“Well?” said Arkwright.
Stanton shrugged his shoulders and sank back again in his chair.
“It would either mean war,” Arkwright went on, “or it might mean the sending of the Red Cross army to Cuba. It went to Constantinople, five thousand miles away, to help the Armenian Christians—why has it waited three years to go eighty miles to feed and clothe the Cuban women and children? It is like sending help to a hungry peasant in Russia while a man dies on your doorstep.”
“Well,” said the senator, rising, “I will let you know to-morrow. If it is the right thing to do, and if I can do it, of course it must be done. We start from Tampa, you say? I know the presidents of all of those roads and they’ll probably give me a private car for the trip down. Shall we take any newspaper men with us, or shall I wait until I get back and be interviewed? What do you think?”
“I would wait until my return,” Arkwright answered, his eyes glowing with the hope the senator’s words had inspired, “and then speak to a mass-meeting here and in Boston and in Chicago. Three speeches will be enough. Before you have finished your last one the American warships will be in the harbor of Havana.”
“Ah, youth, youth!” said the senator, smiling gravely, “it is no light responsibility to urge a country into war.”
“It is no light responsibility,” Arkwright answered, “to know you have the chance to save the lives of thousands of little children and helpless women and to let the chance pass.”
“Quite so, that is quite true,” said the senator. “Well, good-morning. I shall let you know to-morrow.”
Young Livingstone went down in the elevator with Arkwright, and when they had reached the sidewalk stood regarding him for a moment in silence.
“You mustn’t count too much on Stanton, you know,” he said kindly; “he has a way of disappointing people.”