The Beauty and the Bolshevist

								

“Show him in here,” said Cord, and added to Eddie, as Tomes left the
room: “Well, here he is—the editor himself, Eddie. You can say it all
to him.”
“I don’t want to see such fellows,” Verriman began.
“Stay and protect me, Eddie. He may have a bomb in his pocket.”
“You don’t really believe that he’s come to—”
“No, Eddie, I don’t. I think he’s come like young Lochinvar—to dance a
little late at the wedding. To try to persuade me to accept that lazy,
good-looking brother of his as a son-in-law. He’ll have quite a job
over that.” Then, as the door opened, Mr. Cord’s eyes concentrated on
it and his manner became a shade sharper. “Ah, Mr. Moreton, good
morning. Mr. Verriman—Mr. Moreton.”
Ben was a good-looking young man, but it was his expression—at once
illuminated and determined—that made him unusual. And the effect of his
night and morning had been to intensify this, so that now, as he stood
a moment in the doorway, he was a very attractive and compelling
figure.
“I came to see my brother, Mr. Cord,” he said, simply, “but I hear he’s
not here any more. If I could speak to you alone for a few minutes—” He
glanced at Eddie, whom he instantly recognized as the man who had not
known how to talk to the woman in the world best worth talking to.
“Oh, you may speak before Mr. Verriman,” said Cord. “He knows the
situation—knows your brother—knows my children—knows about you. In
fact, we were just speaking about your paper when you came in. However,
I must tell you that Mr. Verriman doesn’t approve of Liberty. At
least, I believe I understood you right, Eddie.” And Mr. Cord, having
thus assured himself a few minutes to regain his poise, leaned back
comfortably in his chair.
“What’s wrong with the paper, Mr. Verriman?” said Ben, pleasantly.
Eddie did not love the adventure of mental combat, but he was no
coward. “It seems to me,” he said, “that it preaches such radical
changes in our government that it is seditious. To be frank, Mr.
Moreton, I think the government ought to suppress it.”
“But we don’t break the law. The government can’t suppress us.”
“Then the laws ought to be changed so that it can.”
“That’s all we advocate, Mr. Verriman, the changing of the law. It
isn’t any more seditious for me to say it than for you to, is it?”
Of course in Eddie’s opinion it was—much, much more seditious. Only
somehow it was a difficult point to make clear, if a person was so
wrongheaded he couldn’t see it for himself. The point was that he,
Eddie, was right in wanting the laws changed and Moreton was wrong.
Anyone, it seemed to Eddie, would agree to that, unless he happened to
agree with Moreton beforehand, and those were just the people who ought
to be deported, imprisoned, or even perhaps in rare instances, as
examples, strung up to lamp-posts. Only each time he tried to put these