III
Judith did not press her search for Good very rapidly. The night, with the soft and pungent haze of Indian summer filling the air, and the drowsy moon bathing the gardens in argent mystery, cast their spell about her, and she lingered frequently. The crickets chirped like mad, snatches of distant music came faintly to her ears, and the gentle fragrance of the flowers filled her nostrils. It was on such a night, she reflected, that Imrie....
She found Good finally, more by accident than design, in a distant corner of the garden. He was hunched forward in his seat, and his head was on his chest. At first she thought him asleep. Then she heard him scratch a match. The momentary glow showed his brows drawn close together. It was a way he had, she knew, when his thoughts were troublesome.
"It's late, Mr. Good," she said.
"Hello," he cried, with a start. Then he recognised her. "Oh—everybody gone?"
"Yes—and sorry to miss you."
"Poppycock," he said succinctly.
"Don't you believe they were?"
His only reply was a short laugh—not pleasant. She changed the subject quickly.
"I never dreamed you could be so entertaining. You were the life of the party."
"A parakeet could do as well," he snapped. "This is a rather old pipe—mind it?"
"Of course not." His abrupt manner, so different from his former amiability, kept her silent. Nor did he make any effort to speak. He managed to make her feel that she was intruding. He seemed to want to be alone. That annoyed her.
"Mr. Good," she said sharply. "Just what is the matter with you?"
He made no attempt to deny or evade. That was not like him. But his reply was a little disconcerting, none the less.
"There's nothing the matter with me," he said slowly. "It's you—and they—and the whole darned system of things."
"I don't understand."
"I didn't think you would," he said ungraciously. "If you did you wouldn't wonder why I was out here with my old pipe."
"Won't you explain it to me then?" she asked gently. She realised that he was greatly perturbed about something. His very ungraciousness—so unlike him—betrayed him.
"I can't explain it. I don't think anybody can."
"Won't you try ... please?"
He smoked furiously for a moment, without replying. Then, with a sudden gesture, he emptied the ashes, with a sharp knock on his heel.
"Oh, don't bother about me, Miss Wynrod," he said, more softly. "I'm just sore because I ... oh, I should never have come out to-night."
"But you were so clever—you made such a hit...." She tried hard to follow him, but found it difficult.
"That isn't the point. You see, I didn't fit in. I was an outsider. I thought I was a picture when I left the city in—this." She noticed for the first time that his collar was unbuttoned, and his waistcoat thrown open. "But when I saw myself beside those other fellows... And then, the things at table. I was scared to death—all the time. You people can eat with a dozen forks and enjoy it. I can't. I'm not used to it. I...."
"But those things aren't important. You've told me so yourself."
"That's just it," he cried hotly. "They're not. But you—"
"I?"
"Oh, I don't mean you, personally—you—your class, your friends—make me feel as if they were important. Why should such little things make such a part of life? You and I are miles apart because of trifles. The big things, the real things, where are they? I'm your inferior because—because—I can't use an oyster fork. And yet I'm your equal in things that matter. I'm beneath—those—emptyheads, your friends. I used words they couldn't understand ... but I'm 'common.' They made me hate them—those nice people—hate the ground they tread...."
She was amazed at the intensity with which he spoke. She wanted to say something to calm him, but there seemed nothing to say. He sucked moodily for a moment on his empty pipe. Then his voice softened again.
"I oughtn't to talk this way about your friends—but it's hard for me not to be candid ... with you," he said quietly. "I've said my mind to you so uniformly, you know."
"Please do—always," she said seriously.
"I don't want you to feel that I'm bitter against these people personally—it's all for what they signify. Why should they be handsome and strong and well dressed and—have good manners ... and I have none of those things? They've had everything, and I—usually I'm a philosopher ... funny, isn't it, that a perfectly sound philosophy should get drowned in such a little thing as a finger-bowl."
"Why should we have all those things?" she asked thoughtfully, more to herself than to him. He turned around at that, and studied her.
"I've often wondered if you'd ever say that?" he said.
She shrugged her shoulders. "I've said it often—lately."
"And what is the answer?"
"I don't know."
"And that's the right one. Nobody does."
"It is unjust and wrong. I can't get away from that. But what to do—I don't know that."
"Go sell what thou hast ... and come follow me," said Good slowly, as if merely repeating a formula, and not caring whether she heard or not. It struck her as curious that that should have been the text of the first sermon she had ever heard Imrie preach.
"Suppose I did—give up all?" she asked.
He refilled and lighted his pipe before he replied.
"I've never wondered much about the young man who went away sad because he had great possessions," he said gently. "But I've wondered a lot what he did—afterwards. The book doesn't tell us that."
"I don't understand."
"It isn't being rich that counts, Miss Wynrod," he said with a passionate earnestness that she seldom saw in him, "it's what you do with your riches. That's the question you've got to ask yourself."
"Don't most rich people do that?" she asked.
"Some—yes. Most? Umm—I'm inclined to think—not."
"You think even those that do, get the wrong answer, don't you?"
"Mostly—yes."
His assurance vaguely irritated her. She put her question rather sharply.
"Mr. Good, if you were wealthy—oh, very wealthy—what would you do?"
"You think I've never thought of that?" he asked quizzically.
"Have you?"
"Indeed, yes. All my life, I guess. But am I suddenly made rich—or born with it?"
"Suddenly? No. You've had it always—and your father had it before you."
"Then I'd build fine homes and have many servants. I'd have automobiles and yachts and pictures and first editions. I'd contribute to political campaign funds, and give scholarships to my college, and build libraries and hospitals, and install rest rooms and gymnasiums and summer camps in my stores and factories. I'd be generous and upright, and when I died I would be very much respected and not a little loved."
There was an indefinable feeling of banter in his tone, which she found hard to explain. But she went on, hoping that he would explain it himself.
"And if it came to you suddenly?"
"I wouldn't give a cent to charity nor to hospitals nor libraries. And I'd lose all my friends, and probably be shot like a mad dog."
She was stunned with the vehemence of his curious words. But before she could speak he added suddenly, even more fervently.
"I'd live and die hated by those closest to me. But I'd buy the greatest jewel in the world, and I'd leave it to those who wouldn't possibly appreciate it."
"And what is that?" she asked in amazement.
"The truth," he said simply.
For a little while he sat smoking moodily, gazing off into space, busy with his dream. She sensed that she had struck the major chord in his heart, and she was silent too, out of a curious feeling of awe, as if she were in some innermost sanctuary. It was a moment vibrant with emotion. Then, with a rush, but in a tone that was very firm and business-like, he began to pour out his soul to her.
"What the world needs, Miss Wynrod, is not charity, not the kind of altruism that polishes off effects, but a force that will remove and eliminate causes. Money causes most of the evil in the world. Money can cure it. But it won't do to fill stomachs or even heads. When they die the job has to be done all over again. We've got to sweep the old world off the boards, and build a new one in its place. And the new world must be for all. The people must rule and be ruled. There are lots of panaceas on the market. There's the single tax—giving the land back to its owners—the people. That will help. But it's not enough. Then there's Socialism. I worked for a Socialist paper, but I wasn't a Socialist. Socialism isn't enough. It's too narrow, too material, too bigoted. It isn't spiritual enough. It isn't elastic enough. We don't want dogma, we want light. We don't want to stop exploitation. We want to tell the people how they're exploited. They'll stop it for themselves, when they know—when they know their own power. They've got to know what is going on in the world. Germs can't live in sunlight and oxygen. And the germs that cause poverty and disease and misery of all kinds can't live in the sunlight and the oxygen of publicity. Publicity, publicity, what magic would it wreak!" There was almost ecstasy in his voice, in the flicker of his eyes, fixed in space.
"But don't we have publicity—now?" she asked timidly, not wholly grasping the significance of his talk.
"Of a sort, yes," he admitted, "but not the kind I mean. Most of the avenues of publicity are the avenues for special pleaders. The owners of newspapers and magazines have axes to grind, they have policies—some good, some bad—always policies. They present what happens so as to bolster up some preconceived theory. That's not truth—it's propaganda."
"Is the press all dishonest?" she asked in surprise, somewhat tinged with irritation at what seemed like a crude generality.
"Not dishonest, no. The average newspaper would rather be honest than not. And those who wouldn't, find that honesty pays better than dishonesty. But they're honest about things that don't matter and silent about those that do."
"For instance—"
"Well, you remember our first meeting—how I came to interview you about the Algoma mine trouble?"
"I'm not likely to forget it," she said a little sadly.
"Well, what do you know about the situation there?"
"There was a little in the papers a month or so ago."
"And—"
"And?"
"Yes, isn't there something else?"
"Oh, you mean the letters from the directors?"
"Exactly. Your sources of information are first from those interested only in a 'story,' without much regard for getting to the disagreeable bottom, and second from those interested in getting a verdict for their own side."
"Is there any other source?"
"There is. Congress sent a special investigating committee out there—"
"What did it find?"
"The question proves my point. The findings of that committee are buried away in bulky volumes that nobody sees, while the world is fed half on fiction and half on lies."
"Why don't the newspapers tell us what's in those bulky volumes?"
"Because," he said, with ineffable dejection, as if trying to answer a question that he knew he could not answer, "it wouldn't be interesting—and it wouldn't pay."
"Must everything in a newspaper pay?" she demanded.
"That's what newspapers are run for," he said sadly. "They've got to pay—pay—always to pay...."
His voice trailed off into a whisper, and he sat silent. She tried to win him back to the theme upon which he had talked so earnestly, and which had stirred her more than she realised. But as if fearful that he had not been understood, he proved obdurate. Finally he rose and held out his hand.
"I must say good night and good-bye, Miss Wynrod. I will not see you in the morning. I must take the early train. It was good of you to ask me out to-night. I'm sorry I couldn't seem more—more—appreciative."
A thought flashed across her mind as they walked slowly back to the house.
"You will come and see me—occasionally?" she asked, as they stood on the terrace.
"Why should you want me to?" he said quizzically, looking at her in a curiously searching way.
"Because—because—well...." she floundered, unable to put in words precisely what she felt.
"Because I tell you things?" he put in for her. That clarified her answer.
"No," she said thoughtfully. "Because you say things I've only thought. You see, I've read more than most people give me credit for," she added somewhat irrelevantly.
He studied her from beneath his heavy eyebrows.
"Keep on, my friend," he said very slowly. "Keep on thinking. And then ... act. There are great deeds before you—noble, shining deeds ... if you'll only do them. Yes, some day I shall come again, and we shall talk further upon these matters ... and then—perhaps—who knows what may come of it?" He finished dreamily.
As he took her hand and held it, she sensed a tender smile upon his lips, and a half uttered question in his eyes. But he said no word. He was almost out of sight in the darkness when a thought flashed across her mind. She called him back.
"Mr. Good ... why didn't Roger drink anything to-night? Have you any idea?"
"Yes," he said simply. "I told him ... what it did to me."