--SHE is!"

Hull could not control himself to speak. As they sat in the carriage,
she finishing the pulling on of her gloves, he stared out into the
heavy rain that was deluging the earth and bending low the boughs.
Said she, half way down the hill:

"Well--can't you talk about anything but Victor Dorn?"

"I saw him this afternoon," said Hull, glad that the tension of the
silence was broken.

"Then you've got something to talk about."

"The big street car strike is on."

"So father said at dinner. I suppose Victor Dorn caused it."

"No--he's opposed to it. He's queer. I don't exactly understand his
ideas. He says strikes are ridiculous--that it's like trying to cure
smallpox by healing up one single sore."

Jane gave a shiver of lady-like disgust. "How--nasty," said she.

"I'm telling you what he said. But he says that the only way human
beings learn how to do things right is by doing them wrong--so while
he's opposed to strikes he's also in favor of them."

"Even _I_ understand that," said Jane. "I don't think it's difficult."

"Doesn't it strike you as--as inconsistent?"

"Oh--bother consistency!" scoffed the girl. "That's another middle
class virtue that sensible people loathe as a vice. Anyhow, he's
helping the strikers all he can--and fighting US. You know, your father
and my father's estate are the two biggest owners of the street
railways."

"I must get his paper," said Jane. "I'll have a lot of fun reading the
truth about us."

But David wasn't listening. He was deep in thought. After a while he
said: "It's amazing--and splendid--and terrible, what power he's
getting in our town. Victor Dorn, I mean."

"Always Victor Dorn," mocked Jane.

"When he started--twelve years ago as a boy of twenty, just out of
college and working as a carpenter--when he started, he was alone and
poor, and without friends or anything. He built up little by little,
winning one man at a time--the fellow working next him on his right,
then the chap working on his left--in the shop--and so on, one man
after another. And whenever he got a man he held him--made him as
devoted--as--as fanatical as he is himself. Now he's got a band of
nearly a thousand. There are ten thousand voters in this town. So,
he's got only one in ten. But what a thousand!"

Jane was gazing out into the rain, her eyes bright, her lips parted.

"Are you listening?" asked Hull. "Or, am I boring you?"

"Go on," said she.

"They