gument, he
singled her out.

"You do not work in the mills?" he asked.

"No, I'm a stenographer--or I was one."

"And now?"

"I've given up my place."

"You want to join us?"

"I was interested in what you said. I never heard anything like it
before."

He looked at her intently.

"Come, let us walk a little way," he said. And she went along by his
side, through the Common, feeling a neophyte's excitement in the
freemasonry, the contempt for petty conventions of this newly achieved
doctrine of brotherhood. "I will give you things to read, you shall be
one of us."

"I'm afraid I shouldn't understand them," Janet replied. "I've read so
little."

"Oh, you will understand," he assured her, easily. "There is too much
learning, too much reason and intelligence in the world, too little
impulse and feeling, intuition. Where do reason and intelligence lead us?
To selfishness, to thirst for power-straight into the master class. They
separate us from the mass of humanity. No, our fight is against those who
claim more enlightenment than their fellowmen, who control the public
schools and impose reason on our children, because reason leads to
submission, makes us content with our station in life. The true
syndicalist is an artist, a revolutionist!" he cried.

Janet found this bewildering and yet through it seemed to shine for her a
gleam of light. Her excitement grew. Never before had she been in the
presence of one who talked like this, with such assurance and ease. And
the fact that he despised knowledge, yet possessed it, lent him glamour.

"But you have studied!" she exclaimed.

"Oh yes, I have studied," he replied, with a touch of weariness, "only to
learn that life is simple, after all, and that what is needed for the
social order is simple. We have only to take what belongs to us, we who
work, to follow our feelings, our inclinations."

"You would take possession of the mills?" she asked.

"Yes," he said quickly, "of all wealth, and of the government. There
would be no government--we should not need it. A little courage is all
that is necessary, and we come into our own. You are a stenographer, you
say. But you--you are not content, I can see it in your face, in your
eyes. You have cause to hate them, too, these masters, or you would not
have been herein this place, to-day. Is it not so?"

She shivered, but was silent.

"Is it not so?" he repeated. "They have wronged you, too, perhaps,--they
have wronge