over him with a rush. She was resting her head against the ledge of the window-seat and—her clenched fist pressed against her lips—was staring at the black shadows under the table.

Perhaps a scrupulous definition forbade the use of the word "love" to describe his emotion, but it was none the less strong. The last twenty-four hours had been wondrously sweet to him. There was a grace to her clean, fresh youth, a charm to her caresses, her restrained but unhid passion, the timidities and spontaneous abandon of her maidenhood, which had enchanted all the roots of his being. And besides and above all this—though life holds little better than such emotions—was the hope that with her he might get into the swing of activity, the ascending curve of work and purpose.

"I'm through pleading for you, Yetta. Let me plead a little for myself. What is it that makes me talk to you like this? It's not romance. Perhaps it isn't what you would call love. But I would call it that. It's a very desperate desire to forget all about myself and—as Isadore said—'be good to you.' Get up, darling, and sit here beside me. Let us talk over again all our plans of work. After all, work is more important than romance."

She got up rather unsteadily, but she did not sit down beside him.

"I think love is necessary," she said.

"Don't let's wreck things over a word, Yetta. 'Love' means so many things. Tell me what it is I feel for you. What is it that makes me thrill so to your kisses? What is it that makes me want you, Yetta, for all time and always? What is it makes me know I can win to usefulness, if you will help me? What is it that makes me risk losing what I want most in the world, for fear I may not be true and just to you? I don't care what name you give it. But isn't it enough? Let's try to think of realities, not words."

"No. It's not the word I care about," she said. "But the reality is necessary. I love you, Walter, and I'm not afraid of the word. You know what it means to me—all that it ever meant to any woman—and more. It means thinking only and above everything else of the other—and more than that. It means giving one's self without any 'ifs'—and more than that too. I can't tell you what love is—just because the reality is so much bigger than any words. But of one thing I am sure. There can't be any regrets in love. Are you sorry it isn't Mabel who loves you? I don't care about the past any more. I did for a minute this afternoon—because it surprised me. But I love you too much to care about the past. But, oh! the future, Walter? We daren't cheapen that! That's all there is left to us. And our life together—our future—couldn't be fine if you had regrets. If ever you had to hide things from me and had wishes I couldn't share. If you wished sometimes I was some one else. It's very simple, Walter. It's this way. If Mabel should come into this room and stand here beside me and say, 'I love you,' as I say it—which of us would you choose?"

"She'll never come into the room, Yetta."

"Oh, Walter! answer me! I know you won't lie. And I'll believe you for ever and ever."

And so he could not lie. He buried his face once more in his hands. He did not look up when he heard the rustle of her skirts. He did not see her as she picked up her hat and stood there, the tears in her eyes, waiting—hoping that he would say the word.

He did not look up until he heard the door close behind her. He paced the room aimlessly for several minutes, then filled his pipe and, turning out the light, went back to the window-seat. He was not exactly suffering. He felt himself miserably inert and dead.

But one thing he saw clearly—and it made him glad. Yetta's romance had come while she was still young. She was only twenty-two. Life would pick her up again. It might be Isadore, it might be some one else. But her pulse was too strong to let her decay. There are many real joys in life if you get rid of romance early enough.

Time was when he had felt as she did, when nothing but the best seemed worth having. He saw clearly that what he could have given her would not have satisfied her.

Yetta had not stopped to put on her hat. Her eyes dimmed with tears, she had stumbled down the stairs and out across the street into the Square, towards home. Then she remembered that it was early, that her room-mate would be still awake. She could not go home. There were many people about, some stretched on the grass, some grouped on the benches, some strolling about. Many noticed the hatless girl who shuffled along blindly. And presently she ran into Isadore. He also was walking about aimlessly, his head bent, his hands deep in his pockets.

"Good God, Yetta," he cried in amazement, "what's wrong?"

She raised her tear-wet face to him, stretching out her hand towards the familiar voice.

"We're not going to get married," she said.

"Hadn't you better let me take you home?"

"Sadie'll be up. I don't want to go home."

"Well, then, come over here and sit down."

Hardly knowing what she did, she followed him to an empty bench. Now, Isadore did not believe in guardian angels, but something told him not to talk.

"It's like this," Yetta said, feeling that some further explanation was necessary, "he's still in love with Mabel."

And Isadore had sense enough to say nothing at all. Yetta turned about on the bench and, resting her head on her arms, began to sob. Half the night through, Isadore sat beside her there on guard.

BOOK V

CHAPTER XXV ISADORE'S MEDICINE

Sadie Michelson, as she was making coffee the next morning, was cogitating over the fact that she had not seen her new room-mate since they had moved into the flat. What was the meaning of these late hours? She was convinced that this Mr. Longman, whose rooms Yetta had formerly occupied and who had just come back to claim them, had something to do with it.

Her speculations were interrupted by the telephone bell. Yetta also heard it vaguely in her uneasy sleep and dreamed that Walter was calling her. Sadie hurried to the receiver. She hoped to find a clew to the mystery. It was a surprise—and a disappointment—for her to recognize Isadore's voice.

"Hello, Sadie. Is Yetta up yet?"

"No. She got in very late last night and—"

"I know," Isadore interrupted. "I was out with her."

This was a new disappointment. Mr. Longman was not to blame after all.

"Don't wake her," he went on. "But I wish you'd take a message—put it under her door, where she's sure to see it. If she possibly can, it would be a great favor if she could help us down here this morning. We're awfully rushed. Locke's sick. There's a strike over in Brooklyn we've got to cover. And there's nobody here to do it. It would help a lot if Yetta could. Got that straight?—All right—much obliged."

The noise of Sadie's leaving woke Yetta. Her first feeling was of escape from some dread nightmare. Surely last night's storm had been a tempest in the tea-pot. Her whole concept of Walter was that he was all-powerful, very wise and resourceful. Surely he would find some way to make things come straight again.

She lay still a few minutes, staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling. But all orderly processes of the mind were difficult. Her recent experiences had unloosed a flood of tumultuous feelings. A new personality had emerged from that first embrace on the beach at Staten Island. Something had died within her at his kiss—something new and disturbingly wonderful had been born in its place. For a moment, forgetting the bitter reality, she let herself bathe in this dizzying sweet sensation. The hot blood rushed to her cheeks, but it was the blush of exultation. "Death" and "birth" did not seem to her the right words to describe the transformation. It was more of a blossoming, as when a butterfly outfolds its wings from a chrysalis. How wonderful it had been to feel his arms reaching out to her! How much more wonderful had been the feeling of reaching out to him.

The memory of their parting fell on her abruptly. It had all been a hoax. He did not love her. And that which a moment before had seemed so wonderfully right, now smarted as a shame. The butterfly wings snapped. She could find no tears. She looked forward, in dull pain, dry-eyed, to a life of abject crawling.

There was the inevitable wave of bitterness. What right had he to teach her flight and then break her wings? But this mood could not last. She loved him. All her pride, all her ideals of life and work—everything firm—deserted her. Nothing mattered any more except not to lose him. There was no humiliation, through which she would not crawl to regain his companionship. What did this talk of Love matter? She wanted to be with him, to feel his arms once more about her. Her whole being cried out that she was "his," utterly "his." Had she not loved him since their first encounter? She would go to him, asking no terms.

In the rush of this passionate impulse, she jumped out of bed—and saw the note under her door. The dream came back to her. Walter had called her. She had wasted these miserably unhappy moments in bed, and all the while his message had been waiting her!

"Dear Yetta. Isadore called up about 8.30 and asked me to tell—"

The note crumpled up in Yetta's hand. And there, alone in her room, with no one to see her, she had only one idea. She must not make a scene.

She smoothed out the note and went through the motions of reading it. Every muscle was tense, her teeth were gritted in the supreme effort to dominate the storm of wild impulses within her, to keep her head above the buffeting waves of circumstance. Mechanically she bathed and brushed her hair and dressed herself. Her mind was rigid—clenched like her teeth.

But subconsciously—behind this outward calmness—a momentous conflict was raging. In those few minutes, alone in her strange new quarters, with no one by to help or encourage her, she faced the fight and won. She did not win through unscathed,—modern psychology is teaching us that no one does come through such conflicts without wounds, which heal slowly, if at all.

In the din of the spiritual fray a new outlook on life had come to her. It was not so sharp a change as that which Walter's caresses had caused, but it was more fundamental—in the way that spiritual matters are always more significant than things physical.

Life as she had seen it was a ceaseless, desperate struggle, a constant clash of personalities, an unrelenting war of social classes. In an external, rather mechanical way she had been involved in this struggle. She looked forward to being "a striker" all her life. But she had always thought of herself as a part of the conflict. Now—and this was the new viewpoint—it seemed that the fight was taking place within her. The strategic position, the key to the whole battlefield, the place where the fiercest blows were to be exchanged, was her own soul. If she was defeated there, the fight was over—as far as she was concerned.

It was not to be until years afterwards that she came to a full understanding of what that half-hour had meant to her. It was to take many months before she could arrange her life in accord with this new outlook. But as she poured out the coffee, which Sadie had left on the back of the stove, she knew that she had won this first fight in the new campaign. For the moment, at least, she was the Captain of Her Soul.

In the overwhelming sadness of victory, in the poignant wistfulness of triumph, she had regained her pride. She was not going to humiliate herself to gain the narcotic pleasure of kisses when she wanted love. Walter would come to her or he would not. That was for him to decide. In either case the battle of life was still to be fought. She must not desert.

It was half past nine, and no word from Walter. She could not sit there idly, waiting for him to change his mood. To escape from the pain of uncertainty she reread Isadore's message—understandingly. Here was the day's work concretely before her. She put on her hat.

Out on Waverly Place she suddenly realized that her feet were carrying her to Washington Square and Walter. The Enemy made a desperate assault—surprised her with her visor up, her sword in its sheath, her shield hanging useless on her back. Why not? He would not have the heart to send her away. She knew his kindliness. If they were together, he would grow to love her. How could she expect him to change while they were apart? Together all would go well—

She had thought that the struggle of a few minutes before had been final—and here it was all to do over again.

A white-haired old man was walking towards her, but she did not notice him until he stopped and spoke.

"Are you sick, Miss?"

"No"—she shivered as she realized the import of what he had said, how much worse it was than he suspected—"Oh, no! I'm not sick."

But the old man stood still watching her as she turned down McDougal Street. He was half inclined to call a doctor. Soon Yetta realized that she had reached Bleecker Street. She turned across town to the Subway and so down to Newspaper Row and The Clarion office.

It bore no resemblance to that of The Star. The loft of a warehouse had been cut in two by a flimsy partition. In the back was a battery of second-hand, old-style linotypes, a couple of type-frames for the advertisement and job work, the make-up slab, the proof tables, and the stereotyping outfit. The stairway opened into this noisy, crowded room. Yetta had to walk carefully between the machines to reach the editorial room beyond the partition.

A low railing divided the front room between the "editorial" and "business" departments. To the right was a long reporters' table, smaller ones for the "City" and "Exchange" editors, and a roll-top desk beyond for Isadore.

Levine, a youngster with very curly black hair, a wilted collar, and soaked shirt, jumped up to greet Yetta.

"Hello," he shouted above the din of the typewriters and machines. "Here's a note from Isadore. He's out trying to raise money. I hope to God you can help us. Locke's sick. I'm running his desk and mine and Isadore's this morning. Harry's covering the Party News and Woman's Page besides his Telegraph and Exchanges, so that Sam can cover the State Convention. How in hell they expect us to get out a paper so short-handed is—"

"Oh, stop your croaking," Harry Moore yelled from his table, hardly looking up from a pile of Labor Papers he was clipping. "Things are no worse than usual. We'll get her out somehow. We always do. God's good to drunks and fools and Socialists."

One of the bookkeepers, from the "business" side of the railing, overhearing this "editorial" controversy, began to count at the top of his voice.

"One! Two! Three!"

At "Three" every one in the room, except Yetta and Levine, chanted in unison:—

"O-o-oh! Cut it out and work for Socialism!"

"You make me tired," Levine growled back at them, and sat down at his table with a despairing gesture.

Isadore's note told Yetta that a small but desperate strike had broken out among some paper-box factories in an out-of-the-way corner of Brooklyn. The workers were recently arrived immigrants who spoke no English. The regular papers had not mentioned the strike, and under cover of this secrecy, the bosses, who were allied with prominent Kings County politicians, were having everything their own way. He thought there was a big story in it. The publicity would certainly help the strikers. There was no one in the office to cover it.

Not a word of their last night's encounter.

"Comrade," Yetta asked Levine, "what time do you go to press?"

"One o'clock. Copy must be in by twelve-thirty. It's idiotic! Our Final Edition is on the streets before the regular papers lock up for their Home Edition. We can't get out a decent sheet in such—"

"One! Two! Three!"

"O-o-oh! Cut it out and work for Socialism!"

"They're fools!"

"Well," Yetta said, smiling for the first time that day, "I'll call you up about noon. Put a stenographer on the wire. That'll give you an opener for to-day. I'll have the whole story for a follow-up to-morrow. So long."

About the time that Yetta was starting off on this assignment, Isadore came into the office of the Woman's Trade Union League.

"Hello," Mabel greeted him. Then, as a second thought, and somewhat less cordially, she added, "Stranger."

She was not in a happy mood. Of late she had felt her grip on life weakening. People upon whom she depended were deserting her. It had begun when Isadore had given up his work for the League to start The Clarion. When a new lawyer had been broken in, Mrs. Karner had left. It had been impossible to replace her. The Advisory Council was doubly hard to manage without her. There had been other desertions. Isadore seemed to have started a stampede. And Mabel did not feel these days the same buoyancy in meeting such emergencies. Her few gray hairs she was still able to hide, but there was no getting away from the tired look about her eyes. Her sudden irritabilities frightened her. She was haunted by the idea that she was getting "crabbed."

Isadore pulled up a chair and broke at once into his business. He wanted Mabel to persuade Yetta to take up some regular work on The Clarion. Yetta had a talent for writing which ought not to be wasted. He would give them a column or so daily for their work of organizing women. "It would be helpful all round," he said. "Publicity for you. If it looks good to you, put it up to Yetta."

"It doesn't look good to me," Mabel said decisively. "You forget I'm not interested in your crazy little paper. What good is publicity to us among the couple of thousand hidebound Socialists who buy The Clarion?"

"Our circulation is over ten thousand."

"Pooh! Nobody but party members read it. Most of your circulation is given away—and thrown into the gutter. You think working-men ought to read a Socialist paper. But they don't. They prefer a real paper with news in it and pictures and a funny page. Yetta was a fool to give up her work on The Star. That was real publicity.

"You want to get Yetta on The Clarion. You surely do need somebody who knows how to write! You want her to drift away from the real work of organization—just as you did. I see through your mutual benefit talk. Instead of helping our work, you want to get her away from us. Well, the less she gets mixed up with The Clarion and your little closed circle of dogmatists, the better I'll be pleased."

"Come to think of it," Isadore said, changing his tactics, "I would like to see Yetta give all her time to The Clarion. As you say, we surely do need good writers. But that wasn't in my mind when I came in.

"I'm worried about Yetta. She needs to be kept busy—busier than she is. Of course I wouldn't want her to know I was butting in like this. But she's worrying about something—"

Mabel, her mind made up to be disagreeable, interrupted him.

"I knew it wasn't interest in the League that brought you here. I owe this visit to your solicitude about Yetta."

"That's not just, either, Mabel—although it's nearer right than your first guess. Yetta's principal work is with the League. It's natural I should come to you. I am really worried about her. Something's troubling her."

"What's the matter?"

"I don't know." Isadore was surprised at the ease with which he lied. "You don't have to know what's wrong to see that things aren't right. You'd have noticed it, too, if you had not been seeing her every day. But I haven't seen her for a long time"—he expanded his lie. "She came into my office this morning and it scared me. This 'what's-the-use' look. She's moody, sad. Going through some sort of a crisis. We all have them. Times when we wonder what God had against us when He made us, and all that. The only thing that helps is work.

"Yetta isn't doing much more for you than when she was studying or working on The Star. I guess it's the empty mornings that cause the trouble. Really, the way she looked startled me. I was coming uptown, anyway, and I decided to drop in and put it up to you. I really think the work I suggested—which would fill up her mornings—would help you fully as much as us."

Mabel bit the end of her pencil and looked out at the street. She was sure that Isadore had not told her all he knew. Probably Yetta had found Walter indifferent and was cut up over that. She would find out in the evening when Walter called on her. Perhaps more work would be good for Yetta. Not the job Isadore suggested. She had a decided hostility to him and this wild newspaper fad which had taken him away from "really useful work."

"You may be right about Yetta," she said, trying to soften her ill-humor. "I haven't seen any signs of a soul tragedy. But if she needs more work, I can give her more than she can handle right here—without urging her to waste time on your hobby."

"Your hobby or mine," Isadore said, getting up. "I don't care much which. My idea in coming was to see that Yetta was kept busy. And I think you'll see I was right about it. So long."

He was really glad that things had taken this turn. The impersonal, Socialist side of him would have rejoiced in winning Yetta's support for The Clarion. But he knew that in a personal way it would have been harder to have her always about. The sharpest pain in Cupid's quiver is to watch the one you love break heart for some one else.

From the League Isadore went in search of Wilhelm Stringer, the "organizer" of the "branch" of the Socialist local to which Yetta belonged. For near forty years, Stringer had earned what money he needed as a brass polisher. But his real job was Socialism. He had long been a widower, his own children had died in infancy and his cheated paternal instinct had found an outlet in quiet, intense love for the "young Comrades." He was a kindly "Father Superior" to the whole city organization.

Isadore found him eating his lunch on the sidewalk, in the shade of the factory. They were old friends and could talk without evasions.

"Bill," Isadore said, "this is a personal matter. It's just by chance I know about it. Comrade Yetta Rayefsky is up against it. You can guess the trouble as well as I could tell you. What she needs is to be kept so busy that she'll forget it. She's in your branch. There must be some work which isn't being done that you could unload on her. Work's the best medicine for her."

Very slowly Stringer chewed up his mouthful of cheese sandwich.

"Vell. Ve must send a delegate to der komität von education. Nowadays they meet three times a veek. That vill be a start. Und alzo ve commence soon mit the hauz to hauz mit tracts—for the campaign. That is much vork. Poor leetle girl. I guess ve can most kill her. Vork is gut medicine."

And Isadore, having stolen half a morning from his regular work, rushed downtown to the office.

CHAPTER XXVI THE CLARION

Yetta found the strike of the paper-box makers more serious than she had expected. The conditions of the trade were appalling. The half dozen factories were only the centre of a widespread sweating system. More than half of the work was done in the tenements of the districts where the Child Labor Law could be evaded and where women could be driven to work incredibly long hours beyond the reach of the Factory Inspectors.

The strikers were not only isolated—lost in a backwater district of Brooklyn, out of touch with labor organizations, ignorant of the laws and of their rights—they were also weakened by the division of languages. All were "greenhorn" immigrants, who had not yet learned English. They belonged to diverse and hostile races—a disunited medley of Slovaks, Poles, Italians, and Jews. The bosses have been quick to discover how serious an impediment to organization is a mixture of races.

Yetta came to them in the same way that Mabel, three and a half years before, had come to the striking vest-makers—bringing detailed, practical knowledge of how to manage a strike. As soon as she had telephoned in a first story to The Clarion, she took up the work of bringing order and hope into the despairing chaos of the struggle. She called on the police captain, and her threat of publicity made him change his mind in regard to the right of the strikers to hold meetings. Before supper-time the effect of the Clarion story was evident. Half a dozen labor organizers and Socialist speakers turned up. With this outside help the paper-box makers were able to organize their picket, arrange meetings, and start plans for money-raising. A Socialist lawyer took up the cases of the dozen odd strikers who had been arrested.

By ten o'clock the situation was immensely improved. Yetta escaped to a typewriter to get out her big "follow-up" for the next day's paper. She went at it with a peculiar thrill. She was realizing for the first time what a power in the fight a working-man's paper might be.

While she was working out her story, the semi-annual stockholders' meeting of the Coöperative Newspaper Publishing Company was called to order in one of the halls of the Labor Temple on East Eighty-fourth Street.

Walter had spoken of The Clarion as "Isadore's paper." In reality it was a coöperative enterprise. In the days when the working-men nearly elected Henry George as Mayor of New York, they had started to raise money to found a newspaper which would represent the interests of their class. It was decided that fifty thousand dollars was necessary, and a committee had been formed. In the first enthusiasm they had collected five thousand. Fresh efforts had been made intermittently, and the sum had grown to eight thousand.

When Isadore had returned from his vacation with the Pauldings, he had decided to centre his efforts on this project. He had studied the ways and means carefully, he had infused new life into the committee, and at last he had succeeded in organizing this coöperative publishing company. At their first meeting they had decided that fifty thousand was hopeless, and that they could begin with twenty-five. But after straining every nerve for six months, arranging balls and picnics and fairs, they had raised only twelve thousand. The Clarion was started on that amount. Every one who knew anything about modern journalism told Isadore he was a fool.

At first the paper ran on its capital. But after a few months the income from circulation, advertisements, and job-printing reduced the weekly deficit to about five hundred dollars. This was met in part by the Maintenance Pledge Fund. About two thousand people, mostly members of the Socialist party, had pledged weekly contributions ranging from ten cents to a few dollars. The remaining deficit was met by pure and simple begging and by rebates from the wages. Never was a paper run on a more strenuous and flimsy basis. The lack of economy of such poverty-stricken operation would have shocked any business man, would have caused apoplexy to an "efficiency expert." The cost of every process was twice or thrice what it would have been if they had had more money.

But financial worries were only a small part of what Isadore and his little band of enthusiastic helpers had to contend with. The Clarion was the property of the democratically organized shareholders, who elected an Executive Committee of five to manage it. Of all phases of public life, Democracy has shown itself least prepared to deal sanely with this business of newspapers. As a whole the stockholders of the company were deeply dissatisfied with the regular newspapers and ardently desired one which would truly represent their class. But although they were making great sacrifices, were putting up an amazingly large share of their earnings to support The Clarion, their idea of what to expect from it was very vague. They knew nothing at all of the technical problems of journalism.

The Executive Committee had stated meetings every week, and seemed to Isadore to be holding special meetings every ten minutes. More of his time went to educating this board of managers, teaching them what could and what could not be done with their limited resources, than in actual work on the paper.

When the meeting of the shareholders had been called to order, Rheinhardt, the chairman of the Executive Committee, read his report. The circulation had reached twelve thousand. The weekly deficit had been reduced to $400. The Maintenance Pledge Fund had brought in $310. Gifts to the amount of $66.50 had been received. The office force had receipted for $23.50 which they had not received. For the first time in the history of The Clarion a week had passed without increasing the indebtedness.

Then the meeting fell into its regular routine of useless criticism. One desperately earnest Socialist vehemently objected to some of the advertisements which, he said, favored capitalistic enterprise. He was immediately followed by another Comrade who accused the advertising force of rank inefficiency in not securing more of it. A third speaker said it was foolish to waste space on sporting news. The working-class had more serious things to think about. Three or four others at once clamored for the floor. They all told the same story: the men in their shops bought the papers to see how the Giants were coming along in the race for the baseball pennant. They would not buy The Clarion because its athletic news was weak. So it went on as usual—every suggestion was combated by a counterproposal—and so it would have gone on till adjournment, if one of the Executive Committee had not lost heart in the face of this futile criticism and resigned.

Wilhelm Stringer jumped up.

"Ve haf in our branch a comrade who is one gut newspaper lady. She has vorked mit a big yellow journal. I like to see gut Socialist on the komität, but alzo ve need some gut newspaper man. Und I nominate Comrade Yetta Rayefsky."'

No one sought the nomination, for it was a hard and thankless job, so Yetta was elected by acclamation.

"Ve vill nearly kill her mit vork. Yes?" Stringer said to Isadore as the meeting broke up.

"Do you think she'll accept?" Isadore asked dubiously.

"Sure, she vill. It is a gut girl. I haf not as yet asked her, but now I vill write a letter und tell her."

He gave the note to Isadore to deliver.

Yetta finished her copy about midnight, but finding much detail still needing attention at the strike headquarters, she decided to make a night of it and sleep in Brooklyn with a family of strikers. It was three in the morning before she turned in—too tired to remember with any clearness that her butterfly wings had been broken. More than once during the day she had had to fight against her tears—to struggle against the desire to drop all this work and rush back to Manhattan and Walter. But always at the weak moment some one who was weaker had asked her help.

It all had to be fought out again when she woke. She might not have won, if the conviction had not come to her during her sleep that somehow it must all turn out right in the end. When she reached "headquarters" she found so much to do that she had no time to mourn. The first mail brought in more than fifty dollars—the result of her yesterday's story. But better still was the fact that The Clarion's glaring headlines had forced the attention of the regular papers. The strike was receiving wide publicity. There is no other class of evil-doers who so ardently love darkness in their business as "unfair" employers. The bosses had not been much worried by the revolt of their workers, but they did not like to read about it—to have their acquaintances read about it—in their morning papers.

It was ten o'clock before Yetta could get away. Coming across on the elevated, she had her first chance to look at the yesterday's issue of The Clarion. It caused a revulsion from her feeling of enthusiasm over a working-man's paper. What a pitiful sheet it was! How different in tone and quality from the one Walter had talked of so glowingly! It was not only unattractive in appearance. There was not a detail which, to Yetta's trained eye, seemed well done. The headlines of her own story, which spread across the top of the front page, were crude. A dozen better ones suggested themselves to her. The mistakes they had made in expanding her telephone message to two columns were ludicrous and vexatious. What else was there in the paper? The rest of the front page was filled with telegrams which had been news several hours before it had gone to press! The second page—it was headed "Labor News"—offended Yetta especially. It was mostly "exchange paragraphs" clipped from trade journals. The original matter was written by some one who did not understand nor sympathize with the Trade-Union Movement, who evidently thought that every worker who was not a party member was mentally defective. The only spark of personality on the last page was Isadore's editorial. It was a bit ponderous and long-drawn-out, but at least it was intense and thoughtful. The cartoon was poorly drawn and required an analytic mind to discover the point. Yetta found it hard to believe that twelve thousand people had been willing to buy so uninteresting a paper when they could get the bright, snappy, sixteen-page Star for the same money.

She was tired and discouraged when she reached the office.

"I'm not a headline writer," she said as she tossed her copy on Levine's table, "but I've ground out some that aren't quite so stupid as those you ran yesterday."

Without waiting for his retort she went on to Isadore's desk.

"Here's a note from Stringer," he said as a greeting.

She tore it open listlessly.

"Well! That's a nervy piece of business," she said, throwing it into the waste-paper basket. "Electing me without asking my consent."

"Won't you serve?"

"No."

Isadore leaned back in his swivel chair and puffed nervously at his cigarette.

"Don't you think the job's worth doing?"

"It's worth doing well—but not like this."

It seemed to Isadore that a word of encouragement from her would have put new life into him. But she—like everybody else—had only criticism. He had a foolish desire to cry and an equally insane desire to curse. He managed to do neither.

"Well, what would you suggest? To bring it up to your standard of worth-while-ness?"

"It'll never be a newspaper till the front page gets over this day-before-yesterday look—for one thing."

"If you knew what we're up against," he said, laboriously trying to hide the sting her scorn gave him, "I think you'd be proud of our news department—as proud as I am. In the first place, of course, we have to subscribe to the very cheapest News Agency. Until we can afford some more delivery wagons—we've only got two now—we'll have to go to press by one. That means that the telegraphic copy must be in at twelve-thirty. The flimsies don't begin to come in till eleven. We can receive only one hour and a half out of twenty-four. And it's a rotten, unreliable, dirty capitalistic service—the only one we can afford. Half of it has to be rewritten. Harry Moore, who also reports night meetings, clips the labor papers, attends to the make-up, runs the 'Questions and Answers,' and collects jokes and fillers, has to read every despatch and rewrite most of them. Yes, I'm rather proud of our telegraphic department."

"Is the financial side so hopeless?" Yetta asked.

"Well, I don't call it hopeless. You're a member of the Executive Committee—at least till you resign—so you'd best look into the books."

For half an hour they bent their heads over balance-sheets. It was an appalling situation. The debt was out of all proportion to the property. To be sure much of it was held by sympathizers, who were not likely to foreclose. But there was no immediate hope of decreasing the burden. Any new income would have to go into improvements. The future of the paper depended not only on its ability to carry this dead weight, but on the continuance of the Pledge Fund and on Isadore's success in begging about a hundred dollars a week.

"It's hopeless," Yetta said. "You might run a good weekly on these resources, but you need ten times as much to keep up a good daily."

"Well, if you feel that way about it, Yetta, I hope you'll resign at to-night's meeting." His eyes turned away from her face about the busy room, and his discouraged look gave place to one of conviction. A note of dogged determination rang in his voice.—"Because it isn't hopeless! Our only real danger is that the executive committee may kill us with cold water. If we can get a committee that believes in us, we'll be all right. A paper like this isn't a matter of finance. That's what you—and the other discouragers—don't see. You look at it from a bourgeoise dollar-and-cents point of view. It's hopeless, is it? Well, we've been doing this impossible thing for more than a year. It's hopeless to carry such indebtedness? Good God! We started with nothing but debts—nothing at all to show. Every number that comes out makes it more hopeful. The advertising increases. The Pledge Fund grows. Why, we've got twelve thousand people in the habit of reading it now. That habit is an asset which doesn't show in the books. Six months ago we had nothing!—not even experience. Why, our office force wasn't even organized! And now you say it's hopeless—want us to quit—just when it's getting relatively easy. We—"

Levine's querulous voice rose above the din of the machines—finding fault with something. A stenographer in a far corner began to count, "One! Two! Three!" Every one in the office, even the linotypers and printer's devil beyond the partition took up the slogan.

"O-o-oh! Cut it out and work for Socialism."

The tense expression on Isadore's face relaxed into a confident grin.

"That's it. You think we need money to run this paper? We're doing it on enthusiasm. And nothing is going to stop us."

"I'll think it over," Yetta said. "If I can't see any chance of helping, I won't stay on the Committee to discourage you. I've got to go up to the League now and make peace with Mabel. I was so busy in Brooklyn last night I forgot all about a speaking engagement she'd made for me."

As she rode uptown Yetta was surprised by a strange revulsion towards her old work and workmates. Why the shattering of her romance should have changed her outlook on life she could not determine. She seemed somehow to have graduated from it all. Even with wings broken a butterfly does not want to crawl back into the chrysalis. All her old life had become abhorrent to her. She hated the steps in front of the League office as she walked up them. She realized that she was dangerously near hating Mabel. More sharply than ever before she felt the chasm between this finely bred upper-class woman and herself. No matter how hard she tried she would never be able to climb entirely out of her sweat-shop past. Jealousy made her unjust. She attributed Walter's preference—which was purely a matter of chance—to this difference in breeding.

Mabel, sitting within at her desk, was in no more cordial a mood. Walter had not called the night before. This had affected her more than she would have believed possible. It seemed typical of the way she was being deserted. A hungry loneliness had been gathering within her of late. The process of growing old seemed to be a gradual sloughing off of the relationships which really counted. Old age with Eleanor was a dreary outlook. She had not had many suitors this last year—none that mattered. As she had sat at home waiting for Walter to call, realizing minute by minute that he was not coming, the loneliness which had been only a hungry ache had changed to an acute pain. She was no more in love with him than before. But—although she had not admitted it to herself in so many words—if he had come, still seeking her, she knew she would have married him out of sheer fright at the doleful prospect of being left alone.

At the office that morning she had found a letter, which he had written the day before. He was sorry to have missed her. He was to be in the country only a few days, was leaving that afternoon for Boston—a collection he wanted to look over in the Harvard Museum—and was sailing from there to England. He told of the Oxford professorship he was accepting, and he was "Very truly yours." He did not even give his Boston address.

It was his formal "adieu." It was the concrete evidence—which is often so distressing, even when the fact is already known—that another chapter was finished.

She had hardly finished this letter when a telephone message had come, asking why Yetta had failed to appear at the meeting. It was a small matter, but it seemed important to Mabel. Yetta, the reliable, the dependable, had failed her. Was this a new desertion?

The stenographers had made more mistakes that morning than was their general average for a week.

At last Yetta came in. Her haggard face shocked Mabel. She forgot her own discomforts in a sudden flood of sympathy.

"What's the matter?" she asked anxiously. "Are you sick? Is that why you didn't speak last night?"

"No," Yetta replied shortly. It irritated her to think that her heartbreak showed in her face. "I'm not sick. I forgot."

"Forgot?"

"Yes. I forgot all about it till it was too late to do any good telephoning. I was over in Brooklyn. And even if I hadn't forgot, I couldn't have come. This paper-box strike is a lot more important than that meeting."

"Paper-box makers? I did not know they were striking."

"If you read The Clarion, you'd find out about such things."

Yetta tossed her copy on Mabel's desk. The edge of each word had shaved a trifle off the traditional friendship between them. Mabel had not intended to lose her temper. The sight of Yetta had touched her deeply. But it seemed to her—from Yetta's first word—that she was being flouted. The Clarion was the last straw. Below the glaring headlines was Yetta's name at the head of the story.

"So, you thought it more important to write an article for The Clarion than to keep an engagement for the League? I'd like to know whether you're working for me or for Isadore Braun."

Yetta had not intended to lose her temper, either. But she had been too tired and storm-tossed to be thoughtful. She was flooded by an insolent recklessness. Mabel Train did not need to put on airs, just because she had had a better education.

"Neither," she said defiantly. "I'm drawing my salary from the Woman's Trade Union League. If they don't like my work, all they've got to do is to tell me."

A stenographer giggled.

Yetta walked over to her letter-box and looked over her mail.

"Am I to understand that you are offering me your resignation?" Mabel asked.

"Oh, no! I was just making a general statement. Any time the Advisory Council want my resignation they can get it by asking."

Suddenly Yetta wanted to cry.

"What's the use of quarrelling?" she said contritely, coming over to Mabel's desk. "I'm all done up. Haven't had any sleep lately. Cross as a bear. I'll go home—a couple of hours' sleep will do me good. I'm sorry I—"

Her eye fell on the envelope of Walter's note. His well-loved handwriting stared at her—jeeringly. What did he have to say to Mabel? The apology died on her lips.

Mabel was too deeply offended to make peace easily. She had felt humiliated by the snicker of her secretary. She kept her eyes turned away and so did not see the sudden spasm of pain which twisted Yetta's face. She waited a moment for the apology which did not come. Then she turned back to her work without looking up.

"I will certainly present the matter to the next meeting of the Advisory Council," she said coldly.

Yetta turned without a word and slammed the door as she went out.

CHAPTER XXVII NEW WORK

Things seemed very muddled indeed to Yetta as she rushed out of the office of the Woman's Trade Union League. It was not until she reached the elevated and was on her way downtown that any coherent thought came to her. Then she was caught by one of those amazing psychological reactions, which escape all laboratory explanation. She was suddenly calm. All this turmoil of misunderstanding and quarrels was utterly unbelievable. It was quite impossible that her love for Walter, her long friendship with Mabel, should be wrecked in so short a time. With the fairest look of truth the whole muddle straightened out. That note on Mabel's desk had been Walter's definite break with her, an announcement of his new love. It was as plain as day. A letter like that would explain Mabel's raw humor. She would find Walter waiting for her on her doorstep. They would have supper together and never, never separate again. She began to smile at the thought of all the dumb, gratuitous misery of these last two days. She ran down the stairs of the Ninth Street station, dashed through the chaos of Sixth Avenue cars, and walked her fastest to Waverly Place.

Walter was not sitting on her doorstep.

It was dark in the hallway—appallingly dark. But the light shone about her once more when she found a letter from him in her box. She ran upstairs, let herself into the apartment, locked her bedroom door, and tore open the letter. It was written on the paper of the Café Lafayette.

"Dear Yetta,

"No word from you all morning—so I know you have decided to keep faith with your Dream. Perhaps you are right. I hope for your sake that you are—although it seems very like a death sentence to me.

"I should like to ask your pardon for all the pain this has caused you, but it's hard to apologize for having tried desperately to tell the truth. Feeling as your silence tells me you do about it, it must be better for both of us that Isadore's coming forced an explanation, forced us to an understanding—in time. I trust you, Yetta, to see clearly—perhaps not now, but sometime—how I tried above all things to be fair and honest to you. I wanted your love. You must never think I was pretending about that, Yetta darling. There is nothing I want more at this moment. And, although you will not agree with me—and may be right—I thought we could win together to a happy, useful life. I still think we might if you did not feel about such things as you do.

"But after all, it doesn't matter much what I think. You're a woman. You've lived long enough to make your own choice, to formulate for yourself the demands you will present to the Great Employer—Life.

"I don't feel that you are asking too much—I don't believe we can do that. I won't admit that you are asking more than I. But I doubt if you are asking wisely—for the Real Thing. Yet, for years on end, I made the same demand. Perhaps it is my defeat which has changed me from a romanticist to a realist. Nowadays I prefer something real to any Dream.

"But you must make your choice according to your present lights. I can't ask you to accept my experience. And more deeply—more devoutly—than I wish for anything else, I hope that your Dream may lead your feet into pleasant paths—to the Happy Valley.

"Once my pen is started, I could write on and on to you. But this desire to commune with you is not what you think love should be, so it would be of no comfort. After all, there is nothing more for me to say. It was my business to make you see the choice clearly. You did, I think. And you made it bravely. So I must say Good-by.

"I'm leaving in half an hour for Boston, and I will sail from there in a few days. The Fates have arranged a haven for me in Oxford. It is not what I would like most in the world, but it will do. Better chance to you.

"Walter."

Very little of this letter reached Yetta's consciousness. The import of all these phrases was that he had gone. So there was not any hope. If Walter had loved her—in anything like the way she meant—he would not have gone.

Yetta had not cried very much, even as a little girl. Now, it seemed to her that, having lost control of her tears, she had lost everything. She wilted on to the bed, burying her face in the pillow to hide the shame of her sobs.

Her body was utterly prone on the bed—but her spirit had fallen even lower. Why had she let Isadore divert her with the call to work? What did work matter, if she had lost Walter? Why had she not gone to him that first morning? He had waited for some word from her. She had let her stupid pride stand in her way. What was her pride worth to her? If she had gone to his room, she might have held something of him. She had demanded all and had lost everything.

As the minutes grew into hours, Yetta sank deeper and deeper into the Slough of Despond. She lost desire to struggle out. But gradually the wild turmoil of grief wore away, and she fell into a heavy sleep.

When she awoke, she heard Sadie moving about in the kitchen. The pride which she had cursed a few hours before came back to her. She did not want Sadie to see her defeat. There is a vast difference between the abstract proposition, "Is life worth living?" and the concrete question, "Shall I let Tom, Dick, or Mary see tears in my eyes!" She had wanted to die, and now she did not want to be ashamed.

So the will came to Yetta to hold her head high. It was six o'clock when she got up and washed her face. Sadie was preparing supper. She wanted to go out and help. But instead she sat down drearily. She did not have the courage to face her room-mate. The willing of a deed does not guarantee the power of execution.

She was dry-eyed now; the tears were spent, but she was utterly weak. She leaned a little sideways and, resting her cheek against the cool surface of her bureau, looked—unseeing—out of her window at the array of milk bottles on the window ledge across the airshaft. Where could she find help? It was the first time in her life she had wanted such assistance. Often she had needed advice, aid in thinking things out. But now she needed help in the elemental job of living. Often she had been at a loss as to what she ought to do, but now she knew. Yet instead of going out to help Sadie, she sat there—weak.

If she had been an Italian, she might have crept out to the Confessional, whispered her troubles into a kind Padre's ear, and so found comfort and strength. But the solace of religion was unknown to her. In these latter active years, even the memory of her father had faded. She could no longer shut her eyes and talk things over with him. But without some external aid, she knew she could not go forward. She—the individual—was defeated. Like the little band of besieged in Lucknow there was nothing more that she could do. The ammunition was spent. In what direction should she turn in the hope of hearing the pipes of the rescuers?

In those few desolate moments she saw her situation clearly. She did not want to die. But unless relief came quickly the black waves of death which were beleaguering her spirit would close over her. Never as long as she might live could she ever be proud of her strength again.

What solid, basic thing was there for her to lean against?

Suddenly she caught the sound of the distant bagpipes. She rushed out into the hall and took down the receiver of the telephone.

"Hello, Central. Park Row 3900."...

"Hello. The Clarion?"...

"One! Two! Three!!"

Sadie came to the kitchen door and looked out in surprise. The gaslight shone full on Yetta's face; it was drawn and haggard.

Harry Moore, who happened to answer the call in The Clarion office, did not recognize Yetta's voice, but he recognized the signal of distress.

"O-o-oh!" he shouted back. "Cut it out and work for Socialism."

Yetta's fixed stare melted into the look of one who sees a fair vision, the strained lines about her mouth relaxed into a glad smile.

"Thanks!" she said, and hung up the receiver.

After all, there was something bigger than her little personal woes—a Cause to work for even if her wings were broken.

"I'm sorry to have slept so late," she said, coming out into the kitchen. "I was up on that paper-box strike in Brooklyn most of last night. Dead tired. I turned in about one this afternoon. I thought I'd surely wake up in time to get supper."

Sadie was aggrieved at Yetta's matter-of-fact tone. She knew that something was wrong. In spite of the firm smile, Sadie was sure something exciting had happened. She herself was used to telling her troubles to almost any one who would listen. That her ready sympathy should be allowed to lie fallow, hurt her. But she did not want Yetta to think she was prying. So she talked about other things. But when Yetta put on her hat after supper, Sadie could not help asking where she was going.

"Down to The Clarion. An Executive Committee. I hope I'll get back early. This all-night game is killing me."

Yetta took little part in the Committee meeting, but she listened carefully to get the measure of the other members. Rheinhardt, the chairman, was a printer; he had some familiarity with that side of newspaper work at least. He was a quiet, earnest man, and as the evening passed, Yetta's respect for him grew. He seemed sleepy and indifferent most of the time, but whenever any matter of real importance came up, he was wide-awake. Paulding, the magazine writer, with whom Isadore had spent his vacation, was the strongest man on the Committee. But in spite of his deep interest in the paper, he was a bit restive, quick to voice any passing discouragement, impatient with the less-cultured working-men and their rather indirect methods of thought and work. Idle discussion, waste of time, made him fume. Yetta saw that if she was to do any real work on this Committee, it must be in coöperation with Rheinhardt and Paulding against the other two who were dead-wood—nonentities.

When the routine work had ended and they had reached, in the Order of Business, "Good and Welfare," Rheinhardt asked Yetta if she had any suggestions.

"Every improvement," she said, "seems to depend on getting more money. And that's got to be done by increased circulation. Our financial condition will never be sound so long as we are dependent on gifts and friendly loans. We've got about 12,000 circulation now, and I guess that's as many Socialists as we can count on. If we're to grow, it must be among non-Socialist working-men. So it seems to me that we must put our best efforts on the labor page. That page is very weak now. It's full of stuff about the unions, but it's written to interest Socialists. It ought to be the other way round. Until it is made interesting to working-men who are not yet Socialists it's useless as a circulation-getter."

Paulding leaned forward and broke in impulsively.

"Comrade, everybody has knocks! Every page in the paper is weak. We don't have to be told that. How can it be improved with the resources at hand? That's the question."

"Nothing can be done without some money. But if we could raise one man's salary, I think we could make a great improvement. What's needed is a man who can give all his time to it, some one who has an idea of news-value, of up-to-date journalism, who understands the labor movement and can write about it without an offensive Socialist bias."

"And," Paulding growled, "how much would a man like that cost us? There aren't half a dozen men with those qualifications in the city. How much would Karner pay a man, who could make real circulation for The Star out of a labor page?"

"The kind of man I mean would value the freedom we could give him. Nobody who's sincere likes to work for Karner. We can get him for less."

"Well, I'm doubtful," Paulding said. "We're sweating our staff now worse than any sweat-shop. Look at this rotten office where we ask them to work. We're overworking them, underpaying them, and about every week asking them to sign off some of their wages."

"They do it willingly," one of the nonentities put in, "the Great Ideal—"

"Oh! that Great Ideal talk makes me tired," Paulding interrupted. "We can't get high-class men at such terms. I know two really able men; they give us a lot of stuff gratis. They've got the Great Ideal as strong as anybody, but they've also got families! They'd be glad to work for us if we could give them, not fancy salaries, but decent ones. We can't. The men we've got are wonderful. I take off my hat whenever I think of them. They're devoted to the limit. Very likely they're of high moral character"—his voice rose querulously—"good to their mothers, and all that. But there is no use shutting our eyes to the fact that they're not newspaper men. Braun had some experience on the Forwaertz. But there isn't a man in the office who ever saw the inside of a modern metropolitan daily.

"What can we offer a man? Twenty-five dollars a week—at most. That's what Braun is getting—sometimes. It's a joke. A hundred a month to our editor-in-chief! That's our whole trouble. What we—"

"Could you offer twenty-five a week?" Yetta interrupted his despondency.

"It would be hard," Rheinhardt said.

"Sure we could—for a good man," Paulding contradicted him. "I could guarantee it myself. I've a lot of friends who are interested in The Clarion, but just dead sick of its sloppy appearance. I haven't seen anything in it for weeks that jolted me till this paper-box story of yours. Think of it! A Socialist paper which isn't afraid to tell the truth, but can't afford to hire the brains to do it! Yes, if we had a live-wire on the paper, I could find ten people who would pledge ten dollars a month. But what's the use of talking about it? The kind of man we need could get fifty a week—more. It's the same all the way through. We need keen men in every department and can't afford to pay their market value. If we got the right kind of a man for advertising manager—the kind we need—he'd be valuable to other richer papers. The right kind of a man for our circulation department would be worth ten thousand to a dozen other—"

"I don't know anything about the business side of it," Yetta interrupted again. "But I know a lot of reporters. If you'll authorize me to offer twenty-five a week, I'll see if I can find one."

"No one can work on the paper who isn't a party member," the other nonentity said. "We can't ask the Comrades to put up money to support a broken-down capitalist."

"What's the use of discussing it?" Paulding asked Yetta, ignoring the nonentity. "Have you the nerve to ask a friend to take such a job? You wouldn't do it yourself."

Yetta suddenly remembered that she was probably jobless.

"On the contrary," she said, "if I had the right kind of training, I'd jump at it."

"Well," Rheinhardt said, suddenly waking up, "I think you come nearer to what we need than any one we're likely to find. If Paulding can raise twenty-five a week, will you accept it?"

"Yes," Paulding chimed in, "I'll get the money. Will you do it?"

"I haven't the training," Yetta laughed, not taking the offer seriously. "I've only had six months' newspaper work altogether, and that was very specialized stuff on the Woman's page. We need some one with more general and longer experience."

"You don't answer," Rheinhardt said, slumping back in his chair; "we can't get the wonder you talk about. Even with your limited experience you can earn more elsewhere."

"Of course you won't take it," Paulding sneered. "Not that I blame you. I'm not taking it either."

"On second thought," Yetta said, "I will."

It was a complicated psychological process which caused Yetta so suddenly to throw in her lot with the struggling Socialist paper. She did not often act so impetuously.

The motive which seemed to her strongest was the distaste for her old life which had suddenly flooded her. She had emigrated spiritually. Fate had jerked her roughly out of the orderly progress, which had been typified by Walter's great leather chair. It seemed incongruous to go on with the old work of the League from the new flat in Waverly Place. Everything must be changed.

But a self-protective instinct, more subtle and less easily recognized, was equally strong. She was not so likely to be reminded of Walter in the rushing turmoil of The Clarion office. In learning the details of a new job she would have less time and energy for the destructive work of mourning.