"We'll join you there in an hour," the astute iron man, half-pitying the other's craving, assured him. "Wait for us." When Tennant had gone, the master walked throughout the office, rolling the unlighted cigar with satisfaction around the rim of his teeth. "He'll do as he says, Kane; we furnish the funds.... You'll have a job, the next four years." "Matters in general? The war?" Judson regarded him thoughtfully. "It won't last four years. There's certain victory, now that our country's in. I'm thinking about conditions to follow. You see what's happening in Russia----" Kane laughed self-consciously. "We wouldn't be safe there. In some mining corner, where the radicals control, they jailed all the mine-owners; even shot one, for being a monarchist. But here, in this country----" "That's the idea. We've got to convince the American workingman that he is never to turn on the creator of his prosperity. We'll have sporadic unrest; and that spineless bunch at Washington add to it, by kowtowing to the railroad brotherhoods, and even allowing unions among government employees. We can stiffen up their back-bones." "Why, our workingman is not only the best paid in the world, he's getting a larger share all the time--even in some lines in Adamsville." "Yes.... That's what we must stop. We did it, to the miners. What we've done here, we can do elsewhere. Patriotism, prosperity--these answer any discontent. Elections or strikes, we can't lose, with these as achieved slogans. Now that we're in National Steel, we have their backing as well. The mines are safe; we've got to keep them so. If once we give way an inch, they'll demand two more. I know you'll hold fast." "Yes.... As governor, I'll hold fast." "Now to find Bob Tennant, and keep him alive until he has you elected." They left the watchman to darken the office, and departed for the Steelmen's Club. The weeks that followed that last strike meeting pushed Pelham into deepening despondency. The Charities work was over; at the end he noticed a growing aloofness in the philanthropy offices. His father and the iron men contributed heavily; why should the son be welcomed? Louise was gone; he had made no effort to fill her place, although Dorothy Meade had stopped him on the street one morning, and looked searchingly into his face--less as friend of Jane, than as if to appraise the changes in him, and measure him for a vacancy in her days.... She need not look there; he felt that that yesterday was not worth reviving. Jane's absence removed a substantial joy from his life; the mere bodily gap was not insistent enough to warrant casual or commercial filling. A burst of energy sent him after permanent employment. The doors were shut kindly in his face; the mines would have none of him; and he found that the corporations' fingers were upon the whole city. "Of course, I can find something for you," Lane Cullom consoled, "but--mere office work; not what you're fitted for, my boy."