Chapter 31
Section 61 Peter awoke next morning with a vivid sense of the pain and terror of life. He had been clamouring to have those Reds punished, but somehow or other he had thought of this punishment in an abstract way, a thing you could attend to by a wave of the hand. He hadn't quite realized the physical side of it, what a messy and bloody job it would
prove. Two hours and more he had listened to the thud of a whip on human flesh, and each separate stroke had been a blow upon his own nerves. Peter had an overdose of vengeance, and now, the morning after, his conscience was gnawing at him.
He had known every one of those boys, and their faces rose up to haunt him. What had any of them done to deserve such treatment? Could he say that he had ever known a single one of them to do anything as violent as the thing they had all suffered? But more than anything else, Peter was troubled by fear.
Peter, the ant, perceived the conflict of the Giants becoming more ferocious, and realized the precariousness of his position under the Giants' feet. The passions of both sides were mounting, and the fiercer their hate became, the greater the chance of Peter's being discovered, the more dreadful his fate if he were discovered. It was all very well for McGivney to assure him that only four of Guffey's men knew the
truth, and that all these might be trusted to the death. Peter remembered a remark he had heard Sean Grady make, and which had caused him to lose his appetite for more than one meal. They've got spies among us, the young Irishman had said. Well, sooner or later we'll do a bit of spying of our own.
And now these words came back to Peter like a voice from the grave. Suppose one of the Reds who had money were to hire somebody to get a job in Guffey's office. Suppose some Red girl were to try Peter's device and seduce one of Guffey's men. By no means a difficult task.
The man mightn't even mean to reveal that Peter Gudge was a secret agent. He might just let it slip, as little Jenny had let slip the truth about Jack Ibbots. Thus Mac would know who had framed him up, and what would Mac do to Peter when he got out on bail. When Peter thought of things like that, he realized what it meant to go to war.
He saw that he had gained nothing by staying at home. He might as well have been in the front-line trenches. After all, this was war, class war, and in all war the penalty for spying is death. Also, Peter was worried about Nell. She had been in her new position for nearly a week, and he hadn't heard a word from her.
She had forbidden him to write, for fear he might write something injudicious. Let him just wait. Edith Eustace would know how to take care of herself. And that was all right. Peter had no doubt about the ability of Edith Eustace to take care of herself.
What troubled him was the knowledge that she was working on another frame-up, and he stood in fear of the exuberance of her imagination. The last time that imagination had been pregnant it had presented him with a suitcase full of dynamite. What it might bring forth next time he did not know, and was afraid to think.
Nell might cause him to be found out by Guffy, and that would be nearly as horrible as to be found out by Mack. Peter got his morning times, and found a whole page about the whipping of the Reds, portraying the job as a patriotic duty heroically performed. And that naturally cheered Peter up considerably.
He turned to the editorial page, and read a two-column leader that was one whoop of exaltation. It served still more to cure Peter's ache of conscience. And when he read on, and found a series of interviews with leading citizens giving cordial endorsement to the acts of the vigilantes, Peter became ashamed of his weakness, and
glad that he had not revealed it to anyone. Peter was trying his best to become a real he-man, a 100% red-blooded American, and he had the times twice each day, morning and evening, to guide, sustain, and inspire him. Peter had been told by McGivney to fix himself up and pose as one of the martyrs of the night's affair, and this appealed to his sense of humor.
He cut off the hair from a part of his head, and stuck some raw cotton on top, and plastered it over with surgical tape. He stuck another big wad of surgical tape across his forehead, and a criss-cross of it on his cheek, and tied up his wrist in an excellent imitation of a sprain. Thus rigged out, he repaired to the American house, and McGivney rewarded him with a hearty
laugh, and then proceeded to give some instructions which entirely restored Peter's usual freshness of soul. Peter was going up on Mount Olympus again. The Rat-Faced Man explained in detail, There was a lady of great wealth.
Indeed, she was said to be several times a millionaire, who was an openly avowed red, a pacifist of the most malignant variety. Since the arrest of young Lackman, she had come forward and put up funds to finance the People's Council and the Anti-Conscription League, and all the other activities which, For the sake of convenience, were described by the term pro-German.
The only trouble was, this lady was so extremely wealthy, it was hard to do anything to her. Her husband was a director in a couple of Nels Ackerman's banks, and had other powerful connections. The husband was a violent anti-socialist, and a buyer of liberty bonds. He quarreled with his wife, but nevertheless he did not want to see her in jail.
This made an embarrassing situation for the police, and the district attorney's office, and even for the federal authorities, who naturally did not want to trouble one of the courtiers of the King of American City. But something's got to be done, said McGivney. This camouflaged German propaganda can't go on.
So Peter was to try to draw Mrs. God into some kind of overt action. Mrs. God? said Peter. It seemed to him a singular coincidence that one of the dwellers on Mount Olympus should bear that name. The great lady lived on a hilltop out in the suburbs, not so far from the hilltop of Nels
Ackerman. One of the adventures looked forward to by Reds and pacifists in distress was to make a pilgrimage to this palace, and obtain some long green plasters to put over their wounds. Now was the time at all times for Peter to go, said McGivney. Peter had many wounds to be plastered, and Mrs. God would be indignant at the proceedings
of last night, and would no doubt express herself without restraint. Section 62 Peter hadn't been so excited since the time when he had waited to meet young Lackman. He had never quite forgiven himself for this costly failure, and now he was to have another chance.
He took a trolley ride out into the country, and walked a couple of miles to the palace on the hilltop, and mounted through a grove of trees and magnificent Italian gardens. According to McGivney's injunctions, he summoned his courage, and went to the front door of the stately mansion, and rang the bell. Peter was hot and dusty from his long walk.
The sweat had made streaks down his face, and marred the pristine whiteness of his plasters. He was never a distinguished looking person at best, and now, holding his damaged straw hat in his hands, he looked not so far from a hobo. However, the French maid who came to the door was evidently accustomed to strange-looking visitors.
She didn't order Peter to the servant's entrance, nor threaten him with the dogs. She merely said, "'Be seated, please. I will tell Madame,' putting the accent on the second syllable, where Peter had never heard it before.
And presently here came Mrs. God, in her cloud of Olympian beneficence, a large and ample lady, especially built for the role of divinity." Peter felt suddenly awestricken. How had he dared come here? Neither in the Hotel de Soto, with its many divinities, nor in the palace of Nels Ackerman,
the king, had he felt such a sense of his own lowliness at the sight of this calm, slow-moving, great lady inspired. She was the embodiment of opulence. She was the real thing. Despite the look of kindliness in her wide-open blue eyes, she impressed him with a feeling
of her overwhelming superiority. He did not know it was his duty as a gentleman to rise from his chair when a lady entered, but some instinct brought him to his feet and caused him to stand blinking as she crossed to him from the opposite end of the big room. "'How do you do?' she said in a low, full voice, gazing at him steadily out of the kind,
wide-open blue eyes. Peter stammered, "'How do you do, Mrs. God?' In truth, Peter was almost dumb with bewilderment. Could it really, possibly be that this grand personage was a red?
One of the things that had most offended him about all radicals was their noisiness, their aggressiveness. But here was a grand serenity of looks and manner, a soft, slow voice. Here was beauty, too, a skin unlined despite middle years, and glowing with health and a fine cleanliness.
Nell Doolan had had a glowing complexion, but there was always a lot of powder stuck on, and when you investigated closely, as Peter had done, you discovered muddy spots in the edges of her hair and on her throat. But Mrs. God's skin shone just as the skin of a goddess would be expected to shine. And everything about her was of a divine and compelling opulence.
Peter could not have explained just what it was that gave this last impression so overwhelmingly. It was not that she wore many jewels, or large ones, for Mrs. James had beaten her at that. It was not her delicate perfume, for Nell Doolan scattered more sweetness on the air. Yet somehow even poor, ignorant Peter felt the difference. It seemed to him that none of Mrs. God's costly garments had ever been worn before,
that the costly rugs on the floor had never been stepped on before, the very chair on which he sat had never been sat on before. Little Adder Ruth had called Mrs. God the mother of all the world, and now suddenly she became the mother of Peter Gudge. She had read the papers that morning, she had received a half-dozen telephone calls
from horrified and indignant reds, and so a few words suffice to explain to her the meaning of Peter's bandages and plasters. She held out to him a beautiful cool hand, and quite without warning tears sprang into the great blue eyes. Oh, you are one of those poor boys!
Thank God they did not kill you! And she led him to a soft couch, and made him lie down amid silken pillows. Peter's dream of Mount Olympus had literally come true. It occurred to him that if Mrs. God were willing to play permanently the role of mother to Peter Gudge, he would be willing to give up his role of anti-red agent with its perils
and its nervous strains. He would forget duty, forget the world's strife, and care. He would join the Lotus Eaters, the sippers of nectar on Mount Olympus. She sat and talked to him in the soft gentle voice, and the kind blue eyes watched him, Peter thought that never in all his life had he encountered such heavenly emotions.
To be sure, when he had gone to see Miriam Yankovitch, old Mrs. Yankovitch had been just as kind, and tears of sympathy had come into her eyes just the same. But then Mrs. Yankovitch was nothing but a fat old Jewess, who lived in a tenement and smelt of laundry soap and partly completed washing. Her hands had been hot and slimy, and so Peter had not been in the least grateful for her
kindness. But to encounter tender emotions in these celestial regions, to be talked to maternally and confidentially by this wonderful Mrs. God in soft white chiffons just out of a band box, this was quite another matter. End of Sections 61 and 62.
