"Remember what happened when somebody promised to marry me," he said.

"Remember that, as a principle of rect.i.tude, I have recognised my son and accepted your very 'accident of descent' as chief reason for according him all a first-born's rights. That was your instinct towards right--his rights of property."

"It was righteousness, not rights of property that made you decide," she a.s.sured him. "Abel has no rights of property. The law ignores his rights to be alive at all, I believe. The law calls him 'the son of none,' and if you have no parents, you can't really exist. But the rights of labour are above human law and founded in humanity. They are Abel's, yours, everybody's. The man who works, by that fact commands the rights of labour. Besides, circ.u.mstances alter cases."

"Yes, and may again," he replied. "We can't deny the difficulties in this personal experience of mine. But I'm beginning to think the boy's not normal. I very much fear there's a screw loose."

"Don't think that. He's a very clever boy."

"And yet Sabina tells me frankly that his bitterness against me keeps pace with his growing intelligence. Instead of his wits defeating his bad temper, as they do sooner or later with most sane people, the older he gets, the more his dislike increases and the less trouble he takes to control it."

"If that were so, of course circ.u.mstances might alter the case again,"

she admitted. "But I don't believe there's a weak spot like that.

There's something r.e.t.a.r.ded--some confusion of thought, some kind of knot in his mind that isn't smoothed out yet. You've been infinitely patient and we'll go on being infinitely patient--together."

This difficult matter she dropped for the present; but finding him some days later in a recipient mood, followed up her cherished argument, that labour must be counted a commodity no more.

"Listen to me, Ray," she said. "Very soon you'll be too busy to listen to me at all--these are the last chances for me before your meetings begin. But really what I'm saying will be splendidly useful in speeches."

"All very well if getting in was all that mattered," he told her. "I can't echo all your ideas, Chicky, and speeches have a way of rising up against one at awkward moments afterwards."

"At any rate, you grant the main point," she said, "and so you must grant what follows from it; and if you grant that, and put it in your manifesto, you'll lose a few votes, but you'll gain hundreds. If labour's not a commodity, but to be regulated by body and soul, then wages must be regulated by body and soul too. Or, if you want to put it in a way for a crowd to understand, you can say that we give even a steam-engine the oil it must have before it begins to work, so how can we deny a man the oil he wants before he begins to work?"

"That means a minimum of wages."

"Yes, a minimum consistent with human needs, below which wages cannot and must not fail. That minimum should be just as much taken for granted as the air a man breathes, or the water he drinks, or the free education he gets as a boy. It isn't wages really; it's recognition of a man's right to live and share the privileges of life, and be self-respecting, just because he is a man. Everybody who is born, Ray, ought to have the unquestioned right to live, and the amplest opportunity to become a good and useful citizen. After that is granted, then wages should begin, and each man, or woman, should have full freedom and opportunity to earn what he, or she, was worth. That does away with the absurd idea of equality, which can only be created artificially and would breed disaster if we did create it."

"There's no such thing as equality in human nature, any more than in any other nature, Estelle. Seeds from the same pod are different--some weak, some strong. But I grant the main pet.i.tion. The idea's first rate--a firm basis of right to reasonable life, and security for every human being as our low-water mark; while, on that foundation, each may lift an edifice according to their power. So that none who has the power to rise above the minimum would be prevented from doing so, and no Trades Union tyranny should interfere to prevent the strong man working eight hours a day if he desires to do so, because the weaker one can only work seven."

"I think the Trades Unions only want to prevent men being handicapped out of the race at the start," she answered. "They know as well as we do, that men are not born equal in mind or body; but rightly and reasonably, they want them all to start equal as far as conditions go.

The race is to the strong and the prize is to the strong; but all, at least, should have power to train for the race and start with equal opportunities to win. There's such a lot to be done."

"There is," he admitted. "The handicap you talk of is created for thousands and thousands before they are born at all."

"Think of being handicapped out of the race before you are born!" she cried. "What could be more unjust and cruel and wicked than that?"

"Very few will put the unborn before the living, or think of a potential child rather than the desires of the parents--selfish though they may be. It's a free country, and we don't know enough to start stopping people from having a hand in the next generation if they decide to do so."

But her enthusiasm was not quenched by difficulties.

"We want science and politics and good will to work together," she said.

He returned to the smaller argument.

"It's a far cry to what you want, yet I for one don't shrink from it.

The better a man is, the larger share he should have of the profits of any enterprise he helps to advance. Then wages would take the shape of his share in the profits, and you might easily find a head workman of genius drawing more out of a business than--say, a junior partner, who is a fool and not nearly so vital to the enterprise as he. But, you see, if we say that, we argue in a circle, for the junior partner, a.s.s though he is, represents oil and fuel, which are just as important as the clever workman's brains--in fact, his brains can't work without them.

Capital and labour are two halves of a whole and depend upon each other, as much as men depend on women and women on men. Capital does a great deal more than pay labour wages, remember. It educates his children, builds his houses and doctors his ailments. Soon--so they tell me--capital will be appropriated to look after labour's old age also, and cheer his manhood with the knowledge that his age is safe."

"You don't grudge any of these things, Ray?"

"Not one. Every man should have security. But, after all, capital cannot be denied its rights. It has got rights of some sort, surely? Socialists would kill the goose that lays the golden eggs; but though they lack power yet to kill the goose, they possess plenty of power to frighten it away to foreign sh.o.r.es, where it can build its nest a bit more hopefully than here. Many, who scent repudiation and appropriation, are flying already. Capital is diminishing, and there seems a fair chance of labour being over-coddled, at the expense of capital, when the Liberals come in again. If that happens, labour is weakened as well as capital.

But both are essential to the power and well-being of the State. If we ever had another war, which G.o.d forbid, labour and capital would have to sink all differences and go to battle together unless we meant to be defeated. Both are vital to our salvation."

"Then give labour an interest in the blessing of capital," she said.

"Open labour's eyes to the vital values of capital--its strength as well as weakness. Let the units of labour share the interests of their employers and each become a capitalist in their own right. What does it matter where the capital is as long as the nation has got it safe? You might make England a thousand times richer if all those in the country, who want to save money, had the power to save."

"How can we? There's not enough to go round," he told her. But she declared that no argument.

"Then create conditions under which there might be much more. Let the workers be owners, too. If the owners only took their ownership in a different spirit and felt no man is more than a trustee for all--if they were like you, Ray, who are a worker and an owner both, what great things might happen! Make all industry co-operation, in reality as well as theory, and a real democracy must come out of it. It's bound to come."

"Well, I suppose nothing can help it coming. We are great on free inst.i.tutions in this country and they get freer every year."

So they argued, much at one in heart, and an impartial listener had felt that it was within the power of the woman's intelligence and the man's energy and common sense, to help the world as far as individuals can, did chance and the outcome of their union afford them opportunity.

But Estelle knew that good ideas were of little value in themselves.

Seed is of no account if the earth on which it falls be poisoned, and a good idea above all, needs good will to welcome it. Good will to the inspirations of man is as sunshine, rain, sweet soil to the seed; without good will all thinking must perish, or at best lie dormant. She wondered how much of good seed had perished under the bad weather of human weakness, prejudice and jealousy. But she was young, and hope her rightful heritage. The blessed word 'reconstruction' seemed to her as musical as a ring of bells.

"There are some things you never will be able to express in political terms, and life is one of them," Ernest Churchouse had a.s.sured her; but she was not convinced of it. She still reverenced politics and looked to it to play husbandman, triumph over party and presently shine out, like a universal sun, whose sole warmth was good will to man.

And as she felt personally to Raymond's work, so did she want the world of women to feel to all men's work. She would not have them claim their rights in the argument of parity of intellect, for that she felt to be vain. It was by the virtue of disparity that their equality should appear. Their virtue and essential aid depended on the difference. The world wanted women, not to do what men had done, but to bring to the task the special qualities and distinctive genius of womanhood to complement and crown the labour of manhood. The mighty structure was growing; but it would never be finished without the saving grace of woman's thought and the touch of woman's hand. The world's work needed them--not for the qualities they shared with men, but for the qualities men lacked and they possessed. If Raymond represented the masculine worker, she hoped that she might presently stand in the ranks of the women, and doubted not that great women would arise to lead her.

She remembered that the Roman element of humanity was described as representing the male spirit, while the Greek stood for the female; and she could easily dream a blend of the two destined to produce a spirit greater than either. Love quickened her visions and added the glow of life to her hopes.

So together she and her future husband prepared for their wedded days, and if ever a man and woman faced the future with steadfast determination to do justly and serve their kind with the best of their united powers, this man and woman did.

They were to be married after the election, and that would take place early in the coming year.

CHAPTER XXI

ATROPOS

Ironsyde for once found himself part of a machine, and by no means the most important part. He fought the election resolutely and spared no energy. The attraction of the contest grew upon him, and since he contended against a personal acquaintance, one who rated sportsmanship as highly as Arthur Waldron himself, the encounter proceeded on rational lines. It became exceedingly strenuous in the later stages and Raymond's agent, from an att.i.tude of certainty, grew more doubtful. But the personal factor told for the Liberal. He was popular in the const.i.tuency and Waldron, himself a strong Conservative, whose vote must necessarily be cast against his future son-in-law, preached the moral.

"If you beat us, Ray, it will be entirely owing to the fact that you played cricket and football in the public eye for twenty years," he a.s.serted and believed.

The Liberal Committee room was at 'The Seven Stars,' for Mr. Legg supported the cause of democracy and pinned his highest hopes thereto.

He worked hard for Ironsyde and, on the sole occasion when painful incidents threatened to spoil a public meeting, Job exercised tact and saved the situation.

At one of the last of his gatherings, in the great, new public room of 'The Seven Stars,' Ironsyde had been suddenly confronted with his son.

Abel attended this meeting of his father's supporters and attempted to interrupt it. He had arrived primed with words and meant to declare himself before the people; but when the time came, he was nervous and lost his head. Sitting and listening grew to an agony. He could not wait till question time and felt a force within him crying to him, to get upon his feet and finish the thing he had planned to do. But Job, who was among the stewards, kept watchful eyes upon the benches, and Abel had hardly stood up, when he recognised him. Before the boy had shouted half a dozen incoherent words, Mr. Legg and a policeman were at his side.

He sat far down the hall and the little disturbance he had been able to create was hardly appreciated. For Raymond now neared the end of his speech and it had contained matter which aroused attention from all who listened to it, awakened disquiet in some, but enthusiasm among the greater number. He was telling of such hopes and desires as he and Estelle shared, and though an indifferent speaker, the purity of his ambitions and their far-reaching significance challenged intelligent listeners.

In less than half a minute Abel was removed. He did not struggle, but his first instinct was great relief to be outside. Not until later did his reverse breed wrath. His father had not seen him and when Ironsyde inquired afterwards, what the trouble was, Mr. Legg evaded the facts.

But he looked to it that Abel should be powerless to renew disturbances.

He warned those who controlled the remaining meetings not to admit him, and henceforth kept at the doors a man who knew Abel. Mr. Legg also saw Sabina, who was now much in Bridport concerned with a little house that she had taken, and the boy's mother implored him to do no more evil. To her surprise he admitted that he had been wrong. But he was dark and stormy. She saw but little of him and did not know how he occupied his leisure, or spent his wages.