第139章 PART FIFTH(14)

Dryfoos!"and he saw that it was a lady speaking to him from a coupe beside the curbing,and then he saw that it was Miss Vance.

She smiled when,he gave signs of having discovered her,and came up to the door of her carriage."I am so glad to meet you.I have been longing to talk to somebody;nobody seems to feel about it as I do.Oh,isn't it horrible?Must they fail?I saw cars running on all the lines as I came across;it made me sick at heart.Must those brave fellows give in?And everybody seems to hate them so--I can't bear it."Her face was estranged with excitement,and there were traces of tears on it.

"You must think me almost crazy to stop you in the street this way;but when I caught sight of you I had to speak.I knew you would sympathize--I knew you would feel as I do.Oh,how can anybody help honoring those poor men for standing by one another as they do?They are risking all they have in the world for the sake of justice!Oh,they are true heroes!

They are staking the bread of their wives and children on the dreadful chance they've taken!But no one seems to understand it.No one seems to see that they are willing to suffer more now that other poor men may suffer less hereafter.And those wretched creatures that are coming in to take their places--those traitors--""We can't blame them for wanting to earn a living,Miss Vance,"said Conrad.

"No,no!I don't blame them.Who am I,to do such a thing?It's we --people like me,of my class--who make the poor betray one another.

But this dreadful fighting--this hideous paper is full of it!"She held up an extra,crumpled with her nervous reading."Can't something be done to stop it?Don't you think that if some one went among them,and tried to make them see how perfectly hopeless it was to resist the companies and drive off the new men,he might do some good?I have wanted to go and try;but I am a woman,and I mustn't!I shouldn't be afraid of the strikers,but I'm afraid of what people would say!"Conrad kept pressing his handkerchief to the cut in his temple,which he thought might be bleeding,and now she noticed this."Are you hurt,Mr.Dryfoos?

You look so pale."

"No,it's nothing--a little scratch I've got.""Indeed,you look pale.Have you a carriage?How will you get home?

Will you get in here with me and let me drive you?""No,no,"said Conrad,smiling at her excitement."I'm perfectly well--""And you don't think I'm foolish and wicked for stopping you here and talking in this way?But I know you feel as I do!""Yes,I feel as you do.You are right--right in every way--I mustn't keep you--Good-bye."He stepped back to bow,but she put her beautiful hand out of the window,and when he took it she wrung his hand hard.

"Thank you,thank you!You are good and you are just!But no one can do anything.It's useless!"The type of irreproachable coachman on the box whose respectability had suffered through the strange behavior of his mistress in this interview drove quickly off at her signal,and Conrad stood a moment looking after the carriage.His heart was full of joy;it leaped;he thought it would burst.As he turned to walk away it seemed to him as if he mounted upon the air.The trust she had shown him,the praise she had given him,that crush of the hand:he hoped nothing,he formed no idea from it,but it all filled him with love that cast out the pain and shame he had been suffering.He believed that he could never be unhappy any more;the hardness that was in his mind toward his father went out of it;he saw how sorely he had tried him;he grieved that he had done it,but the means,the difference of his feeling about the cause of their quarrel,he was solemnly glad of that since she shared it.He was only sorry for his father."Poor father!"he said under his breath as he went along.

He explained to her about his father in his reverie,and she pitied his father,too.

He was walking over toward the West Side,aimlessly at first,and then at times with the longing to do something to save those mistaken men from themselves forming itself into a purpose.Was not that what she meant when she bewailed her woman's helplessness?She must have wished him to try if he,being a man,could not do something;or if she did not,still he would try,and if she heard of it she would recall what she had said and would be glad he had understood her so.Thinking of her pleasure in what he was going to do,he forgot almost what it was;but when he came to a street-car track he remembered it,and looked up and down to see if there were any turbulent gathering of men whom he might mingle with and help to keep from violence.He saw none anywhere;and then suddenly,as if at the same moment,for in his exalted mood all events had a dream-like simultaneity,he stood at the corner of an avenue,and in the middle of it,a little way off,was a street-car,and around the car a tumult of shouting,cursing,struggling men.The driver was lashing his horses forward,and a policeman was at their heads,with the conductor,pulling them;stones,clubs,brickbats hailed upon the car,the horses,the men trying to move them.The mob closed upon them in a body,and then a patrol-wagon whirled up from the other side,and a squad of policemen leaped out and began to club the rioters.Conrad could see how they struck them under the rims of their hats;the blows on their skulls sounded as if they had fallen on stone;the rioters ran in all directions.