He stared at her incredulously.

"Right?" he said. "Why, my dear child, most of them want to strike about
as much as I want delirium tremens. I've talked to them, and I know."

"A slave may be satisfied if he has never known freedom."

"Oh, fudge," said Willy Cameron, rudely. "Where do you get all that?
You're quoting; aren't you? The strike, any strike, is an acknowledgment
of weakness. It is a resort to the physical because the collective
mentality of labor isn't as strong as the other side. Or labor thinks it
isn't, which amounts to the same thing. And there is a fine line between
the fellow who fights for a principle and the one who knocks people down
to show how strong he is."

"This is a fight for a principle, Willy."

"Fine little Cardew you are!" he scoffed. "Don't make any mistake. There
have been fights by labor for a principle, and the principle won, as
good always wins over evil. But this is different. It's a direct play
by men who don't realize what they are doing, into the hands of a lot
of--well, we'll call them anarchists. It's Germany's way of winning the
war. By indirection."

"If by anarchists you mean men like my uncle--"

"I do," he said grimly. "That's a family accident and you can't help it.
But I do mean Doyle. Doyle and a Pole named Woslosky, and a scoundrel of
an attorney here in town, named Akers, among others."

"Mr. Akers is a friend of mine, Willy."

He stared at her.

"If they have been teaching you their dirty doctrines, Lily," he said
at last, "I can only tell you this. They can disguise it in all the fine
terms they want. It is treason, and they are traitors. I know. I've had
a talk with the Chief of Police."

"I don't believe it."

"How well do you know Louis Akers?"

"Not very well." But there were spots of vivid color flaming in her
cheeks. He drew a long breath.

"I can't retract it," he said. "I didn't know, of course. Shall we start
back?"

They were very silent as they walked. Willy Cameron was pained and
anxious. He knew Akers' type rather than the man himself, but he knew
the type well. Every village had one, the sleek handsome animal who
attracted girls by sheer impudence and good humor, who made passionate,
pagan love promiscuously, and put the responsibility for the misery they
caused on the Creator because He had made them as they were.

He was agonized by another train of thought. For him Lily had always
been something fine, beautiful, infinitely remote