country"), and had merited the excommunication of the state orthodoxy. No member of the party was given even the humblest janitorship.

From such an experience one expected much. But it has all eventuated in syllables. For German social democracy was really neither socialistic nor democratic. Such socialism as it professed was not the utopian vagary of the old school, but the state rigor which Bismarck filched from Lassalle and imposed on the working-man under the mistaken notion that an extra lump of sugar in his coffee would silence his discontent.

And the great bulk of the party was not democratic.

Like everything else German, it was mechanical. Democracy centers about personality. German social democracy centered about the state as a great power-house, to which every person was merely a cog.

I found almost universally a genuine pride among them in their great state machine. Bebel told me that they had already half solved the problem for the socialists by having an efficient state, and were therefore much nearer the coveted goal than we are.

Mobilization was a disillusionment for believers in German democracy. Behind his glibness, the Social Democrat was merely a German. He obeyed, and with promptness and pride. His heart beat in unison with his kaiser, his super-partner in the German scheme for aggrandize

ment.

WELL, the German could not be made over in a day, even granting that he wanted to be made over or ought to be made over. The comments of the German press on President Wilson's war message reflect the exact condition of his mind. He resented thoroughly the suggestion that his Government and his people are twain. This resentment was almost universal, and if a referendum on the question of republic or monarchy were taken to-day, wherein every German, free from all restraint, would express his preference, monarchy would win.

For the Hohenzollern has made good. As an autocrat he has been a model. The German Volk under normal conditions was the best clothed, best housed, best fed, best schooled Volk in Europe. Its meek submission was well paid for.

But the imperial member of the partnership made a great mistake when he took the wrong road to the sun. Just when it appeared that the relation of the unit to the whole, that stubborn problem of the modern state, was being solved in Germany, when sociologists and statesmen of all lands were studying how the Germans did it, just at the verge of the partnership's glowing success, its obsession, the delusion that breeds in every autocracy and autocracy-blinded Volk, broke, and shed its gangrene over the world.

Will the partnership now be dissolved? Only a crushing defeat will be powerful enough to dissolve the bonds of centuries, and wipe out the memories of the great, and at least enact political concessions.

But there never has been a successful revolution without the coöperation of the liberals. Radical revolutions are merely mob outbursts. The French Republic, the British democracy, the new Russian Government-all find their stability in the liberal middle-class parties. You will look in vain for such genuine liberalism in Germany. Until the war the social democracy contained about all the liberalism ism that Bismarck left unconquered. There remains a handful of so-called progressives, a batch of Christian socialists, a tiny brood of professorial socialists; otherwise the so-called national Liberal party is thoroughly reactionary in its mercantilism, with a Catholic Center, and a Junker Right. How these parties shift and shunt and do everything except control appears in the well-staged dénouement of Bethmann-Hollweg and the dramatic entrance of Michaelis. While American editors are writing leaders on the "Revolution in Germany," the German people are only wondering what sort of new royal phonograph would be set up in the tribune of the Reichstag.

CYN

YNTHIA blotted the entry in the old ledger and scowled across the empty office at the door. Mrs. Moriety had left it ajar when she departed with her receipt for the weekly fifty cents on her "lot." If you supplied the missing gilt letters, you could read the sign on the glass of the upper half: "H. P. Bates. Real Estate. Notary Public." Through the door at Cynthia's elbow came the rumbling voice of old Fleming, the lawyer down the hall; he had come in for his Saturday night game of chess with her father.

Cynthia pushed the ledger away from her, and with her elbows on the spotted, green felt of the desk, her fingers burrowing into her cheeks, waited for two minutes by the nickel clock; then, with a quick, awkward movement, she pushed back her chair and plunged to the doorway, her young face twisted in a sort of fluttering resolution.

"Father-"

Her father jerked his head toward her, his fingers poised over a pawn. Old Fleming did not look up.

"Father, I don't think anybody else will be in."

"Well, go on home, then." Her father bent again over the squares, the light shining strongly on the thin places about his temples.

"Father, please,"-Cynthia spoke hurriedly, "you are n't going for a while? I want to go down to Miss Egert's for a minute."

“Eh? What's that?" He leaned back in his chair now, and Mr. Fleming lifted his severe, black beard to look at this intruder. "What for? You can't take any more painting lessons. Your mother does n't want you going there any more."

"I just want to get some things I left there. I can get back to go home with you."

"But your mother said she did n't like your hanging around down there in an empty house with an old maid. What did she tell you about it?"

"Could n't I just get my sketches, Father, and tell Miss Egert I'm not coming any more? She would think it was awfully funny if I did n't. I won't stay. But she-she's been good to me—”

"What set your mother against her, then? What you been doing down there?"

Cynthia twisted her hands together, her eyes running from Fleming's amused stare to her father's indecision. Only an accumulated determination could have carried her on into speech.

"I've just gone down once a week for a lesson. I want to get my things. If I'm not going, I ought to tell her." "Why did n't you tell her that last week?"

"I kept hoping I could go on." "Um." Her father's glance wavered. toward his game. "Is n't it too late?"

"Just eight, Father." She stepped near her father, color flooding her cheeks. "If you'll give me ten cents, I can take the

"Well-" He dug into his pocket, nodding at Fleming's grunt, "The women always want cash, eh, Bates?"

Then Cynthia, the dime pressed into her palm, tiptoed across to the nail where her hat and sweater hung, seized them, and still on tiptoe, lest she disturb the game again, ran out to the head of the stairs.

She was trembling as she pulled on her sweater; as she ran down the dark steps to the street the tremble changed to a quiver of excitement. Suppose her father

had known just what her mother had said! That she could not see Miss Egert again; could never go hurrying down to the cluttered room they called the studio for more of those strange hours of eagerness and pain when she bent over the drawing-board, struggling with the mysteries of color. That last sketch-the little, purpling mint-leaves from the garden-Miss Egert had liked that. And they thought she could leave those sketches there! Leave Miss Egert, too, wondering why she never came again! She hurried to the corner, past the bright storewindows. In thought she could see Miss Egert setting out the jar of brushes, the dishes of water, pushing back the litter of magazines and books to make room for the drawing-board, waiting for her to come. Oh, she had to go once more, black as her disobedience was!

The half-past-eight car was just swinging round the curve. She settled herself behind two German housewives, shawls over their heads, market-baskets beside them. They lived out at the end of the street; one of them sometimes came to the office with payments on her son's lot. Cynthia pressed against the dirty window, fearful lest she miss the corner. There it was, the new street light shining on the sedate old house! She ran to the platform, pushing against the arm the conductor extended.

"Wait a minute, there!" He released. her as the car stopped, and she fled across the street.

In front of the house she could not see a light, up-stairs or down, except staring reflections in the windows from the white arc light. She walked past the dark line of box which led to the front door. At the side of the old square dwelling jutted a new, low wing; and there in two windows were soft slits of light along the curtain-edges. Cynthia walked along a little dirt path to a door at the side of the wing. Standing on the door-step, she felt in the shadow for the knocker. As she let it fall, from the garden behind her came a voice:

"I'm out here. Who is it?" There

was a noise of feet hurrying through dead leaves, and as Cynthia turned to answer, out of the shadow moved a blur of face and white blouse.

"Cynthia! How nice!" The wo:nan touched Cynthia's shoulder as she pushed open the door. "There, come in."

The candles on the table bent their flames in the draft; Cynthia followed Miss Egert into the room.

"You 're busy?" Miss Egert had stood up by the door an old wooden-toothed rake. "I don't want to bother you." Cynthia's solemn, young eyes implored the woman and turned hastily away. The intensity of defiance which had brought her at such an hour left her confused.

"Bother? I was afraid I had to have my grand bonfire alone. Now we can have it a party. You 'd like to?"

Miss Egert darted across to straighten one of the candles. The light caught in the folds of her crumpled blouse, in the soft, drab hair blown out around her face.

"I can't stay very long." Cynthia stared about the room, struggling to hide her turmoil under ordinary casualness. "You had the carpenter fix the bookshelves, did n't you?"

"Is n't it nice now! All white and gray and restful-just a spark of life in that mad rug. that mad rug. A good place to sit in and grow old."

Cynthia looked at the rug, a bit of scarlet Indian weaving. She would n't see it again! The thought poked a derisive. finger into her heart.

"Shall we sit down just then go have the fire?"

minute and

Cynthia dropped into the wicker chair, wrenching her fingers through one another.

"My brother came in to-night, his last attempt to make me see reason," said Miss Egert.

Cynthia lifted her eyes. Miss Egert was n't wondering why she had come; she could stay without trying to explain.

Miss Egert wound her arms about her knees as she went on talking. Her slight body was wrenched a little out of symmetry, as though from straining always for something uncaptured; there was the

same lack of symmetry in her face, in her eyebrows, in the line of her mobile lips. But her eyes had nothing fugitive, nothing pursuing in their soft, gray depth. Their warm, steady eagerness shone out in her voice, too, in its swift inflections.

"I tried to show him it was n't a bit disgraceful for me to live here in a wing of my own instead of being a sort of nurse-maid adjunct in his house." She laughed, a soft, throaty sound. "It's my house. It's all I have left to keep me a person, you see. I won't get out and be respectable in his eyes."

"He did n't mind your staying here and taking care of-them!" cried Cynthia.

"It 's respectable, dear, for an old maid to care for her father and mother; but when they die she ought to be useful to some one else instead of renting her house and living on an edge of it."

"Oh," Cynthia leaned forward,-"I should think you 'd hate him! I think families are- terrible!"

"Hate him?" Miss Egert smiled. "He's nice. He just does n't agree with me. As long as he lets the children come over I told him I meant to have a beautiful time with them, with my real friends with you."

Cynthia shrank into her chair, her eyes tragic again.

"Come, let's have our bonfire!" Miss Egert, with a quick movement, stood in front of Cynthia, one hand extended.

Cynthia crouched away from the hand. "Miss Egert,"-her voice came out in a desperate little gasp,-"I can't come down any more. I can't take any more painting lessons."

She stopped. Miss

Egert waited, her head tipped to one side. "Mother does n't think I better. I came down-after my things."

"They 're all in the workroom." Miss Egert spoke quietly. "Do you want them now?"

"Yes." Cynthia pressed her knuckles. against her lips. Over her hand her eyes cried out. "Yes, I better get them," she said heavily.

Miss Egert, turning slowly, lifted a candle from the table.

"We'll have to take this. The wiring is n't done." She crossed the room, her thin fingers, not quite steady, bending around the flame.

Cynthia followed through a narrow passage. Miss Egert pushed open a door, and the musty odor of the store-room floated out into a queer chord with the fresh plaster of the hall.

"Be careful of that box!" Miss Egert set the candle on a pile of trunks. "I've had to move all the truck from the attic and studio in here. Your sketches are in the portfolio, and that 's-somewhere!"

Cynthia stood in the doorway, watching Miss Egert bend over a pile of canvases, throwing up a grotesque, rounded shadow on the wall. Round the girl's throat closed a ring of iron.

"Here they are, piled up—"

Cynthia edged between the boxes. Miss Egert was dragging the black portfolio from beneath a pile of books.

"And here's the book I wanted you to see." The pile slipped crashing to the floor as Miss Egert pulled out a magazine. "Never mind those. See here." She dropped into the chair from which she had knocked the books, the portfolio under one arm, the free hand running through the pages of an old art magazine. The chair swung slightly; Cynthia, peering down between the boxes, gave a startled "Oh!"

"What is it?" Miss Egert followed Cynthia's finger. "The chair?" She was silent a moment. "Do you think I keep my mother prisoner here in a wheel-chair now that she is free?" She ran her hand along the worn arm. "I tried to give it to an old ladies' home, but it was too used up. They wanted more style."

"But does n't it remind you-" Cynthia hesitated.

"It is n't fair to remember the years she had to sit here waiting to die. You did n't know her. I 've been going back to the real years-" Miss Egert smiled at Cynthia's bewildered eyes. "Here, let 's look at these." She turned another page. "See, Cynthia. Are n't they swift and glad? That's what I was trying to tell