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The Conflict, a novel by David Graham Phillips |
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Chapter 10 |
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_ CHAPTER X When Jane had finished her apprenticeship, Doctor Charlton asked her to marry him. Said Jane: "I never knew you to be commonplace before. I've felt this coming for some time, but I expected it would be in the form of an offer to marry me." She promptly accepted him--and she has not, and will not regret it. So far as a single case can prove a theory, Jane's case has proved Charlton's theory that environment determines character. His alternations of tenderness and brusqueness, of devotion to her and devotion to his work, his constant offering of something new and his unremitting insistence upon something new from her each day make it impossible for her to develop the slightest tendency toward that sleeping sickness wherewith the germ of conventionality inflicts any mind it seizes upon. David Hull, now temporarily in eclipse through over caution in radical utterance, is gathering himself for a fresh spurt that will doubtless place him at the front in politics again. He has never married. The belief in Remsen City is that he is a victim of disappointed love for Jane Hastings. But the truth is that he is unable to take his mind off himself long enough to be come sufficiently interested in another human being. There is no especial reason why he has thus far escaped the many snares that have been set for him because of his wealth and position. Who can account for the vagaries of chance? The Workingmen's League now controls the government of Remsen City. It gives an honest and efficient administration, and keeps the public service corporations as respectful of the people as the laws will permit. But, as Victor Dorn always warned the people, little can be done until the State government is conquered--and even then there will be the national government to see that all the wrongs of vested rights are respected and that the people shall have little to say, in the management of their own affairs. As all sensible people know, any corrupt politician, or any greedy plutocrat, or any agent of either is a safer and better administrator of the people's affairs than the people themselves. The New Day is a daily with a circulation for its weekly edition that is national. And Victor and Selma are still its editors, though they have two little boys to bring up. Jane and Selma see a great deal of each other, and are friendly, and try hard to like each other. But they are not friends. Dick Kelly's oldest son, graduated from Harvard, is the leader of the Remsen City fashionable set. Joe House's only son is a professional gambler and sets the pace among the sports. [THE END] _ |
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