"Jack is seriously ill," came the level voice of Ilse. "We have taken him to the Memorial Hospital in one of their ambulances."

"W--what is it?" asked Palla.

"They say it is pneumonia."

"Oh, Ilse!----"

"I'm not afraid. Jack is in magnificent physical condition. He is too splendid not to win the fight.... And I shall be with him.... I shall not let him lose."

"Tell me what I can do, darling!"

"Nothing--except love us both."

"I do--I do indeed----"

"Both, Palla!"

"Y--yes."

"_Do you understand?_"

"Oh, I--I think I do. And I do love you--love you both--devotedly----"

"You must, _now_.... I am going home to get some things. Then I shall go to the hospital. You can call me there until he is convalescent."

"Will they let you stay there?"

"I have volunteered for general work. They are terribly short-handed and they are glad to have me."

"I'll come to-morrow," said Palla.

"No. Wait.... Good-night, my darling."

CHAPTER XXI

As a mischievous caricaturist, in the beginning, draws a fairly good portrait of his victim and then gradually habituates his public to a series of progressively exaggerated extravagances, so progressed the programme of the Bolsheviki in America, revealing little by little their final conception of liberty and equality in the b.l.o.o.d.y and distorted monster which they had now evolved, and which they publicly owned as their ideal emblem.

In the Red Flag Club, Sondheim shouted that a Red Republic was impossible because it admitted on an equality the rich and well-to-do.

Karl Kastner, more cynical, coolly preached the autocracy of the worker; told his listeners frankly that there would always be masters and servants in the world, and asked them which they preferred to be.

With the new year came sporadic symptoms of unrest;--strikes, unwarranted confiscations by Government, increasingly bad service in public utilities controlled by Government, loose talk in a contemptible Congress, looser gabble among those who witlessly lent themselves to German or Bolshevik propaganda--or both--by repeating stories of alleged differences between America and England, America and France, America and Italy.

The hen-brained--a small minority--misbehaved as usual whenever the opportunity came to do the wrong thing; the meanest and most contemptible partisanship since the shameful era of the carpet bagger prevailed in a section of the Republic where the traditions of great men and great deeds had led the nation to expect n.o.bler things.

For the same old hydra seemed to be still alive on earth, lifting, by turns, its separate heads of envy, intolerance, bigotry and greed.

Ignorance, robed with authority, legally robbed those comfortably off.

The bleat of the pacifist was heard in the land. Those who had once chanted in sanctimonious chorus, "He kept us out of war," now sang sentimental hymns invoking mercy and forgiveness for the crucifiers of children and the rapers of women, who licked their lips furtively and leered at the imbecile choir. Representatives of a great electorate vaunted their patriotism and proudly repeated: "We forced him into war!" Whereas they themselves had been kicked headlong into it by a press and public at the end of its martyred patience.

There appeared to be, so far, no business revival. Prosperity was penalised, taxed to the verge of blackmail, constantly suspected and admonished; and the Congressional Bolsheviki were gradually breaking the neck of legitimate enterprise everywhere throughout the Republic.

And everywhere over the world the crimson tide crept almost imperceptibly a little higher every day.

Toward the middle of January the fever which had burnt John Estridge for a week fell a degree or two.

Palla, who had called twice a day at the Memorial Hospital, was seated that morning in a little room near the disinfecting plant, talking to Ilse, who had just laid aside her mask.

"You look rather ill yourself," said Ilse in her cheery, even voice.

"Is anything worrying you, darling?"

"Yes.... You are."

"I!" exclaimed the girl, really astonished. "Why?"

"Sometimes," murmured Palla, "my anxiety makes me almost sick."

"Anxiety about _me_!----"

"You know why," whispered Palla.

A bright flush stained Ilse's face: she said calmly:

"But our creed is broad enough to include all things beautiful and good."

Palla shrank as though she had been struck, and sat staring out of the narrow window.

Ilse lifted a basket of soiled linen and carried it away. When, presently, she returned to take away another basket, she inquired whether Palla had made up her quarrel with Jim Shotwell, and Palla shook her head.

"Do you really suppose Marya has made mischief between you?" asked Ilse curiously.

"Oh, I don't know, Ilse," said the girl listlessly. "I don't know what it is that seems to be so wrong with the world--with everybody--with me----"

She rose nervously, bade Ilse adieu, and went out without turning her head--perhaps because her brown eyes had suddenly blurred with tears.

Half way to Red Cross headquarters she pa.s.sed the Hotel Rajah. And why she did it she had no very clear idea, but she turned abruptly and entered the gorgeous lobby, went to the desk, and sent up her name to Marya Lanois.

It appeared, presently, that Miss Lanois was at home and would receive her in her apartment.

The accolade was perfunctory: Palla's first glance informed her that Marya had grown a trifle more svelte since they had met--more brilliant in her distinctive coloration. There was a tawny beauty about the girl that almost blazed from her hair and delicately sanguine skin and lips.