Part 3 (1/2)
The woman wheeled suddenly in her chair, and with her back to the audience bent over a girl who was evidently hiding behind her.
”Outdo yourself to-night, Barbara. Young Norman Worth, the son of our multi-millionaire nabob, is sitting in the aisle just in front of you.
Win him for the Cause and I'll give you the half of our kingdom.”
”How can I know him?” the girl asked excitedly.
”He's not ten feet from the platform in the centre aisle--front row--clean shaven--a young giant of twenty-three--the handsomest man in the house. Put your soul _and_ your body in every word you utter, every breath you breathe--and _win_ him!”
”I'll try,” was the low reply.
CHAPTER II
A NEW JOAN OF ARC
The woman in scarlet rose, lifted her hand, and the crowd sprang to their feet to the music of the most stirring song of revolution ever written.
Norman and Elena were both swept from their seats in spite of themselves. Elena's eyes flashed with excitement.
”What on earth is that they are singing, Norman?” she whispered.
”The Ma.r.s.eillaise hymn.”
”Isn't it thrilling?” she gasped.
”It makes your heart leap, doesn't it?”
”And, heavens, how they sing it!” she exclaimed.
Norman turned and looked over the crowd of eager faces--every man and woman singing with the pa.s.sionate enthusiasm of religious fanatics--an enthusiasm electric, contagious, overwhelming. In spite of himself he felt his heart beat with quickened sympathy.
He was amazed at the character of the audience. He had expected to see a throng of low-browed brutes. The first shock he received was the feeling that this crowd was distinctly an intellectual one. They might be fanatics. They certainly were not fools. The stamp of personality was clean cut on almost every face. They were fighters. They meant business and they didn't care who knew it. Some of them wore dirty clothes, but their faces were stamped with the power of free, rebellious thought--a power that always commands respect in spite of shabby clothes. He looked in vain for a single joyous face. Not a smile. Deep, dark eyes, s.h.i.+ning with the light of purpose, mouths firm, headstrong, merciless, and bitter, but nowhere the glimmer of a ray of sunlight! He felt with a sense of awe the uncanny presence of Tragedy.
And to his amazement he noticed a lot of men he knew in the crowd--three or four authors, a newspaper reporter evidently off duty, two college professors, a clergyman, three artists, a priest, and a street preacher.
The hymn died away into a low sigh, like the sob of the wind after a storm. The crowd sank to their seats so quietly with the dying of the music that Norman and Elena were standing alone for an instant. They awoke from the spell, and dropped into their seats with evident embarra.s.sment.
A boy of sixteen stepped briskly to the front in answer to a nod from the chairman, and recited a Socialist poem. After the first stanza, which was crude and stilted, Norman's eye rested on the heavy figure of the chairman. He was surprised at the power of his rugged face.
Through its brute strength flashed the keenest sense of alert intelligence--an intelligence which seemed to lurk behind the big, s.h.a.ggy eyebrows as if about to spring on its victim. His heavy-set face was covered with a thick, reddish blond beard and his short hair stood up straight on his head, like the bristles of a wild boar. Of medium height and heavy build, with arms and legs of extraordinary muscle and big, coa.r.s.e short fingers evidently gnarled and knotted, by the coa.r.s.est labor in youth, he looked like a blacksmith who had taken a college course by the light of his forge at night. There was something about the way he sat crouching low in his seat, watching with his keen gray eyes everything that pa.s.sed, that bespoke the man of reserve power--the man who was quietly waiting his hour.
”By George, a pretty good pet name they've given him--'The Blond Beast,'” Norman muttered. ”I shouldn't like to tackle him in the dark.”
The woman in red leaned toward the chairman and said something in low tones. He nodded his ma.s.sive head, smiled, and looked back over his shoulder at the girl sitting behind them. The movement showed for the first time a long ugly scar on the side of his great neck.
”Look at that fellow's neck!” whispered Elena.
”Yes. He had a close call that time,” Norman answered. ”But I'll bet the other one never lived to tell the story----”
”s.h.!.+ 'The Scarlet Nun' is going to speak.”