in the great event which the
others had prepared. When his eyes took in the situation, he recognized
the excellence of the organization and the value of the waiting period
which had preceded this date. His coat in hand, he quietly walked
behind the two workingmen and his head was humming with thoughts that
were neither foolish nor jealous.

On both sides and all about the iron beasts were lying, lurking
immovable, their merciless limbs lazily stretched. In their beautiful
brutal bodies a sustained glow seemed to flicker. As at all times the
vicious graceful forms lay there and shone with a lustful light. But no
living brain conceived a creative thought, no eye was animated by a
soul. Cold, heartless, brainless beasts filled the halls where they
reigned. The little long-necked man with the bushy head and the yellow
wheelman's sandals brought to contrast with them much solid worth, and
surpassed them in real beauty. For those sovereigns could all be hacked
to pieces, and nothing was lost; they could be replaced. But if Victor
Pratteler by some sad accident lost his life, the world would have been
poorer in just so much love, good will, sincere remorse, faith,
humility and honesty. Before he left the hall, he threw another glance
at the idol, and wondered at himself. For the idol was no longer a
symbol to him; he could contemplate it quietly and objectively. A
feeling of shyness came over him at the memory of the last half hour;
but the distress which he had experienced was so great and his
deliverance so simple and comprehensible to his soul, that the power of
the idol had melted before it. The siren continued to howl. The
strikers had fastened the valve with a rope, locked the furnace room
and thrown the keys in through the window, so they could not be
reproached with having them. After an hour the fire department silenced
its voice. In the meantime a stream of workingmen was surging toward
the meeting-hall.

With the same quiet and impersonally gentle manner in which he had
taken leave of the idol, Victor approached Spiele, when he returned
with Hoeflinger. He noticed now with his unveiled eyes that the tailor's
daughter was by no means as pretty as he had always believed. There
were wrinkles about her nose from her habit of drawing it up so often.
She also had some crowsfeet about the eyes. It could not be denied that
these eyes were of a beautiful brown in the twilight, but when you
looked at them in full light, the