McGregor moved away from the shadows of the pillar and stood, hat in hand, beneath the garden lights waiting as though for a call out of the ranks of the dancers. How furiously they worked. How the bodies twisted and squirmed. Out of sympathy with their efforts sweat appeared on the face of the man who stood watching. “What a storm must be going on just below the surface of labour,” he muttered. “Everywhere dumb brutalised men and women must be waiting for something, not knowing what they want. I will stick to my purpose but I will not give up Margaret,” he said aloud, turning and half running out of the garden and into the street. In his sleep that night McGregor dreamed of a new world, a world of soft phrases and gentle hands that stilled the rising brute in man. It was a world-old dream, the dream out of which such women as Margaret Ormsby have been created. The long slender hands he had seen lying on the desk in the settlement house now touched his hands. Uneasily he rolled about in bed and desire came to him so that he awakened. On the Boulevard people still passed up and down. McGregor arose and stood in the darkness by the window of his room watching. A theatre had just spat forth its portion of richly dressed men and women and when he had opened the window the voices of the women came clear and sharp to his ears. The distracted man stared into the darkness and his blue eyes were troubled. The vision of the disordered and disorganised band of miners marching silently in the wake of his mother's funeral into whose lives he by some supreme effort was to bring order was disturbed and shattered by the more definite and lovely vision that had come to him. CHAPTER IV During the days since she had seen McGregor Margaret had thought of him almost constantly. She weighed and balanced her own inclinations and decided that if the opportunity came she would marry the man whose force and courage had so appealed to her. She was half disappointed that the opposition she had seen in her father's face when she had told him of McGregor and had betrayed herself by her tears did not become more active. She wanted to fight, to defend the man she had secretly chosen. When nothing was said of the matter she went to her mother and tried to explain. “We will have him here,” the mother said quickly. “I am giving a reception next week. I will make him the chief figure. Let me have his name and address and I will attend to the matter.” Laura arose and went into the house. A shrewd gleam came into her eyes. “He will act like a fool before our people,” she told herself. “He is a brute and will be made to look like a brute.” She could not restrain her impatience and sought out David. “He is a man to fear,” she said; “he would stop at nothing. You must think of some way to put an end to Margaret's interest in him. Do you know of a better plan than to have him here where he will look the fool?”