ep me a day if I
did that."

"Ha!" cried Mr. Cord, coming suddenly to life. "There's freedom for
you!"

"That would be very cruel of the owners, Ben, but if they did--"

"It wouldn't be cruel at all," said Moreton. "They wouldn't have any
choice. I should have lost all influence with my readers, if it were
known--"

"Glory!" said Mr. Cord. "Think of penalizing the first honest attempt
to understand the capitalistic class!"

Ben stood silent, caught in the grip of an intellectual dilemma which
he felt every instant would dissolve itself and which didn't.

Crystal for the first time moved away from her father. "Those are my
terms," she said. "I stay with the man who agrees to them, and if you
both decline them--well, I'll go off and try and open the oyster by
myself."

There was a long momentous pause, and then Tomes's discreet knock on
the door.

"Mr. Verriman on the telephone, madam."

"I can't come," said Crystal. "Ask him to send a message."

"Don't you see, Crystal, what your plan would do?" said her father.
"Either it would make Moreton a red revolutionist and me a persecuting
Bourbon, or else it would just ruin us both for either of our
objectives."

"It won't ruin you for my objectives," said Crystal, "and women are
more human, you know, than men."

Another knock at the door. Tomes's voice again:

"Mr. Verriman wishes to know if he might dine here this evening?"

"No," said Cord, looking at Crystal.

Crystal raised her voice. "Certainly, Tomes. Say we shall be delighted
to have him--at eight."

Both men turned to her.

"Why did you do that, Crystal? Verriman--here--to-night?"

Crystal did not answer--the identity of their tones, their words,
and their irritation with her should have told them the answer, but
didn't.

She knew that only opposition to Eddie and Eddie's many prototypes
could weld her two men solidly together.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's The Beauty and the Bolshevist, by Alice Duer Miller

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