The family row started anew--the father and boy for preparation against war, the daughter and mother for peace--peace at any price. The quarrel was at its height when Waldron’s car arrived. Old Peter, the stately negro butler of the ancient régime, closed the folding doors to drown the din before ushering the distinguished guest into the parlor. Waldron was a prime favorite of Peter’s. The millionaire had slipped him a twenty-dollar gold piece on a former occasion and no argument of friend or foe could shake his firm conviction that Charles Waldron was a gentleman of the old school. Besides, Peter was consumed with family pride in Virginia’s hold on so distinguished a leader of the big world. The old butler bowed his stateliest at the door of the parlor with the slightest hesitation on his exit as if the memory of the twenty-dollar gold piece lingered in spite of his resolution to hold himself above the influence of filthy lucre. “I tell Miss Virginia, right away, sah--yassah!” Waldron seated himself with confidence. Virginia Holland lingered a few minutes merely to show the great man that she was not consumed with pride at his attentions. That she appreciated the compliment of his admiration she would not have denied even to John Vassar. Waldron had made the largest single contribution to the Woman’s Movement it had received in America. She had gotten the credit of winning the great man’s favor and opening his purse strings. That the millionaire was interested in her charming personality she had not doubted from the first. He left no room for doubt in the eagerness with which he openly sought her favor. And yet it had never occurred to her to think of him as a real lover. There was something so blunt and material in his personality that it forbade a romance. She could imagine him asking a woman to marry him. But in the wildest leap of her fancy she had not been able to conceive of his making love. In her strictly modern business woman’s mind she was simply using her influence over the great man for all it was worth in a perfectly legitimate way and always for the advancement of the Cause. She greeted him with a gracious smile and he bowed over her hand after the fashion of the European courtier in a way that half amused her and half pleased her vanity. He held a copy of the evening paper. “You have read it?” Virginia nodded. Waldron went straight to the point in his cold, impersonal but impressive way. “You are the most eloquent leader of American women, Miss Holland. Your voice commands the widest hearing. You stand for peace and universal brotherhood. Will you preside at a mass meeting tomorrow night to protest against this infamous bill?” Virginia Holland had given her consent mentally until he used the word “infamous.” Somehow it didn’t fit John Vassar’s character and instinctively she resented it.