didn't have to punish us, we punished ourselves; and if we humbled ourselves before Him, we
exalted ourselves before one another. So on through a series of mystical statements which came
like a message from a much better world.
All this would have been familiar doctrine to the forebears of either of these young people.
Perhaps ideas have to be forgotten in order to become real again; anyhow, to both Marceline
and Alfy this strange gentleman was the originator or discoverer of awe-inspiring doctrines. A
rosy-cheeked, cherubic gentleman with graying hair and the accent of the prairies. Once when
he wanted to bathe his hands on board the sailboat he had used what he called a "wawsh-dish,"
which Alfy thought was the funniest combination of words he had ever heard.
But apparently God didn't object to the Iowa accent, for God came to him and told him what
to do. And when you thought of God, not somewhere up in the sky on a throne, but living in
your heart, a part of yourself in some incomprehensible way, then suddenly it seemed silly to
be quarreling with somebody who was a friend of the family, even if not your future spouse!
Better to forget about it—at least to the extent of a game of tennis.
Beauty thought how very convenient, having a spiritual healer in the family! She thought: "I
am an unworthy woman, and I must try to be like him and love everybody, and value them for
their best qualities. I really ought to go to Lanny's school, and meet some of those poor people,
and try to find in them what he finds." She would think these thoughts while putting on a costly
evening-gown which Irma had given her after two or three wearings; she would be escorted to
a party at the home of the former Baroness de la Tourette, and would listen to gossip about a
circus-rider who had married an elderly millionaire and was cutting a swath on this Coast of
Pleasure. The ladies would tear her reputation to shreds, and Beauty would enjoy their cruel
cleverness and forget all about the fact that God was listening to every word. A complicated
world, so very hard to be good in!
BOOK THREE
Blow, Winds, and Crack Your Cheeks
11
I
THE betrayal of the British labor movement had entered like a white-hot iron into the flesh of
Eric Vivian Pomeroy-Nielson. He had brooded over it and analyzed its causes; he had filled his
soul with images of it; and the result was to be a drama called
title, dignified and impartial, but a fighting title, a propaganda title.
The central figure was a miner's son who had escaped from the pits by becoming a secretary
of his union. He had a wife who had been a schoolteacher, somewhat above him in station. They
had no children, because the labor movement was to be their child. At the opening of the play
he was a newly elected member of Parliament. There were characters and episodes recalling his
early days of fervor and idealism, but now we saw him absorbed in the not very edifying details of
party politics, the maneuvers for power, the payment of past obligations in the hope of
incurring more.
The leisure-class woman in the story had no doubt been modeled on Rosemary, Countess of
Sandhaven, Lanny's old flame; one of those women touched by the feminist movement who
did not permit themselves to love deeply because it would interfere with their independence,
their enjoyment of prominence and applause. She was a political woman who liked to wield
power; she set out to seduce a labor leader, not because she wanted to further the interests of
her Tory group, but because she enjoyed playing with a man and subjecting him to her will.
She tried to teach him what she called common sense, not merely about love, but about
politics and all the affairs of the world they lived in. She didn't mind breaking the heart of a
wife whom she considered an inferior and superfluous person; if in the process she broke up a
labor union, that was an incidental gain.
It was a "fat" part for an actress, and at Lanny's suggestion Rick had endowed the woman
with an American mother; a common enough phenomenon in London society, this would make
the role possible for Phyllis Gracyn. Lanny's old friend and playmate had been starred in two
plays which had "flopped" on Broadway through no fault of her own; so she was in a humble
frame of mind, and when Lanny wrote her about Rick's play she cabled at once, begging to be
allowed to see the script. The part had been written for her— even to allowing for traces of an
American accent.
Lanny had become excited about the play, and had talked out every scene with his friend,
both before and after it was put down on paper. Irma and Beauty read it, and Emily and
Sophie, and of course Rick's wife; these ladies consulted together, and contributed suggestions
as to how members of the
became a sort of family affair, and there was small chance of anything's being wrong with its
