Man's innate tendency to mate as freely as the vast mountain oaks, shaking their pollen broadcast on every breath of breeze, was in him; but this had been tamed and sublimated, by his mother's overfond molding, by her pricking desire to keep him hers and no other woman's as long as possible, into an ingrowing chastity, a morbidly re-fondled rejection of sex, except for the arm's-length wooing of Jane. But the very opulence of his flowering mountain spoke against this, urged an abandon to the fierce ecstasies of yielding and taking. The warring wills found a sanguine battle-ground within him. There was a throbbing zest in tantalizing himself, by postponing the inevitable necessity of some choice. He must think it out carefully; he could wait.... Shaking her skirts free of littering twigs, she rose. He was a puzzle. She steadied herself by his arm. "I like it here," she summed up softly. The wild azalea filled the glassed sunroom of the Tollivers with a faint echo of the glory of the distant mountain. XX "What do you think of _that_, comrade Judson?" Mrs. Hernandez asked, pushing the morning paper over, and watching his expression closely. The first sheet of the _Times-Dispatch_ held a page-wide display headline, concerning a dynamiting conspiracy unearthed among the leaders of the strike. With furious amazement Pelham read of the finding of a bundle of the explosive sticks on the tracks just before a trainload of workers was to arrive, and of a heavy charge, its fuse lit, in an upper opening of the second ramp. Company guards, he read, had testified to seeing four strikers sneak down the gap, away from the entry. Wilson, Jensen, and two other active agitators were already in jail; other arrests were to follow. A two column editorial bitterly assailed the "un-American" laborers, and demanded the militia to end the reign of terror. "It's a plant, I'm sure. They're aching for an excuse to bring on the soldiers." "They got four of the boys," she reminded him. "It's outrageous." He hurried around to the strike headquarters. Ben Spence, Dawson, McGue, and four others broke off their tense discussion as he entered. "Why didn't you phone me about this?" Spence answered, his tone not too friendly. "Couldn't find you." "We haven't seen you for a week, Mr. Judson," blared out Dawson. "We been readin' the social news, too. You've been busy." "Yes.... I've been busy on my report." A flash of his father's acidity spoke in the tones. Then he asked more quietly, "What about bonds?" "You can help there," Spence mollified him. "We've got most of 'em arranged for. When will your report go up?" Pelham twisted forward on his chair. "It'll contain this latest plant. I'll finish this week. I suspected something of the kind." He told them of the offer made by Jim Hewin.