Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1907-02-21


mary use of their advantage. Two
Englishmen were wounded and one of
them has since died. Fraide has only
now received the news, which cannot
be overrated. 1t gives the precise lever
necessary for the big move at the re-
assembling" He spoke with great ear
nestness and unusual haste. AS he
finished he took a step forward. 'But
that's not alli'' he added. "Fraide
wants the great move set in motion by
a great speech, and he has asked me
to make it."
For moment Eve waited. She look
ed at him in silence, and in that silence
he read in her eyes the reflection of
his own expression.
"And your" she asked in suppress
ed voice. ''What answer did you
give"
He watched her for an instant, tax
ing a strange pleasure in her flushed
face and brilliantly eager eyes; then
the joy of conscious strength, the sense
of opportunity regained, swept all 9th
err considerations out of sight.
81 accepted he said quickly. Gould
any man who was merely human have
done otherwise?"
That was Loder's attitude and action
on the night of his jeopardy and bis
success, and the following day found
his mood unchanged. He was one Of
| those rare individuals who never give
promise overnight and regret it in the
morning. He was slow to move, but
when he did the movement brushed all
obstacles aside In the first days of his
usurpation he had gone cautiously, half
fascinated, half distrustful. Then the
reality, the extraordinary tangibility OF
the position had gripped him when,
matching himself for the first time with
men of his own caliber, he had learned
his real weight on the day of his pro-
test against the Easter adjournment.
With that knowledge had been born the
| dominant factor in his whole scheme
the overwhelming, insistent desire to
manifest his power; that desire that
is the salvation or the ruin of every
strong man who has once realized his
strength. Supremacy was the note to
which his ambition reached. To tram
pie out Chilcote's footmarks with his
own hand had been his tacit instinct
from the first Now it rose paramount.
1t was the whole theory of creation
/ the survival of the fttest-the deep,
egotistieal certainty that he was the
! better man.
| And it was with this conviction that
he entered on the vital period of his
dual career. The imminent crisis and
his own share in it absorbed him alb
| solutely. In the weeks that followed
his answer to Fraide's proposal he gave
himself ungrudgingly to his work. He
wrote. read and planned with tireless
energy. He frequently forgot to eat
and slept only through sheer exhaus-
ton. In the fullest sense of the word
he lived for the eliminating hour that
| was to bring him failure or success.
He seldom left Grosvenor square in
the days that followed except to confer
with his party. All his interest all his
| relaxation even, lay in his work and
what pertained to it. His strength was
| like a solid wall, his intelligence was
| sharp and keen as steel. The moment
| was his. and by sheer mastery of will
| he nut other considerations out of sight.
He forgot Chilcote and forgot Lillian,
not because they escaped his memory,
but because he chose to shut them from
| it.
OF Eve he saw but little in this time
Of high pressure. When man touches
the core of his capacities, puts his best
| into the work that in his eyes stands
paramount there is little place for and
no need Of woman. She comes before
and after. She inspires, compensates
or completes; but the achievement, the
creation, is mans alone. And all true
women understand and yield to this
unspoken precept.
Eve watched the progress of his la
Dor, and in the depth of her own heart
the watching came nearer to actual
living than any activity she had known.
She was an onlooker-but an onlooker
who stood, as it were. on the steps of
the arena, who, by single forward
movement, could feel the sand under
her feet, the breath Of the battle on
her face, and in this knowledge she
rested satisfied.
There were hours when Loder seem
ed scarcely conscious of her existence,
but on those occasions she smiled in
her serene way-and went on waiting
She knew that each day before the aft
ernoon had passed he would come iuto
lis sitting room, his face thoughtful,
y \
dropping into one of the comfortable,
studious chairs, would ask laconically
for tea. This was her moment Of tri-
umph and recompense-for the very
Inconsistencies of his coming doubled
its value. He would sit for half an
hour with preoccupied glance or with
keen, alert eyes fixed on the fire, while
his ideas sorted themselves and fell
into line. Sometimes he was silent for
the whole half hour, sometimes be COM