With a queer little surge of pride in him Alice watched Jeff and his friends move away. They depended on him. Unless he could save it their fight was lost. To her he was a prophet of the better civilization that would some day rise on the ruins of an Individualism grown topheavy. But he was neither a dreamer nor a weakling. His idealism was sane and practical, and he would fight to the last ditch when he must.

And this was another strange thing about him, that though his democracy was a faith, vital and ardent, it was tempered with the liberal spirit. He could make allowances; held no grudges, would laugh away insults at which another man would have raged. Out of her very limited experience Alice decided that he was a great man. That he was so warm and human with it all was one of his seizing charms. No boy could have been more interested in winning the shuffleboard game than he.

The fat pork packer from Chicago came wheezing toward her. He took the steamer chair beside Alice and jerked his head toward the spot where Jeff had disappeared.

“Now if you want my notion, Miss Frome, that's the kind of a man that breeds anarchy. I've seen his paper. He fills it full of stuff that makes the workingman discontented with his lot. A trouble maker, that's what he is. Stops the wheels of industry. Gets in the road of the boosters to croak hard times.”

Alice observed the thick rolls of purple fat that bulged over his collar.

“Progress now,” he went on. “I'm for progress. Develop the country. That gives work to the laborers and keeps them contented. But men like Farnum are always hampering development by annoying capital. Now that's foolish because capital employs labor.”

The young woman suggested another possibility. “Or else labor employs capital.”

“What!” The fat little man sat bolt upright in surprise. “I guess you never heard your Uncle Joe Powers talk any such foolishness.” He snorted indignantly. “Hmp! The best friend labor has got is capital. If I had the say so I'd crush every labor union—for the good of the working people themselves.”

Alice decided that the mental indigestion of the rich sat heavily upon him. She felt her temper rising and took advantage of the approach of Beauchamp to leave quickly.

“Oh, Lieutenant! Have you seen Valencia?”

The Englishman showed surprise. It happened that Alice had at that moment a view of Mrs. Van Tyle stretched on a deck chair some thirty feet away.

Miss Frome hurried him along. Presently, with a low laugh, she explained. “I wanted to get away from him. Carelessly, I dropped a new idea there. It's likely to go off. You know how dangerous they are.”

“To people who haven't many. Had it anything to do with making money?”

“Not directly.”

“Then you needn't be alarmed on our stout friend's account. He's immune to all ideas not connected with that subject.”

The double blast of a trumpet invited them to dinner down stairs.