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CHAPTER III
HIS HOUSE IN ORDER

Norton knew from the first that there could be no hope of success in such a campaign as he had planned except in the single iron will of a leader who would lead and whose voice lifted in impassioned appeal direct to the white race in every county of the state could rouse them to resistless enthusiasm.

The man who undertook this work must burn the bridges behind him, ask nothing for himself and take his life daily in his hands. He knew the state from the sea to its farthest mountain peak and without the slightest vanity felt that God had called him to this task. There was no other man who could do it, no other man fitted for it. He had the training, bitter experience, and the confidence of the people. And he had no ambitions save a deathless desire to serve his country in the solution of its greatest and most insoluble problem. He edited the most powerful organ of public opinion in the South and he was an eloquent and forceful speaker. His paper had earned a comfortable fortune, he was independent, he had the training of a veteran soldier and physical fear was something he had long since ceased to know.

And his house was in order for the event. He could leave for months in confidence that the work would run with the smoothness of a clock.

He had sent Tom to a Northern university which had kept itself clean from the stain of negro associations. The boy had just graduated with honor, returned home and was at work in the office. He was a handsome, clean, manly, straight-limbed, wholesome boy, the pride of his father's heart, and had shown decided talent for newspaper work.

Andy had long since become his faithful henchman, butler and man of all work. Aunt Minerva, his fat, honest cook, was the best servant he had ever known, and Cleo kept his house.

The one point of doubt was Cleo. During the past year she had given unmistakable signs of a determination to fight. If she should see fit to strike in the midst of this campaign, her blow would be a crushing one. It would not only destroy him personally, it would confuse and crush his party in hopeless defeat. He weighed this probability from every point of view and the longer he thought it over the less likely it appeared that she would take such a step. She would destroy herself and her child as well. She knew him too well now to believe that he would ever yield in such a struggle. Helen was just graduating from a convent school in the Northwest, a beautiful and accomplished girl, and the last thing on earth she could suspect was that a drop of negro blood flowed in her veins. He knew Cleo too well, understood her hatred of negroes too well, to believe that she would deliberately push this child back into a negroid hell merely to wreak a useless revenge that would crush her own life as well. She was too wise, too cunning, too cautious.

And yet her steadily growing desperation caused him to hesitate. The thing he dreaded most was the loss of his boy's respect, which a last desperate fight with this woman would involve. The one thing he had taught Tom was racial cleanness. With a wisdom inspired and guided by the brooding spirit of his mother he had done this thoroughly. He had so instilled into this proud, sensitive boy's soul a hatred for all low association with women that it was inconceivable to him that any decent white man would stoop to an intrigue with a woman of negro blood. The withering scorn, the unmeasured contempt with which he had recently expressed himself to his father on this point had made the red blood slowly mount to the older man's face.

He had rather die than look into this boy's clean, manly eyes and confess the shame that would blacken his life. The boy loved him with a deep, tender, reverent love. His keen eyes had long ago seen the big traits in his father's character. The boy's genuine admiration was the sweetest thing in his lonely life.

He weighed every move with care and deliberately made up his mind to strike the blow and take the chances. No man had the right to weigh his personal career against the life of a people – certainly no man who dared to assume the leadership of a race. He rose from his desk, opened the door of the reporters' room and called Tom.

The manly young figure, in shirt sleeves, pad and pencil in hand, entered with quick, firm step.

"You want me to interview you, Governor?" he said with a laugh. "All right – now what do you think of that little scrimmage at the mouth of the harbor of Santiago yesterday? How's that for a Fourth of July celebration? I ask it of a veteran of the Confederate army?"

The father smiled proudly as the youngster pretended to be taking notes of his imaginary interview.

"You heard, sir," he went on eagerly, "that your old General, Joe Wheeler, was there and in a moment of excitement forgot himself and shouted to his aid:

"'There go the damned Yankees! – charge and give 'em hell!'"

A dreamy look came into the father's eyes as he interrupted:

"I shouldn't be surprised if Wheeler said it – anyhow, it's too good a joke to doubt" – he paused and the smile on his serious face slowly faded.

"Shut the door, Tom," he said with a gesture toward the reporters' room.

The boy rose, closed the door, and sat down near his father's chair:

"Well, Dad, why so serious? Am I to be fired without a chance? or is it just a cut in my wages? Don't prolong the agony!"

"I am going to put you in my chair in this office, my son," the father said in a slow drawl. The boy flushed scarlet and then turned pale.

"You don't mean it – now?" he gasped.

"To-morrow."

"You think I can make good?" The question came through trembling lips and he was looking at his father through a pair of dark blue eyes blurred by tears of excitement.

"You'll do better than I did at your age. You're better equipped."

"You think so?" Tom asked in quick boyish eagerness.

"I know it."

The boy sprang to his feet and grasped his father's hand:

"Your faith in me is glorious – it makes me feel like I can do anything – "

"You can – if you try."

"Well, if I can, it's because I've got good blood in me. I owe it all to you. You're the biggest man I ever met, Dad. I've wanted to say this to you for a long time, but I never somehow got up my courage to tell you what I thought of you."

The father slipped his arm tenderly about the boy and looked out the window at the bright Southern sky for a moment before he slowly answered:

"I'd rather hear that from you, Tom, than the shouts of the rest of the world."

"I'm going to do my level best to prove myself worthy of the big faith you've shown in me – but why have you done it? What does it mean?"

"Simply this, my boy, that the time has come in the history of the South for a leader to strike the first blow in the battle for racial purity by establishing a clean American citizenship. I am going to disfranchise the Negro in this state as the first step toward the ultimate complete separation of the races."

The boy's eyes flashed:

"It's a big undertaking, sir."

"Yes."

"Is it possible?"

"Many say not. That's why I'm going to do it. The real work must come after this first step. Just now the campaign which I'm going to inaugurate to-morrow in a speech at the mass meeting celebrating our victory at Santiago, is the thing in hand. This campaign will take me away from home for several months. I must have a man here whom I can trust implicitly."

"I'll do my best, sir," the boy broke in.

"In case anything happens to me before it ends – "

Tom bent close:

"What do you mean?"

"You never can tell what may happen in such a revolution – "

"It will be a revolution?"

"Yes. That's what my enemies as yet do not understand. They will not be prepared for the weapons I shall use. And I'll win. I may lose my life, but I'll start a fire that can't be put out until it has swept the state – the South" – he paused – "and then the Nation!"

CHAPTER IV
THE MAN OF THE HOUR

The editor prepared to launch his campaign with the utmost care. He invited the Executive Committee of his party to meet in his office. The leaders were excited. They knew Norton too well to doubt that he had something big to suggest. Some of them came from distant sections of the state, three hundred miles away, to hear his plans.

He faced the distinguished group of leaders calmly, but every man present felt the deep undercurrent of excitement beneath his words.

"With your coöperation, gentlemen," he began, "we are going to sweep the state this time by an overwhelming majority – "

"That's the way to talk!" the Chairman shouted.

"Four years ago," he went on, "we were defeated for the first time since the overthrow of the negro government under the Reconstruction régime. This defeat was brought about by a division of the whites under the Socialistic program of the Farmers' Alliance. Gradually the black man has forced himself into power under the new régime. Our farmers only wished his votes to accomplish their plans and have no use for him as an officeholder. The rank and file of the white wing, therefore, of the allied party in power, are ripe for revolt if the Negro is made an issue."

The Committee cheered.

"I propose to make the Negro the only issue of this campaign. There will be no half-way measures, no puling hesitation, no weakness, and it will be a fight to the death in the open. The day for secret organizations has gone in Southern history. There is no Black League to justify a reorganization of the Klan. But the new Black League has a far more powerful organization. Its mask is now philanthropy, not patriotism. Its weapon is the lure of gold, not the flash of Federal bayonets. They will fight to divide the white race on this vital issue.

"Here is our danger. It is real. It is serious. But we must meet it. There is but one way, and that is to conduct a campaign of such enthusiasm, of such daring and revolutionary violence if need be, that the little henchmen and sycophants of the Dispensers of the National Poor Funds will be awed into silence.

"The leadership of such a campaign will be a dangerous one. I offer you my services without conditions. I ask nothing for myself. I will accept no honors. I offer you my time, my money, my paper, my life if need be!"

The leaders rose as one man, grasped Norton's hand, and placed him in command.

No inkling of even the outlines of his radical program was allowed to leak out until the hour of the meeting of the party convention. The delegates were waiting anxiously for the voice of a leader who would sound the note of victory.

And when the platform was read to the convention declaring in simple, bold words that the time had come for the South to undo the crime of the Fifteenth Amendment, disfranchise the Negro and restore to the Nation the basis of white civilization, a sudden cheer like a peal of thunder swept the crowd, followed by the roar of a storm. It died away at last in waves of excited comment, rose again and swelled and rose higher and higher until the old wooden building trembled.

Again and again such assemblies had declared in vague terms for "White Supremacy." Campaign after campaign which followed the blight of negro rule twenty years before had been fought and won on this issue. But no man or party had dared to whisper what "White Supremacy" really meant. There was no fog about this platform. For the first time in the history of the party it said exactly what was meant in so many words.

Thoughtful men had long been weary of platitudes on this subject. The Negro had grown enormously in wealth, in numbers and in social power in the past two decades. As a full-fledged citizen in a Democracy he was a constant menace to society. Here, for the first time, was the announcement of a definite program. It was revolutionary. It meant the revision of the constitution of the Union and a challenge to the negro race, and all his sentimental allies in the Republic for a fight to a finish.

The effect of its bare reading was electric. The moment the Chairman tried to lift his voice the cheers were renewed. The hearts of the people had been suddenly thrilled by a great ideal. No matter whether it meant success or failure, no matter whether it meant fame or oblivion for the man who proposed it, every intelligent delegate in that hall knew instinctively that a great mind had spoken a bold principle that must win in the end if the Republic live.

Norton rose at last to advocate its adoption as the one issue of the campaign, and again pandemonium broke loose – now they knew that he had written it! They suspected it from the first. Instantly his name was on a thousand lips in a shout that rent the air.

He stood with his tall figure drawn to its full height, his face unearthly pale, wreathed in its heavy shock of iron-gray hair and waited, without recognizing the tumult, until the last shout had died away.

His speech was one of passionate and fierce appeal – the voice of the revolutionist who had boldly thrown off the mask and called his followers to battle.

Yet through it all, the big unspoken thing behind his words was the magic that really swayed his hearers. They felt that what he said was great, but that he could say something greater if he would. As he had matured in years he had developed this reserved power. All who came in personal touch with the man felt it instinctively with his first word. An audience, with its simpler collective intelligence, felt it overwhelmingly. Yet if he had dared reveal to this crowd the ideas seething in his brain behind the simple but bold political proposition, he could not have carried them with him. They were not ready for it. He knew that to merely take the ballot from the negro and allow him to remain in physical touch with the white race was no solution of the problem. But he was wise enough to know that but one step could be taken at a time in a great movement to separate millions of blacks from the entanglements of the life of two hundred years.

His platform expressed what he believed could be accomplished, and the convention at the conclusion of his eloquent speech adopted it by acclamation amid a scene of wild enthusiasm.

He refused all office, except the position of Chairman of the Executive Committee without pay, and left the hall the complete master of the politics of his party.

Little did he dream in this hour of triumph the grim tragedy the day's work had prepared in his own life.

CHAPTER V
A WOMAN SCORNED

As the time drew near for Norton to take the field in the campaign whose fierce passions would mark a new era in the state's history, his uneasiness over the attitude of Cleo increased.

She had received the announcement of his approaching long absence with sullen anger. And as the purpose of the campaign gradually became clear she had watched him with growing suspicion and hate. He felt it in every glance she flashed from the depth of her greenish eyes.

Though she had never said it in so many words, he was sure that the last hope of a resumption of their old relations was fast dying in her heart, and that the moment she realized that he was lost to her would be the signal for a desperate attack. What form the attack would take he could only guess. He was sure it would be as deadly as her ingenuity could invent. Yet in the wildest flight of his imagination he never dreamed the daring thing she had really decided to do.

On the night before his departure he was working late in his room at the house. The office he had placed in Tom's hands before the meeting of the convention. The boy's eager young face just in front of him when he made his speech that day had been an inspiration. It had beamed with pride and admiration, and when his father's name rang from every lip in the great shout that shook the building Tom's eyes had filled with tears.

Norton was seated at his typewriter, which he had moved to his room, writing his final instructions. The last lines he put in caps:

"Under no conceivable circumstances annoy me with anything that happens at home, unless a matter of immediate life and death, anything else can wait until my return."

He had just finished this important sentence when the sound of a footstep behind his chair caused him to turn suddenly.

Cleo had entered the room and stood glaring at him with a look of sullen defiance.

By a curious coincidence or by design, she was dressed in a scarlet kimono of the same shade of filmy Japanese stuff as the one she wore in his young manhood. His quick eye caught this fact in a flash and his mind took rapid note of the changes the years had wrought. Their burdens had made slight impression on her exhaustless vitality. Whatever might be her personality or her real character, she was alive from the crown of her red head to the tips of her slippered toes.

Her attitude of tense silence sparkled with this vital power more eloquently than when she spoke with quick energy in the deep voice that was her most remarkable possession.

Her figure was heavier by twenty pounds than when she had first entered his home, but she never produced the impression of stoutness. Her form was too sinuous, pliant and nervous to take on flesh. She was no longer the graceful girl of eighteen whose beauty had drugged his senses, but she was beyond all doubt a woman of an extraordinary type, luxuriant, sensuous, dominant. There was not a wrinkle on her smooth creamy skin nor a trace of approaching age about the brilliant greenish eyes that were gazing into his now with such grim determination.

He wheeled from his machine and faced her, his eyes taking in with a quick glance the evident care with which she had arranged her hair and the startling manner in which she was dressed.

He spoke with sharp, incisive emphasis:

"It was a condition of your return that you should never enter my room while I am in this house."

"I have not forgotten," she answered firmly, her eyes holding his steadily.

"Why have you dared?"

"You are still afraid of me?" she asked with a light laugh that was half a sneer.

"Have I given you any such evidence during the past twenty years?"

There was no bitterness or taunt in the even, slow drawl with which he spoke, but the woman knew that he never used the slow tone with which he uttered those words except he was deeply moved.

She flushed, was silent and then answered with a frown:

"No, you haven't shown any fear for something more than twenty years – until a few days ago."

The last clause she spoke very quickly as she took a step closer and paused.

"A few days ago?" he repeated slowly.

"Yes. For the past week you have been afraid of me – not in the sense I asked you just now perhaps" – her white teeth showed in two even perfect rows – "but you have been watching me out of the corners of your eyes – haven't you?"

"Perhaps."

"I wonder why?"

"And you haven't guessed?"

"No, but I'm going to find out."

"You haven't asked."

"I'm going to."

"Be quick about it!"

"I'm going to find out – that's why I came in here to-night in defiance of your orders."

"All right – the quicker the better!"

"Thank you, I'm not in a hurry."

"What do you want?" he demanded with anger.

She smiled tauntingly:

"It's no use to get mad about it! I'm here now, you see that I'm not afraid of you and I'm quite sure that you will not put me out until I'm ready to go – "

He sprang to his feet and advanced on her:

"I'm not so sure of that!"

"Well, I am," she cried, holding his gaze steadily.

He threw up his hands with a gesture of disgust and resumed his seat:

"What is it?"

She crossed the room deliberately, carrying a chair in front of her, sat down, leaned her elbow on his table and studied him a moment, their eyes meeting in a gaze of deadly hostility.

"What is the meaning of this long absence you have planned?"

"I have charge of this campaign. I am going to speak in every county in the state."

"Why?"

"Because I'll win that way, by a direct appeal to the people."

"Why do you want to win?"

"Because I generally do what I undertake."

"Why do you want to do this thing?"

He looked at her in amazement. Her eyes had narrowed to the tiniest lines as she asked these questions with a steadily increasing intensity.

"What are you up to?" he asked her abruptly.

"I want to know why you began this campaign at all?"

"I decline to discuss the question with you," he answered abruptly.

"I insist on it!"

"You wouldn't know what I was talking about," he replied with contempt.

"I think I would."

"Bah!"

He turned from her with a wave of angry dismissal, seized his papers and began to read again his instructions to Tom.

"I'm not such a fool as you think," she began menacingly. "I've read your platform with some care and I've been thinking it over at odd times since your speech was reported."

"And you contemplate entering politics?" he interrupted with a smile.

"Who knows?"

She watched him keenly while she slowly uttered these words and saw the flash of uneasiness cross his face, "But don't worry," she laughed.

"I'll not!"

"You may for all that!" she sneered, "but I'll not enter politics as you fear. That would be too cheap. I don't care what you do to negroes. I've a drop of their blood in me – "

"One in eight, to be exact."

"But I'm not one of them, except by your laws, and I hate the sight of a negro. You can herd them, colonize them, send them back to Africa or to the devil for all I care. Your program interests me for another reason" – she paused and watched him intently.

"Yes?" he said carelessly.

"It interests me for one reason only – you wrote that platform, you made that speech, you carried that convention. Your man Friday is running for Governor. You are going to take the stump, carry this election and take the ballot from the Negro!"

"Well?"

"I'm excited about it merely because it shows the inside of your mind."

"Indeed!"

"Yes. It shows either that you are afraid of me or that you're not – "

"It couldn't well show both," he interrupted with a sneer.

"It might," she answered. "If you are afraid of me and my presence is the cause of this outburst, all right. I'll still play the game with you and win or lose. I'll take my chances. But if you're not afraid of me, if you've really not been on your guard for twenty years, it means another thing. It means that you've learned your lesson, that the book of the past is closed, and that you have simply been waiting for the time to come to do this thing and save your people from a danger before which you once fell."

"And which horn of the dilemma do you take?" he asked coldly.

"I haven't decided – but I will to-night."

"How interesting!"

"Yes, isn't it?" she leaned close. "With a patience that must have caused you wonder, with a waiting through years as God waits, I have endured your indifference, your coldness, your contempt. Each year I have counted the last that you could resist the call of my body and soul, and at the end of each year I have seen you further and further away from me and the gulf between us deeper and darker. This absence you have planned in this campaign means the end one way or the other. I'm going to face life now as it is, not as I've hoped it might be."

"I told you when you made your bargain to return to this house, that there could be nothing between us except a hate that is eternal – "

"And I didn't believe it! Now I'm going to face it if I must – "

She paused, breathed deeply and her eyes were like glowing coals as she slowly went on:

"I'm not the kind to give up without a fight. I've lived and learned the wisdom of caution and cunning. I'm not old and I've still a fool's confidence in my powers. I'm not quite thirty-nine, strong and sound in body and spirit, alive to my finger tips with the full blood of a grown woman – and so I warn you – "

"You warn me" – he cried with a flush of anger.

"Yes. I warn you not to push me too far. I have negro blood in me, but I'm at least human, and I'm going to be treated as a human being."

"And may I ask what you mean by that?" he asked sarcastically.

"That I'm going to demand my rights."

"Demand?"

"Exactly."

"Your rights?"

"The right to love – "

Norton broke into a bitter, angry laugh:

"Are you demanding that I marry you?"

"I'm not quite that big a fool. No. Your laws forbid it. All right – there are higher laws than yours. The law that drew you to me in this room twenty years ago, in spite of all your fears and your prejudices" – she paused and her eyes glowed in the shadows – "I gave you my soul and body then – "

"Gifts I never sought – "

"Yet you took them and I'm here a part of your life. What are you going to do with me? I'm not the negro race. I'm just a woman who loves you and asks that you treat her fairly."

"Treat you fairly! Did I ever want you? Or seek you? You came to me, thrust yourself into my office, and when I discharged you, pushed your way into my home. You won my boy's love and made my wife think you were indispensable to her comfort and happiness. I tried to avoid you. It was useless. You forced yourself into my presence at all hours of the day and night. What happened was your desire, not mine. And when I reproached myself with bitter curses you laughed for joy! And you talk to me to-day of fairness! You who dragged me from that banquet hall the night of my triumph to hurl me into despair! You who blighted my career and sent me blinded with grief and shame groping through life with the shadow of death on my soul! You who struck your bargain of a pound of flesh next to my heart, and fought your way back into my house again to hold me a prisoner for life, chained to the dead body of my shame – you talk to me about fairness – great God!"

He stopped, strangled with passion, his tall figure towering above her, his face livid, his hands clutched in rage.

She laughed hysterically:

"Why don't you strike! I'm not your equal in strength – I dare you to do it – I dare you to do it! I dare you – do you hear?"

With a sudden grip she tore the frail silk from its fastenings at her throat, pressed close and thrust her angry face into his in a desperate challenge to physical violence.

His eyes held hers a moment and his hands relaxed:

"I'd like to kill you. I could do it with joy!"

"Why don't you?"

"You're not worth the price of such a crime!"

"You'd just as well do it, as to wish it. Don't be a coward!" Her eyes burned with suppressed fire.

He looked at her with cold anger and his lip twitched with a smile of contempt.

The strain was more than her nerves could bear. With a sob she threw her arms around his neck. He seized them angrily, her form collapsed and she clung to him with blind hysterical strength.

He waited a moment and spoke in quiet determined tones:

"Enough of this now."

She raised her eyes to his, pleading with desperation:

"Please be kind to me just this last hour before you go, and I'll be content if you give no more. I'll never intrude again."

She relaxed her hold, dropped to a seat and covered her face with her hands:

"Oh, my God! Are you made of stone – have you no pity? Through all these years I've gone in and out of this house looking into your face for a sign that you thought me human, and you've given none. I've lived on the memories of the few hours when you were mine. I've sometimes told myself it was just a dream, that it never happened – until I've almost believed it. You've pretended that it wasn't true. You've strangled these memories and told yourself over and over again that it never happened. I've seen you doing this – seen it in your cold, deep eyes. Well, it's a lie! You were mine! You shall not forget it – you can't forget it – I won't let you, I tell you!"

The voice broke again into sobs.

He stood with arms folded, watching her in silence. Her desperate appeal to his memories and his physical passion had only stirred anger and contempt. He was seeing now as he had never noticed before the growing marks of her negroid character. The anger was for her, the contempt for himself. He noticed the growth of her lips with age, the heavy sensual thickness of the negroid type!

It was inconceivable that in this room the sight of her had once stirred the Beast in him to incontrollable madness. There was at least some consolation in the fact that he had made progress. He couldn't see this if he hadn't moved to a higher plane.

He spoke at length in quiet tones:

"I am waiting for you to go. I have work to do to-night."

She rose with a quick, angry movement:

"It's all over, then. There's not a chance that you'll change your mind?"

"Not if you were the last woman on earth and I the last man."

He spoke without bitterness but with a firmness that was final.

"All right. I know what to expect now and I'll plan my own life."

"What do you mean?"

"That there's going to be a change in my relations to your servants for one thing."

"Your relations to my servants?" he repeated incredulously.

"Yes."

"In what respect?"

"I'm not going to take any more insolence from Minerva – "

"Keep out of the kitchen and let her alone. She's the best cook I ever had."

"If I keep this house for you, I demand the full authority of my position. I'll hire the servants and discharge them when I choose."

"You'll do nothing of the kind," he answered firmly.

"Then I demand that you discharge Minerva and Andy at once."

"What's the matter with Andy?"

"I loathe him."

"Well, I like him, and he's going to stay. Anything else?"

"You'll pay no attention to my wishes?"

"I'm master of this house."

"And in your absence?"

"My son will be here."

"All right, I understand now."

"If I haven't made it plain, I'll do so."

"Quite clear, thank you," she answered slowly.

Norton walked to the mantel, leaned his elbow on the shelf for a moment, returned and confronted her with his hands thrust into his pockets, his feet wide apart, his whole attitude one of cool defiance.

"Now I want to know what you're up to? These absurd demands are a blind. They haven't fooled me. There's something else in the back of your devilish mind. What is it? I want to know exactly what you mean?"

Cleo laughed a vicious little ripple of amusement:

"Yes, I know you do – but you won't!"