Merle obeyed the call, and in the library of the Whipple New Place, where once he had been chosen to bear the name of the house, he listened with shocked amazement while Harvey D., with much worried straightening of pictures, rugs, and chairs, told him why Whipple money could no longer meet the monthly deficit of the New Dawn. The most cogent reason that Harvey D. could advance at first was that there were too many Liberty Bonds to be bought.
Merle, with his world-weary gesture, swept the impeding lock from his pale brow and set pained eyes upon his father by adoption. He was unable to believe this monstrous assertion. He stared his incredulity. Harvey D. winced. He felt that he had struck some defenseless child a cruel blow. Gideon shot the second gun in this unhuman warfare.
"My boy, it won't do. Harvey is glossing it a bit when he says the money is needed for bonds. You deserve the truth—we are not going to finance any longer a magazine that is against all our traditions and all our sincerest beliefs."
"Ah, I see," said Merle. His tone was grim. Then he broke into a dry, bitter laugh. "The interests prevail!"
"Looks like it," said Sharon, and he, too, laughed dryly.
"If you would only try to get our point of view," broke in Harvey D. "We feel—"
He was superbly silenced by Merle, who in his best New Dawn manner exposed the real truth. The dollar trembled on its throne, the fat bourgeoisie—he spared a withering glance for Sharon, who was the only fat Whipple in the world—would resort to brutal force to silence those who saw the truth and were brave enough to speak it out.
"It's the age-old story," he went on, again sweeping the lock of hair from before his flashing glance. "Privilege throttles truth where it can. I should have expected nothing else; I have long known there was no soil here that would nourish our ideals. I couldn't long hope for sympathy from mere exploiters of labour. But the die is cast. God helping me, I must follow the light."
The last was purely rhetorical, for no one on the staff of the New Dawn believed that God helped any one. Indeed, it was rather felt that God was on the side of privilege. But the speaker glowed as he achieved his period.
"If you would only try to get our point of view," again suggested Harvey D., as he straightened the Reading From Homer.