Herman said nothing. But later on he opened up the fountain of rage in
his heart. It was wrong, all wrong. We had no quarrel with Germany.
It was the capitalists and politicians who had done it. And above all,
England.

He went far. He blamed America and Americans for his loss of work, for
Anna's disappearance. He searched his mind for grievances and found
them in the ore dust on the hill, which killed his garden; in the
inefficiency of the police, who could not find Anna; in the very
attitude of Clayton Spencer toward his resignation.

And on this smoldering fire Rudolph piled fuel Not that he said a great
deal. He worked around the cottage, washed dishes, threw pails of water
on the dirty porches, swept the floor, carried in coal and wood. And
gradually he began to play on the older man's vanity. He had had great
influence with the millworkers. No one man had ever had so much.

Old Herman sat up, and listened sourly. But after a time he got up and
pouring some water out of the kettle, proceeded to shave himself.
And Rudolph talked on. If now he were to go back, and it were to the
advantage of the Fatherland and of the workers of the world to hamper
the industry, who so able to do it as Herman.

"Hamper? How?" Herman asked, suspiciously, holding his razor aloft. He
had a great fear of the law.

Rudolph re-assured him, cunning eyes averted.

"Well, a strike," he suggested. "The men'll listen to you. God knows
they've got a right to strike."

"I shall not go back," said Herman stolidly, and finished his shaving.

But Rudolph was satisfied. He left Herman sitting again by the fire, but
his eyes were no longer brooding. He was thinking, watching the smoke
curl up from the china-bowled German pipe which he had brought from the
Fatherland, and which he used only on special occasions.

CHAPTER XXXIII

The declaration of war found Graham desperately unhappy. Natalie held
him rigidly to his promise, but it is doubtful if Natalie alone could
have kept, him out of the army. Marion was using her influence, too! She
held him by alternating between almost agreeing to runaway marriage and
threats of breaking the engagement if he went to war. She had tacitly
agreed to play Natalie's game, and she was doing it.

Graham did not analyze his own misery. What he said to himself was that
he was making a mess of things. Life, which had seemed to be a simple
thing, compounded of work and play, had become involved, difficult