housand signal-towers and engines, who fought the elements from
the decks of ten thousand ships--to bring all these things here to be
destroyed. Step by step, as the flood of extravagance rose, and the
energies of the men were turned to the creation of futility and
corruption--so, step by step, increased the misery and degradation of
all these slaves of Mammon. And who could imagine what they would think
about it--if ever they came to think?

And then, in a sudden flash, there came back to Montague that speech
he had heard upon the street-corner, the first evening he had been in
New York! He could hear again the pounding of the elevated trains, and
the shrill voice of the orator; he could see his haggard and hungry
face, and the dense crowd gazing up at him. And there came to him the
words of Major Thorne:

"It means another civil war!"

CHAPTER XXI

Alice had been gone for a couple of weeks, and the day was drawing near
when the Hasbrook case came up for trial. The Saturday before that
being the date of the Mi-careme dance of the Long Island Hunt Club,
Siegfried Harvey was to have a house-party for the week-end, and
Montague accepted his invitation. He had been working hard, putting the
finishing touches to his brief, and he thought that a rest would be
good for him.

He and his brother went down upon Friday afternoon, and the first
person he met was Betty Wyman, whom he had not seen for quite a while.
Betty had much to say, and said it. As Montague had not been seen with
Mrs. Winnie since the episode in her house, people had begun to notice
the break, and there was no end of gossip; and Mistress Betty wanted to
know all about it, and how things stood between them.

But he would not tell her, and so she saucily refused to tell him what
she had heard. All the while they talked she was eyeing him
quizzically, and it was evident that she took the worst for granted;
also that he had become a much more interesting person to her because
of it. Montague had the strangest sensations when he was talking with
Betty Wyman; she was delicious and appealing, almost irresistible; and
yet her views of life were so old! "I told you you wouldn't do for a
tame cat!" she said to him.

Then she went on to talk to him about his case, and to tease him about
the disturbance he had made.

"You know," she said, "Ollie and I were in terror--we thought that
grandfather would be furious, and that we'd be ruined. But somehow, it