Tonight the Chinaman was “velly glad” to see him. Had been watching for him several days—had “a flend” who knew him. Matthew looked about curiously, and there in the door stood his young Chinese friend of Berlin. Several times in his life—oh, many many times, that dinner scene had returned vividly to his imagination, but never so vividly as now. It leapt to reality. The sheen of the silver and linen was there before him, the twinkling of cut glass; he heard the low and courteous conversation—the soft tones of the Japanese, the fuller tones of the Egyptian, and then across it all the sweet roll of that clear contralto—dear God!—he gripped himself and hurled the vision back to hell.
“How do you do!” he said calmly, shaking the Chinaman’s eager hand.
“I am so glad—so glad to see you,” the Chinaman said. “I am hurrying home to China, but I heard you were here, and I had to wait to see you. How—”
But Matthew interrupted hastily, “And how is China?”
The yellow face glowed. “The great Day dawns,” he said. “Freedom begins. Russia is helping. We are marching forward. The Revolution is on. To the sea with Europe and European slavery! Oh, I am happy.”
“But will it be easy sailing?”
“No, no—hard—hard as hell. We are in for suffering, starvation, revolt and reverse, treason and lying. But we have begun. The beginning is everything. We shall never end until freedom comes, if it takes a thousand years.”
“You have been living in America?”
“Six months. I am collecting funds. It heartens one to see how these hardworking patriots give. I have collected two millions of dollars.”
“God!” groaned Matthew. “Our N.A.A.C.P. collected seventy-five thousand dollars in two years, and twelve million damn near fainted with the effort.”
The Chinaman looked sympathetic.
“Ah,” he said hesitatingly. “Doesn’t it go so well here?”
“Go? What?”
“Why—Freedom, Emancipation, Uplift—union with all the dark and oppressed.”
Matthew smiled thinly. The strange and unfamiliar words seemed to drift back from a thousand forgotten years. He hardly recognized their meaning.
“There’s no such movement here,” he said.
The Chinaman looked incredulous.
“But,” he said—“but you surely have not forgotten the great word you yourself brought us out of the West that night—that word of faith in opportunity for the lowest?”
“Bosh!” growled Matthew harshly. “That was pure poppycock. Dog eat dog is all I see; I’m through with all that. Well, I’m glad to have seen you again. So long, and goodbye.”
The Chinaman looked troubled and almost clung to Matthew’s hand.
“The most hopeless of deaths,” he said, as Matthew drew away, “is the death of Faith. But pardon me, I go too far. Only one other thing before we part. John here wants me to tell you about some conditions in this district which he thinks you ought to know. Organized crime and debauchery are pressing pretty hard on labor. You have such an opportunity here. I hoped to help by putting you in touch with some of the white laboring folk and their leaders.”
“I know them all,” said Matthew, “and I’m not running this district as a Sunday School.”
He bowed abruptly and hastened away.
VIII
Matthew was uncomfortable. The demon of unrest was stirring drowsily away down in the half-conscious depths of his soul. For the long months since his incarceration he had been content just to be free, to breathe and look at the sunshine. He did not think. He tried not to think. He just lived and narrowed himself to the round of his duties. As those duties expanded, he read and studied, but always in the groove of his work. Sternly he held his mind down and in. No more flights; no more dreams; no more foolishness.
Now, as he felt restless and dissatisfied, he laid it to nerves, lack of physical exercise, some hidden illness. But gradually he began to tell himself the truth. The dream, the woman, was back in his soul. The vision of world work was surging and he must kill it, stifle it now, and sternly, lest it wreck his life again. Still he was restless. He was awakening. He could feel the prickling of life in his thought, his conscience, his body. He was struggling against the return of that old ache—the sense of that void. He was angry and irritated with his apparent lack of control. If he could once fill that void, he could glimpse another life—beauty, music, books, leisure; a home that was refuge and comfort. Something must be done. Then he remembered an almost forgotten engagement.
Soon he was having tea in Sara’s flat. He began to feel more comfortable. He looked about. It was machine-made, to be sure, but it was wax-neat and in perfect order. The tea was good, and the cream—he liked cream—thick and sweet. Sara, too, in her immaculate ease was restful. He leaned back in his chair, and the brooding lifted a little from his eyes. He told Sara of a concert he had attended.
“Have you ever happened to hear Ivanoff’s ‘Caucasian Sketches’?”
Sara had not; but she said suddenly, “How would you like to go to the legislature?”
Matthew laughed carelessly. “I wouldn’t like it,” he said and sauntered over to look at a new set of books. He asked Sara if she liked Balzac. Sara had just bought the set and had not read a word. She had bought them to fill the space above the writing-desk. It was just twenty-eight inches. She let him talk on and then she gave him some seed-cakes which a neighbor had made for her. He came back and sat down. He tested the cakes, liked them, and ate several. Then Sara took up the legislature again.
“You can talk—you have read, and you have the current political questions at your fingers’ ends. Your district will stand with you to a man. Old-timers like Corruthers will knife you, but I can get you every colored woman’s vote in the ward, and they can get a number of the white women
