第120章

"I suppose I am,"he admitted,and added,"at any rate,that is as near as you can get to it.""Isn't it fairly definite?""Fairly,if my notions are taken in general as the antithesis of what you fellows believe.""The abolition of property,for instance.""The abolition of too much property.""What do you mean by 'too much'?""When it ceases to be real to a man,when it represents more than his need,when it drives him and he becomes a slave to it."Involuntarily I thought of my new house,--not a soothing reflection.

"But who is going to decree how much property,a man should have?""Nobody--everybody.That will gradually tend to work itself out as we become more sensible and better educated,and understand more clearly what is good for us."I retorted with the stock,common-sense phrase.

"If we had a division to-morrow,within a few years or so the most efficient would contrive to get the bulk of it back in their hands.""That's so,"he admitted."But we're not going to have a division to-morrow.""Thank God!"I exclaimed.

He regarded me.

"The 'efficient'will have to die or be educated first.That will take time.""Educated!""Paret,have you ever read any serious books on what you call socialism?"he asked.

I threw out an impatient negative.I was going on to protest that I was not ignorant of the doctrine.

"Oh,what you call socialism is merely what you believe to be the more or less crude and utopian propaganda of an obscure political party.That isn't socialism.Nor is the anomalistic attempt that the Christian Socialists make to unite modern socialistic philosophy with Christian orthodoxy,socialism.""What is socialism,then?"I demanded,somewhat defiantly.

"Let's call it education,science,"he said smilingly,"economics and government based on human needs and a rational view of religion.It has been taught in German universities,and it will be taught in ours whenever we shall succeed in inducing your friends,by one means or another,not to continue endowing them.Socialism,in the proper sense,is merely the application of modern science to government."I was puzzled and angry.What he said made sense somehow,but it sounded to me like so much gibberish.

"But Germany is a monarchy,"I objected.

"It is a modern,scientific system with monarchy as its superstructure.

It is anomalous,but frank.The monarchy is there for all men to see,and some day it will be done away with.We are supposedly a democracy,and our superstructure is plutocratic.Our people feel the burden,but they have not yet discovered what the burden is.""And when they do?"I asked,a little defiantly.

"When they do,"replied Krebs,"they will set about making the plutocrats happy.Now plutocrats are discontented,and never satisfied;the more they get,the more they want,the more they are troubled by what other people have."I smiled in spite of myself.

"Your interest in--in plutocrats is charitable,then?""Why,yes,"he said,"my interest in all kinds of people is charitable.

However improbable it may seem,I have no reason to dislike or envy people who have more than they know what to do with."And the worst of it was he looked it.He managed somehow simply by sitting there with his strange eyes fixed upon me--in spite of his ridiculous philosophy--to belittle my ambitions,to make of small worth my achievements,to bring home to me the fact that in spite of these I was neither contented nor happy though he kept his humour and his poise,he implied an experience that was far deeper,more tragic and more significant than mine.I was goaded into making an injudicious remark.

"Well,your campaign against Ennerly and Jackson fell through,didn't it?"Ennerly and Jackson were the city officials who had been tried.

"It wasn't a campaign against them,"he answered."And considering the subordinate part I took in it,it could scarcely be called mine.""Greenhalge turned to you to get the evidence.""Well,I got it,"he said.

"What became of it?"

"You ought to know."

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I say,Paret,"he answered slowly."You ought to know,if anyone knows."I considered this a moment,more soberly.I thought I might have counted on my fingers the number of men cognizant of my connection with the case.

I decided that he was guessing.

"I think you should explain that,"I told him.

"The time may come,when you'll have to explain it.""Is that a threat?"I demanded.

"A threat?"he repeated."Not at all."

"But you are accusing me--"

"Of what?"he interrupted suddenly.

He had made it necessary for me to define the nature of his charges.

"Of having had some connection with the affair in question.""Whatever else I may be,I'm not a fool,"he said quietly."Neither the district attorney's office,nor young Arbuthnot had brains enough to get them out of that scrape.Jason didn't have influence enough with the judiciary,and,as I happen to know,there was a good deal of money spent.""You may be called upon to prove it,"I retorted,rather hotly.

"So I may."

His tone,far from being defiant,had in it a note of sadness.I looked at him.What were his potentialities?Was it not just possible that Ishould have to revise my idea of him,acknowledge that he might become more formidable than I had thought?

There was an awkward silence.