LITMIR.BIZ

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mind. "My dear," she said, with a bright and friendly smile, "it's all right; you really are wide awake, and you shall hear all about it from Fabian in a few minutes. And you haven't come into a den of anarchists, so don't be afraid. Only your chance has come at last, and you are to have the opportunity of doing a great, artistic thing – as great, perhaps, as any actress has ever done – and also of helping England. You may make history! Who knows?"

      "Who knows, indeed?" said Charles Goodrick, the editor of the Daily Wire. "I hope it will be my privilege to record it in the columns of my paper."

      The dinner was nearly over, but the remainder of it seemed interminably long to the waiting girl. In a swift moment, as it were, her whole life was changed. That morning she was a poor and almost friendless actress of the rank and file. Now she sat at dinner with a group of influential people whose names were known far and wide, whose influence was a real force in public affairs. And, somehow or other, they wanted her. She was an honoured guest. She was made to feel, and in a half-frightened way she did feel, that much depended upon her. What it was she did not know and could not guess; but the fact remained, and the consciousness of it was a strange mingling of exaltation, wonder, and fear.

      At last Mrs. Rose smiled and nodded at Mary and rose from her seat.

      "Don't be more than five minutes, Fabian," the hostess said, as she and Mary left the room.

      When they were alone together she drew the girl to a big couch, covered with blue linen, and kissed her.

      "We are to be friends," she said, "I am quite certain of it." And the lonely girl's heart went out to this winning and gracious young matron.

      The four men came into the room, a maid brought coffee, cigarettes were lighted – Mrs. Rose smoked, but Mary did not – and the playwright took up a commanding position upon the hearth-rug.

      Then he began. The mockery which was so frequent a feature of his talk was gone. He permitted himself neither pose nor paradox – he was in deadly earnest.

      "For more than a year," he said, "I have searched in vain for an actress who could fill the chief woman's part in my new play. None of the ladies who have acted in my other plays would do. They were admirable in those plays, but this is quite different. I have never written anything like it before. I sincerely believe, and so do those who are associated with me in its production" – he looked over at Aubrey Flood – "that the play is a great work of art. But it is designed to be more, far more than that. It is designed to be a lever, a huge force in helping on the cause in which I believe and to which I have devoted my life – the cause of Socialism. I could not find any one capable of playing Helena Hardy, the heroine of the play. The play stands alone; yet is like no other play; no actress trained in the usual way, and however clever an artist, had the right personality. Then I saw you play. I knew at once, Miss Marriott, that I had found the lady for whom I was searching. Chance or Fate had thrown you in my way. In every detail you visualized my Helena Hardy for me. I am never mistaken. I was, and am, quite certain of it.

      "You tell me you know nothing of Socialism. Before you have been associated with us very long you will know a great deal about it. I am sure, if I read you rightly, that when the time comes for you to play Helena you will be convinced of the truth of the words you utter, of the Cause for the service of which we enlist your art. It is the cause of humanity, of brotherhood, of freedom.

      "We cannot go on as we are. These things have not touched your young life as yet, they are about to do so. Realise, to begin with, that England cannot continue as she is at present. Nemesis is one of the grim realities not sufficiently taken into account in the great game of life. Leaden-footed she may be, and often is, but that is only her merciful way of giving the sinner time to repent. There is nothing more certain in the universe than that an injustice done to an individual or to a class, to a nation or to a sex, will sooner or later bring destruction upon the doer. At the present moment England is reproducing every cause which led to the downfall of the great nations of the past – Imperialism, taking tribute from conquered races, the accumulation of great fortunes, the development of a huge population which owns no property and is always in poverty. Land has gone out of cultivation, and physical deterioration is an alarming fact. And so we Socialists say that the system which is producing these results must not be allowed to continue. A system which has robbed Religion of its message, destroyed handicraft, which awards the prizes and successes of life to the unscrupulous, corrupts the press, turns pure women into the streets and upright men into mean-spirited time-servers, must not continue.

      "I'm not going to give you a lecture on Socialism now. But it is absolutely necessary that I should explain to you, at the very beginning of your work, how we look at these things.

      "At the present moment three quarters at least of the whole population are called 'workers.' How do these people live? By the wear of hands and bodies, by the sweat of their faces. A 'worker' eats food which is rough, cheap, and harmful in many instances. His clothes are of shoddy, with a tendency to raggedness. He lodges in tiny, ill-ventilated rooms. He works from eight to sixteen hours each day, just so long as his strength is effective. And not only the worker himself – that is the man who is head and support of his family – but his wife and sisters and daughters share the burden of toil. He works among perils and dangers unceasing, accidents with machinery, explosions in mills and mines, dreadful diseases come to him from dangerous trades – unwholesome conditions, vitiated air, poisonous processes, and improper housing. Hardly any of those fortunate ones who impose these tasks upon him take any care to shield him from these evils. He is not so valuable as a horse. He is cheap, there are millions of him to be had, why go to the expense of protecting him? A horse has to be bought, he costs an initial sum down, the worker costs nothing but his wretched keep.

      "You, Miss Marriott, are cultured. You are an artist, you live for your art, and you care for it. You can understand the peculiar horror, I should say one peculiar horror, of the life of the worker which he is himself generally too blind and ignorant to understand. For he has no leisure to look about him, no heart to speculate as to what things might be. Over all his misery and misfortune towers one supreme misery and misfortune – the want of all that makes the pleasure and interest of life to the free man. No genius tells stories, makes music, paints pictures, writes or acts, plays, builds palaces for the worker. Genius itself would starve at such work, as things are at present constituted. The workers' chief concern is to buy bread. He must let art, that sweetens life, go by. The Graces and the Muses are never shown to him in such a way that he may know and love them for their own sakes."

      He stopped suddenly. Colour had come into the pallid face, the rich, musical voice had a vibrant organ note in it, every one in the room was leaning forward, strained to attention, Mary among the rest.

      "So much for that," he went on. "I have been saying necessary but obvious things. Now let me point out what we are doing, we Socialists. Our party is growing enormously day by day. Innumerable adherents, great power, fill our ranks and give us weapons.

      "We have an influential press. Monthly reviews and weekly papers preach our message. And one great daily journal, controlled by our brother, Charles Goodrick, reaches every class of society, and hammers in the truth day by day.

      "Our political organization is an engine of great power. We have a large pledged party in the House of Commons. Our lecturers are everywhere, our books and pamphlets are being sown broadcast over the kingdom.

      "We have a great Religious movement. Mr. Conrad here, together with some half a dozen others, controls the increasing band of Christian Socialists. Men and women of all the churches flock to his banner, differences of opinion are forgotten and lost under the one comprehensive watchword – that Christianity, the faith in Jesus Christ, is a socialistic religion.

      "We have two great needs, however. Able as our writers are, they are nearly all essayists or journalists. As yet no great popular novelist has joined us – one of those supreme preachers who wield the magic wand of fiction and reach where no others can reach.

      "And lastly, we have never had as yet a socialistic stage! That tremendous weapon, the theatre, has laid ready to our hand, but we have not availed ourselves of it. We are about to do so now. You know, I know, we are both experts, and it is our business to know, that there are hundreds of thousands of people who never read a book or pamphlet, and who

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