“My factory began to grow and as an employer of labour I became concerned in the lives of a good many men.”
His voice again became sharp. “I have been impatient with you,” he said. “Do you think this McGregor is the only man who has seen and thought of other men in the mass? I have done that and have been tempted. I also might have become sentimental and destroyed myself. I did not. Loving a woman saved me. Laura did that for me although when it came to the real test of our love, understanding, she failed. I am nevertheless grateful to her that she was once the object of my love. I believe in the beauty of that.”
Again David paused and began to tell his story in a new way. The figure of McGregor came back into Margaret's mind and her father began to feel that to take it entirely away would be an accomplishment full of significance. “If I can take her from him, I and my kind can take the world from him also,” he thought. “It will be another victory for the aristocracy in the never-ending battle with the mob.”
“I came to a turning point,” he said aloud. “All men come to that point. To be sure the great mass of people drift quite stupidly but we are not now talking of people in general. There is you and me and there is the thing McGregor might be. We are each in our way something special. We come, people like us, to a place where there are two roads to take. I took one and McGregor has taken another. I know why and perhaps he knows why. I concede to him knowledge of what he has done. But now it is time for you to decide which road you will take. You have seen the crowds moving along the broad way he has chosen and now you will set out on your own way. I want you to look down my road with me.”
They came to a bridge over a canal and David stopped the horses. A body of McGregor's marchers passed and Margaret's pulse began to beat high again. When she looked at her father however he was unmoved and she was a little ashamed of her emotions. For a moment David waited, as though for inspiration, and when the horses started on again he began to talk. “A labour leader came to my factory, a miniature McGregor with a crooked twist to him. He was a rascal but the things he said to my men were all true enough. I was making money for my investors, a lot of it. They might have won in a fight with me. One evening I went out into the country to walk alone under the trees and think it over.”
David's voice became harsh and Margaret thought it had become strangely like the voice of McGregor talking to workingmen. “I bought the man off,” David said. “I used the cruel weapon men like me have to use. I gave him money and told him to get out, to let me alone. I did it because I had to win. My kind of men always have to win. During the walk I took alone I got hold of my dream, my belief. I have the same dream now. It means more to me than the welfare of a million men. For it I would crush whatever opposed me. I am going to tell you of the dream.
“It is too bad one has to talk. Talk kills dreams and talk will also kill all such men as McGregor. Now that he has begun to talk we will get the best of him. I do not worry about McGregor. Time and talk will bring about his destruction.”
David's mind ran off in a new direction. “I do not think a man's life is of much importance,” he said. “No man is big enough to grasp all of life. That is the foolish fancy of children. The grown man knows he cannot see life at one great sweep. It cannot be comprehended so. One has to realise that he lives in a patchwork of many lives and many impulses.
“The man must strike at beauty. That is the realisation maturity brings and that is where the woman conies in. That is what McGregor was not wise enough to understand. He is a child you see in a land of excitable children.”
The quality of David's voice changed. Putting his arm about his daughter he drew her face down beside his own. Night descended upon them. The woman who was tired from much thinking began to feel grateful for the touch of the strong hand on her shoulder. David had accomplished his purpose. He had for the moment made his daughter forget that she was his daughter. There was something hypnotic in the quiet strength of his mood.