POLITICS as such had never greatly interested Jeremy Robson. The trivial and blatant insincerities of party platforms offended a mind naturally direct and sincere. As he saw the game played at the Capitol, it seemed to consist mainly in clumsy finesse directed to unprofitable ends, on the part of the lawmakers, back of whom sat the little tin gods of finance and commerce, as players sit back of the pieces on a chessboard. Only, it dawned upon Jeremy, in this game it was the public that paid the stakes; the public which Jeremy intended that The Guardian should represent. His platform was “Fair play all around and a chance for all.”

Being of such mind, he was naturally sympathetic to the fervent and altruistic radicalism of Senator Embree. Almost before he knew it, he was committed to the broad, general policies of a new faction whose immediate object was to capture the party machinery and elect Embree Governor. Farmers, the more thoughtful class of labor in the industrial centers, and that floating vote which is always restless of party control, made up the bulk of “Smiling Mart’s” support. His newspaper backing was scanty. In Bellair, the chief city of Centralia, The Journal lent its valuable support to most of his measures and to his general policies. A score of country journals were thick-and-thin adherents. The Guardian soon began to be classed with these for loyalty and with the Bellair Journal for weightiness, in support of the new movement.

Jeremy Robson’s spirited editorial attacks upon the controlled State administration were now establishing his paper as a gospel to the fermenting political elements, and had earned the indignant distrust of those interests which base loud claims to impregnable respectability upon the ground of returning reliable dividends to their stockholders. To these he was anathema; a “dangerous radical,” a “half-Socialist,” an “enemy of American institutions,” a “confessed demagogue,” and the like impressive and silly characterizations. The Guardian was quoted, confuted, and abused over the State. It had become a power.

While Jeremy and Andrew Galpin and their lesser aides were struggling with the various immediate and insistent problems of a newspaper’s existence and sustenance, and establishing their organ before the public as genuinely independent in thought and unhampered in the expression of it, political prestige, which is not acquired in a day by a newspaper any more than by an individual, steadily accrued to it. Jeremy Robson had owned The Guardian for a year before he fully realized his political responsibilities in that what was said editorially in his paper greatly mattered to some thousands of earnest and groping minds. Not only this. He himself mattered, individually, as controlling The Guardian. His visiting list became inconveniently large. People took to dropping in at the office to discuss, advise, approve, or object, particularly visitors from the outlying districts who deemed it an all-sufficient introduction to state that they were “friends of Mart Embree.” Whether through the direct procurement of that energetic campaigner or otherwise, Jeremy found that The Guardian was considered to be not only the representative but the proprietary organ of the new movement. Financially this was an important asset. Nevertheless, the editor disrelished it. Remembering A. M. Wymett’s disquisition, he heartily resented his newspaper’s being regarded as the horn to any one’s phonograph! Moreover, all these calls ate up time. But that paid for itself in widened acquaintance and a more sympathetic understanding of the people who, after all, made up the Commonwealth cf Centralia. He made friends readily with them. They liked him as soon as they adjusted themselves to the shock of his apparel which they deemed dudish.

The World-War was still more than a year distant, still but the dream of such pessimistic and flighty minds as A. M. Wymett’s, when politics began to boil again in Centralia, and in that steaming stew of policies, principles, pretenses, ambitions, and chicaneries there simmered, all unseen, one of the minor but far-spread schemes of the Teutonic war-lord’s propaganda. It came to Jeremy’s ears through a call from Magnus Laurens, already being talked of as opposition candidate to Martin Embree, and already the subject of frank rather than well-judged comment, in the pages of The Guardian, as representing franchise-holding control of government. The water-power magnate looked squarer, ruggeder, more determined and formidable even than on the occasion when Jeremy had first seen him grimly facing the ridicule of the German societies. He was nearer sixty than fifty and walked like a football captain, and the blue eyes under the severe brows, as they met Jeremy’s, were alert and hard. The editor rose to greet him, holding out his hand.

“I did n’t come here to shake your hand,” said Laurens quietly. “I came to tell you something.”

Jeremy sat down. “Tell ahead,” said he.

“You’ ve been using my name too freely in your paper.”

“You’re a public character.”

“My name is my own. I’m particular about it. I keep it clean. Your paper has coupled it up with names that are n’t clean.”

“Did I choose your political associates, Mr. Laurens?” said Jeremy keenly.

“Political criticism is one thing. Innuendoes of crookedness and graft are another.”

“We’ll reach no common ground as regards your waterpower operations. I’m against you there. You’re selling to the people, at a profit, power that should belong to them.”

“That’s theory. With that I’ve no quarrel. But when your paper moralizes about franchise-grafting, and hints at bribery, leave me out of it.”

The editor reflected. On Martin Embree’s representations, he had assumed Laurens’s operations to be founded in corruption. But what proof had he, after all?

“The Dollard’s Falls Charter—” he began and was cut short.

“The records are open to you. The books of the company are open to you. I’ll even go that far, if it’s facts you’re after. Or is it hush-money?”

“Which do you think?”

The hard, blue eyes looked at him with a more interested scrutiny. Magnus Laurens grunted. “Bird of a different feather from Wymett,” he surmised doubtfully.

“A little.”

“Well, I’m different from Sellers and Corey and Bellows and that lot. Bear that in mind. If you couple me up with them again, I’ll be back here for real trouble.”

“Coming back to lick the editor?” asked Jeremy, contemplating the muscle-packed figure of the other with a smile. “If so, I’ll lay in a length of lead pipe.”

“Lay in a lawyer and a good one,” advised the visitor grimly. “For I’ll be after you for criminal libel. No fiddling little damage suits for me. That’s what I came to tell you.”

“All right. I’ve got it. Anything else?”

“No.”

“Then it’s my turn. You control the Oak Lodge Pulp Company.”

“I have an interest in it.”

“The Guardian buys its print paper from you.”

“Yes.”

“When you came here did you have in mind any—well, exchange of courtesies, editorial for business consideration, in respect to future deals?”

“I did not. I don’t do business that way,” retorted Magnus Laurens with emphasis.

“Did you think that perhaps I was aiming in that direction, with my comments on you?”

The magnate changed color a little. “I might have suspected something of the sort.”

“You were wrong.”

“Very well. I was wrong. Anything else?”

“Yes. If I’ll undertake that The Guardian shall say nothing more along the line which you find objectionable without specific and definite charges taken from the records, will you acquit me—that is, will you consider that you’ve scared me sufficiently?”

Magnus Laurens blinked. “I’m not a fool,” he said presently. “Scared you? You’re no more afraid of me than I am of you.”

“Then you’ve done better than scare me. You’ve convinced me that you mean what you say. You and I can fight fair.”

“I’ll shake hands now,” said Laurens, and did. “You’re all wrong. You’ve been misled by that quack, Embree. But I suppose a man can be wrong and still be straight.”

“Exactly what I’m supposing about you,” retorted Jeremy. “Now, sit down, Mr. Laurens, and tell me some real political news.”

Laurens drew a chair up opposite the editor. “Do you think you’d print it?”

“News is The Guardian’s stock in trade.”

“Here’s some, then. A bill is going to be introduced this fall to Germanize our public schools farther.”

“What’s the substance of it?”

“Making German practically compulsory in the grade schools.”

“They’ll never pass it.”

“Watch them! What leader is going to oppose it? In a governorship election year?”

“Who will introduce it?”

“Some nonentity. It will have the most powerful radical support. You can guess from whom.”

“I don’t guess, professionally.”

“Then I’ll tell you. Martin Embree.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Ask him. My sources of information are reliable.”

“Can I get a copy of the bill?”

“Here’s a rough outline of it. It is n’t fully decided on yet, as to details.”

“Who drew it up?”

“The Reverend Theo Gunst, Henry Dolge, and Professor Brender, of the German Department at Old Central, on the basis of a plan which Herr Professor Koerner left when he was here. It’s one of the moves in the development of ‘Deutschturn.’ Have you ever seen the Germanizing scheme for Centralia gotten up in the eighties?”

“No. I’ve heard there was such a thing.”

“Colonization up to a certain point. Then the establishment of a Little Germany through making German the official language of the schools, the courts, and the Legislature. Peaceful conquest idea.”

“And this bill is a revival of that plan, you think?”

“It has that appearance. Will The Guardian support it?”

“No.”

“Will it oppose it?”

“Who’s doing this interviewing, you or me, Mr. Laurens?” smiled Jeremy.

“Call it an exchange.”

“All right. Yes: we’ll oppose it. What about you?”

“It’s well enough known where I stand.”

“As a private citizen, yes. But as candidate for Governor?”

“I am not a candidate for Governor.”

“Not formally. But you’re going to be. What about this German school bill then? Will you oppose it?”

“I certainly won’t dodge it. Are you going to pass on this conversation to ‘Smiling Mart’ Embree?”

“Not if it’s confidential.”

“Then I think this latter part is, for the present. To be quite frank, I don’t want to meet that issue till I have to.”

“You’re right. It’ll probably beat you.”

“Possibly. But if the issue is once raised, it won’t die out of people’s minds readily. That’s something.” He paused, then added casually: “By the way, our first meeting was in a pretty German atmosphere. Do you recall the meeting where little Miss Ames stood up for the flag? That took character.”

Jeremy’s face became wistful. “Do you ever hear from her—Miss Ames?”

“Eh? My daughter does. Did you—Why, you were the one that put her on the golf team, were n’t you! I’d forgotten. You must be a good teacher.”

“She was a good pupil. Never knew when she was beaten.”

“It didn’t happen often enough for her to know, I guess,” laughed the magnate. “She came out to visit Elizabeth and made a fool of me on my own course. I owe you a grudge for that, young man! Will you take me out and show me some of the tricks some time when I’m down here? We’ll talk politics while we go around, so you can soothe your conscience for taking the time off.”

“Glad to. Miss Ames and I used to play in the early morning, but I guess I can take an afternoon off when you come down. By the way, where is she?”

“In Hamburg, I believe. There was some hint of an engagement.—a relative of her stepfather’s, I believe. Very advantageous match.”

Jeremy heard the reply “Is that so?” in a tone of flat and polite simulation of interest, issue upon the air. It was obviously the result of a mechanical ventriloquism of his own, for he was quite sure that his lips had been for the moment incapable of speech. Of course he had always known that it must come. Inevitable with a girl like Marcia. But hope, though it withers, clings hardily to the last pulsing of secret life in the young. Even in the heart-emptiness of a long year of silence—except for the one note delivered by Buddy Higman—Jeremy had cherished a delusion dear as on the day when he first met her.... He became aware that Laurens was saying something to him. Politics—that was it. He had to fix his mind on politics, and though life had abruptly become sterile of hope and dreams, nevertheless there was a job to do. For the next twenty minutes, Jeremy passed through an ordeal which entitled him to a hero’s medal. He forced his aching mind to take in what Laurens was telling him, and afterward he fashioned from it a skillful and dispassionate interview.

After Laurens’s departure the editor opened the drawer in his desk which was always kept locked. Therein were a dozen golf scores—he was still very young, and his stock of souvenirs had been pathetically scant—her note and the little photograph. He understood, now, why she had written him no letter. When she gave him up, she had mapped out her course for herself. If she were not formally betrothed then, she had determined upon the step. And having determined, she ended it all, then and there. It was the honorable way. It was the direct, definite, frank way. It was the right way. It was Marcia’s way.

He looked yearningly at the photograph. Wonderful how that tiny oblong of paper, touched with a few flat tints could so evoke the very essence and fragrance and challenging sweetness of her! She looked out at him, all soft radiance in the hard radiance of the sunlight which flooded her, and his fingers, bidden to tear the likeness to fragments and scatter it—not in resentment but as a sacrificial formality—trembled and slackened. What harm, after all, in keeping the picture? It meant nothing—and therein Jeremy Robson lied to his own soul. It meant that he still clung to his vision, which nothing had blurred. For no other woman had so much as impinged upon the outskirts of his imagination. There was neither time nor space for women other than Marcia. He restored the picture, the note, the prim numerals of the golf scores—how vividly he could see the full, lithe swing of the young body vivid with untainted health and vitality as her brassie flicked the ball cleanly from its turfy lie!—and locked the drawer again. There lay hopes dead and ideals still unconquerably alive.

Reading the Laurens interview, conspicuously played up, on its merits as news, Martin Embree felt rise within him dark misgivings as to his supporter. He was of that type which, in its self-centered mind, forbodes disloyalty and suspects betrayal in any divergence of opinion or policy from its own standards. But his smile was as brilliant as usual, perhaps even more so, when he next met Jeremy.

“Pretty handsome send-off you gave Laurens.”

“Yes. I like him. He’s straight.”

“So’s a snake—when it’s dead. I told you to look out for him.”

“I did,” said the editor good-humoredly. “I don’t think he fooled me any. Or even tried to.”

“He’s likely to be the man we’ve got to fight for the governorship.”

“We’ll fight him, when the time comes.”

“And meantime you boost him.”

“You’ll never understand the newspaper game, Martin. That was news; therefore worth printing.”

“I understand this, my boy; that you can’t afford to mix up with Laurens and his gang.”

“Oh, cheer up, Martin! I don’t intend to. But I can’t take your point of view in everything, much as I appreciate what you’ve done for the paper.”

Indeed, Jeremy had always given ungrudging acknowledgment of Embree’s services to The Guardian. That first boost in circulation through Embree’s efforts in the Northern Tier had been invaluable. And now, through his strength in local labor circles, Embree was being of assistance to Jeremy, in preventing strikes, and allaying trouble in the press-room. The center of disturbance there was the white-haired, sharp-tongued Socialist, Nick Milliken.

Most correct in his attitude toward his employer in work hours, Milliken asserted his independence outside the “shop” by invariably addressing him as “young feller” and usually reproaching him for “hanging onto a half-mile-post, like Mart Embree,” instead of coming out fair and square for Socialism and the millennium. As against him Embree played the big, stolid German-American foreman Girdner, who had influence among the men, and who was a political adherent of the Northern Tier Senator’s. On the whole the internal affairs of the office were satisfactory. Another connection between Embree and The Guardian office was maintained through Max Verrall, the Senator’s protÉgÉ, who, having made good as circulation manager, was now handling the paper’s advertising, as sub-head of that department under the general supervision of Andrew Galpin.

For all favors The Guardian repaid Martin Embree by its loyal and effectual political support. If the Senator’s friends were not always acceptable to Jeremy’s somewhat squeamish political standards, at least his enemies were The Guardian’s enemies. No “conspiracy of silence” on the part of the press opposed him now. The Guardian paid so much heed to his utterances that The Record was forced to take them up as a matter of news. Without this aid, Embree could not have been certain of the nomination for Governor at that time. Now it was practically assured to him. The account between him and Jeremy Robson stood fairly balanced to date.

Jeremy wondered how hard he would take the projected editorial campaign against the Germanizing of the public schools.