THE fates were at her elbow. As she sent for the Evening Press, she realized that fact to the full. Afraid to turn again to her occupation of the last three hours, the weighing of her love for John Endor, she was yet unable to escape the challenge of a dire event. Truly a woman, yet beyond all things she was an American citizen. No matter what his spells, she could never marry a man of these ideas. Her country must stand first.
The Evening Press arrived. Folding back the sheet, the rather unpretty sheet with its crude headlines and blurred ink, she placed a finger on the fatal paragraph.
While he read she watched him. But his face was hidden by the paper and it was not until a slow perusal was at an end that it came again into view. So great was the change that it struck her almost with fear. The allure was gone; such a depth of pallor had the look of death itself. But the eyes were blazing and the large, mobile orator’s mouth was clenched in a vain effort to control its emotion.
“Blackguards!” he gasped. She saw that in his eyes were tears. Her brain was numb, yet the glow racing through her veins was sheer joy. The question was answered; every doubt was laid. So much for the woman. And in that moment the woman was paramount. But in the balanced mind, delicately poised, acutely commonsensible, was now a concern beyond the personal. What was the meaning of it all?
“I knew of course ... I felt ... that you had been ... misreported.”... Her words were tentative, inadequate. Painfully watching the man opposite she knew only too well that the John Endor of three minutes back might never have been. The play, the interplay, of changing lights upon his face and in his eyes were beyond her ken. Almost for the first time she began to have a real perception of the infinities within him, of that central power which could sweep a great audience off its feet.
Of a sudden he sprang fiercely from his chair. “It’s devilish!” His voice was hoarse. “Absolutely devilish!”
Hardly had he used the words when the pain in her eyes reined him back. Abruptly as he had risen, he sat down again at the table. “I beg your pardon!” he said. “But, you see, it’s a stab in the back—from the world’s most accomplished assassin.”
She saw that his lips were white and that his face was drawn.
“Mayn’t it be just a mere accident?” Courage was needed to say anything. To say that called for much.
He laughed harshly. The gay irresponsible boy might never have been. “Accidents don’t happen to the Universal Press.”
“But why shouldn’t they—once in a while?” Her voice had a maternal caress in it.
“The U. P. is the most efficient machine ever invented. It lives for and by efficiency—damnable word! That’s the talisman with which it sways five continents. God help us all! No accident here.”
“Can you really be sure?”
“Internal evidence. The few casual, cut-and-dried phrases I used, hardly more than a formal returning of thanks, have been so twisted round that they are the exact opposite of what was meant.”
“Perhaps there’s been a confusion of names.”
“No! no! Much too circumstantial—John Endor—luncheon—this afternoon—Blackhampton Town Hall. There’s no excuse. And the trick is so simple, so easy, once you condescend to its use. Take that final phrase, ‘I believe in the Sword.’”
Helen waited eagerly.
“Knock out the first letter of the last word and you have the phrase I used.”
She was blinded for a moment by the flood of light let in by this concrete instance. It went far to prove that his suspicions, which by nature he was the last man in the world to harbor, were not without warrant. Such a rebuttal of the charge against himself was complete, final; at the same time Helen Sholto had a very strong reason of her own for declining to accept all the implications that now arose.
In a sense she herself was an employee of the Universal Press. For nearly two years she had been one of the private secretaries of Saul Hartz, the master spirit of the U. P.—its organizer of victory. Moreover to the Colossus, as he was playfully called, she had a deep sense of loyalty. To her he had always seemed a truly great man. Moving up and down the intensive London world, it was no new thing to hear harshly criticized the mighty organization of international newspapers of which he was the head. More than once she had heard its motives impugned, but she had shrewdly perceived that so great a force in the life of the time could be wielded only at a price. To Helen Sholto the Colossus stood forth the beau idéal of a considerate, almost princely, employer. His foes were many, but none denied his genius. And in the sight of Helen he was so considerable a man, the admiration he excited was so keen, her sense of gratitude was so lively and so deep, that it was almost lèse majesté to traverse his political acts.
It had always been the aim of the Colossus to keep as much as possible in the background of affairs. None the less, in his own despite, he was becoming known as the secret power which propelled many a great movement of the time. It was said that he created and directed public opinion on more than one continent—to such an extent that he made and unmade governments; enforced and canceled treaties; in a word, he and the International Newspaper Ring that he controlled had become a menace to the world. But Helen Sholto in all her dealings with this man had never had reason to suspect that he claimed for himself these plenary powers.
Sensitive as she was for John Endor and jealous for his growing reputation, it now became her clear duty to defend Saul Hartz. She believed him to be an honest man. Had one doubt infected her mind she could not have served him. But in the immediate presence of her fiancé’s terrible indictment she lost the power to marshal her ideas. Womanlike she grew a little wounded by such a condemnation of the Colossus and all his works.
Granted that the blow had shaken John to the foundations and making allowance for a vivid temperament, she could have wished in this tragic hour that the sufferer had shown a little more regard for her feelings. But she had only to exhibit those feelings, or as much of them as pride would allow, for this impulsive child-of-a-man to be on his knees.
Humbly he owned that his sense of outrage had carried him completely away. He should have remembered that Mr. Hartz was her patron and friend. A naïf, almost boyish apology, bound her wound, wiped away her tears. His outburst was freely forgiven. Perhaps it was forgiven the more freely inasmuch as Helen felt quite sure in her own mind that she would soon be able to clear one hero of the charges brought against him by the other.