Dorn smiled. "Not so long as his own class gratifies his ambitions," replied Victor. "If he came with us it'd be because his own class had failed him and he hoped to rise through and upon—ours."
Selma did not agree with him. But as she always felt presumptuous and even foolish in disagreeing with Victor, she kept silent. And presently Victor began to lay out her share in the task of starting up the New Day. "I shall be all right within a week," said he, "and we must get the first number out the week following." She was realizing now that Hull's move had completely upset an elaborate plan of campaign into which Victor had put all his intelligence and upon which he had staked all his hopes. She marvelled as he talked, unfolding rapidly an entirely new campaign, different in every respect from what the other would have been. How swiftly his mind had worked, and how well! How little time he had wasted in vain regrets! How quickly he had recovered from a reverse that would have halted many a strong man.
And then she remembered how they all, his associates, were like him, proof against the evil effects of set-back and defeat. And why were they so? Because Victor Dorn had trained them to fight for the cause, and not for victory. "Our cause is the right, and in the end right is bound to win because the right is only another name for the sensible"—that had been his teaching. And a hardy army he had trained. The armies trained by victory are strong; but the armies schooled by defeat—they are invincible.
When he had explained his new campaign—as much of it as he deemed it wise at that time to withdraw from the security of his own brain—she said:
"But it seems to me we've got a good chance to win, anyhow."
"A chance, perhaps," replied he. "But we'll not bother about that. All we've got to do is to keep on strengthening ourselves."
"Yes, that's it!" she cried. "One added here—five there—ten yonder. Every new stone fitted solidly against the ones already in place."
"We must never forget that we aren't merely building a new party," said Dorn. "We're building a new civilization—one to fit the new conditions of life. Let the Davy Hulls patch and tinker away at trying to keep the old structure from falling in. We know it's bound to fall and that it isn't fit for decent civilized human beings to live in. And we're getting the new house ready. So—to us, election day is no more important than any of the three hundred and sixty-five."
It was into the presence of a Victor Dorn restored in mind as well as in body that Jane Hastings was shown by his sister, Mrs. Sherrill, one afternoon a week or so later.
All that time Jane had been searching for an excuse for going to see him. She had haunted the roads and the woods where he and Selma habitually walked. She had seen neither of them. When the pretext for a call finally came to her, as usual, the most obvious thing in the world. He must be suspecting her of having betrayed his confidence and brought about the vacating of those injunctions and the quashing of the indictments. She must go to him and clear herself of suspicion.