was impossible for him to
forget Elisabeth's outspoken verdict upon this man and all his works.
"The young are never tolerant," he murmured.
"And quite rightly," Maraton observed. "There is nothing more to be
envied in youth than its magnificent certainty. It knows! . . . I
am flattered, Mr. Foley, that you should have received me in your house
to-night. Your niece's attitude towards me, even if a trifle crude, is,
I am afraid, the general one amongst your class in this country."
"To be frank with you, I agree," Mr. Foley assented. "I, personally,
Mr. Maraton, am trying to be a dissenter. It is for that reason that I
begged you to come here to-night and discuss the matter with me before
you committed yourself to any definite plan of action in this country."
"Your message was a surprise to me," Maraton admitted calmly. "At the
same time, it was a summons which I could not disregard. As you see, I
am here."
Mr. Foley drew a key from his pocket and led the way across the room
towards a closed door.
"I want to make sure that we are not disturbed. I am going to take you
through to my study, if I may."
They passed into a small inner room, plainly but comfortably furnished.
"My own den," Mr. Foley explained, closing the door behind him with an
air of relief. "Will you smoke, Mr. Maraton, or drink anything?"
"Neither, thank you," Maraton answered. "I am here to listen. I am
curious to hear what there is that you can have to say to me."
CHAPTER III
Mr. Foley pointed to an easy-chair. Maraton, however, did not at once
respond to his gesture of invitation. He was standing, tense and
silent, with head upraised, listening. From the street outside came a
strange, rumbling sound.
"You permit?" he asked, stepping to the window and drawing the curtain a
few inches on one side. "There is something familiar about that sound.
I heard it last in Chicago."
Mr. Foley rose slowly from the easy-chair into which he had thrown
himself, and stood by his visitor's side. Outside, the pavements were
lined by policemen, standing like sentries about half-a-dozen yards
apart. The tented entrance to the house was guarded by a solid phalanx
of men in uniform. A mounted inspector was riding slowly up and down in
the middle of the road. At the entrance to the street, barely fifty
yards away, a moving mass of people, white-faced, almost spectral, were
passing slowly beneath the pale gas-lamps.
"The people!" Maraton murmure
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