The Crimson Tide: A Novel

A few cheered her as she bade them good-night, picked up her soap-box and carried it back to her boot-black friend, who inhabited a shack built against the family-entrance side of a saloon.

She was surprised that Ilse and John Estridge had not appeared–could scarcely understand it, as she made her way toward a taxicab.

For, in view of the startling occurrence earlier in the evening, and the non-appearance of Ilse and Estridge, Palla had decided to return in a taxi.

The incident–the boldness of the unknown man and vicious brutality of his attitude, and also a sickening recollection of her own action and his bloody face–had really shocked her, even more than she was aware of at the time.

She felt tired and strained, and a trifle faint now, where she lay back, swaying there on her seat, her pistol clutched inside her muff, as the ramshackle vehicle lurched its noisy way eastward. And always that dull sense of something sinister impending–that indefinable apprehension–remained with her. And she gazed darkly out on the dark streets, possessed by a melancholy which she did not attempt to analyse.

Yet, partly it came from the ruptured comradeship which always haunted her mind, partly because of Ilse and the uncertainty of what might happen to her–may have happened already for all Palla knew–and partly because–although she did not realise it–in the profound deeps of her girl’s being she was vaguely conscious of something latent which seemed to have lain hidden there for a long, long time–something inert, inexorable, indestructible, which, if it ever stirred from its intense stillness, must be reckoned with in years to come.

She made no effort to comprehend what this thing might be–if, indeed, it really existed–no pains to analyse it or to meditate over the vague indications of its presence.

She seemed merely to be aware of something indefinable concealed in the uttermost depths of her.

It was Doubt, unborn.

The taxi drew up before her house. Rain was falling heavily, as she ran up the steps–a cold rain through which a few wet snowflakes slanted.

Her maid heard the rattle of her night-key and came to relieve her of her wet things, and to say that Miss Westgard had telephoned and had left a number to be called as soon as Miss Dumont returned.

The slip of paper bore John Estridge’s telephone number and Palla seated herself at her desk and called it.

Almost immediately she heard Ilse’s voice on the wire.

“What is the matter, dear?” inquired Palla with the slightest shiver of that premonition which had haunted her all day.

But Ilse’s voice was cheerful: “We were so sorry not to go with you this evening, darling, but Jack is feeling so queer that he’s turned in and I’ve sent for a physician.”

“Shall I come around?” asked Palla.

“Oh, no,” replied Ilse calmly, “but I’ve an idea Jack may need a nurse–perhaps two.”

“What is it?” faltered Palla.

“I don’t know. But he is running a high temperature and he says that it feels as though something were wrong with his appendix.

“You see Jack is almost a physician himself, so if it really is acute appendicitis we must know as soon as possible.”

“Is there anything I could do?” pleaded Palla. “Darling, I do so want to be of use if–”

“I’ll let you know, dear. There isn’t anything so far.”

“Are you going to stay there to-night?”

“Of course,” replied Ilse calmly. “Tell me, Palla, how did the soap-box arguments go?”

“Not very well. I was heckled. I’m such a wretched public speaker, Ilse;–I can never remember what rejoinders to make until it’s too late.”

She did not mention her encounter with the unknown man; Ilse had enough to occupy her.

They chatted a few moments longer, then Ilse promised to call her if necessary, and said good-night.

A little after midnight Palla’s telephone rang beside her bed and she started upright with a pang of fear and groped for the instrument.

“Jack is seriously ill,” came the level voice of Ilse. “We have taken him to the Memorial Hospital in one of their ambulances.”

“W–what is it?” asked Palla.

“They say it is pneumonia.”

“Oh, Ilse!–”

“I’m not afraid. Jack is in magnificent physical condition. He is too splendid not to win the fight… And I shall be with him… I shall not let him lose.”

“Tell me what I can do, darling!”

“Nothing–except love us both.”

“I do–I do indeed–”

“Both, Palla!”

“Y–yes.”

“Do you understand?”

“Oh, I–I think I do. And I do love you–love you both–devotedly–”

“You must, now… I am going home to get some things. Then I shall go to the hospital. You can call me there until he is convalescent.”

“Will they let you stay there?”

“I have volunteered for general work. They are terribly short-handed and they are glad to have me.”

“I’ll come to-morrow,” said Palla.

“No. Wait… Good-night, my darling.”

CHAPTER XXI

As a mischievous caricaturist, in the beginning, draws a fairly good portrait of his victim and then gradually habituates his public to a series of progressively exaggerated extravagances, so progressed the programme of the Bolsheviki in America, revealing little by little their final conception of liberty and equality in the bloody and distorted monster which they had now evolved, and which they publicly owned as their ideal emblem.

In the Red Flag Club, Sondheim shouted that a Red Republic was impossible because it admitted on an equality the rich and well-to-do.

Karl Kastner, more cynical, coolly preached the autocracy of the worker; told his listeners frankly that there would always be masters and servants in the world, and asked them which they preferred to be.

With the new year came sporadic symptoms of unrest;–strikes, unwarranted confiscations by Government, increasingly bad service in public utilities controlled by Government, loose talk in a contemptible Congress, looser gabble among those who witlessly lent themselves to German or Bolshevik propaganda–or both–by repeating stories of alleged differences between America and England, America and France, America and Italy.