"Mildred or Myrtle, it makes no difference; you'll find explaining will be much the same." For a time Eric gave undivided attention to the packing. "Eric?" Marcia asked presently. "Yes?" "Do you remember that walk we took that last night, after Aunt Ethel had gone to bed?" "Yes," he said shortly as he pretended to sort neckties. "With Mount Etna all frosty silver in the moonlight, and the festa going on in Taormina?" "The liquefaction of some saint's blood, wasn't it?" "Yes.... Remember the people with candles in those dark narrow streets? Remember how they carried the statue through the town-up to the church; and how you insisted on calling it the Virgin, even though I pointed out to you that it had a beard?" Eric was fumbling in the trunk. "Yes," he said gruffly. "And how, after it was all over, we stood looking off over the sea?" He made no reply. "And after that, Eric-after you told me good-night down-stairs," she went on. "Well, Eric, you thought you did a very dangerous thing, didn't you, in forcing your way into my room?" "I was just a kid," he said unsteadily. "But there's something you ought to know." Without looking at her, he could feel that she was leaning forward. "Something I ought to know?" he prompted, as he sat back on his heels, his hands, tangled in the bright neckties, were opening and closing spasmodically. "Yes." "Well?" "But you said you weren't free, and all that." "I wasn't free... exactly. But, Eric, I-I wasn't as-as innocent as you supposed. You see, I was running away when I met you. But it really doesn't matter now either way, does it?" "Doesn't matter? Doesn't matter?" he said weakly. "No, not now. It changes nothing." Eric bowed his head over the neckties. "Go on," he said unsteadily. "Don't you see that I even told you how to get from the wall to my balcony? Oh, you couldn't have suspected! I did it cleverly." "Then why-why did you send me away?" he asked in a shaken voice. "I don't suppose I can make you understand." There was a great pity in her gaze; her body under the clinging silk was a thing of soft appeal. "But I loved you, Eric. If it hadn't been for what went before-something that had frightened me that I was trying to forget. . . . .. You -you were my renunciation." The fire was dying in the grate; a gust of wind whistling down the street shook the window panes with a vicious rattle. There was a long silence in the room. "Sometimes, I've been sorry," she said gently. "Sometimes I've been glad. But if you hadn't helped me . . .!” Eric's figure was huddled beside the trunk. The girl drew the brocade about her. "I'm sorry, Eric," she said. "I hadn't meant to tell you-to come here, to-night." Still he made no reply. "You'll be happy with your little Marion." "Mildred," he said dully. "You'll be happy with your Mildred. I-I am glad." His haggard eyes were fixed on the "Eric, I wanted you to-to possess me floor. that night." Eric became very still. The girl hurried on: "Oh, I didn't let you see. I took care that you didn't, in fact. But, Eric, if you had persistedthere in my room, you could have stayed. I-I wanted you to stay." "Then why, in God's name?" He flung around to face her. She smiled. "I didn't think you would run away, for one thing." "I'm glad that-that for you, there will be no compromise," she said softly. "Compromise? Compromise?" he repeated in a low tone, and the word seemed to wander through vast empty spaces. All at once, he felt a great pity for Mildred-for little Mildred with her wedding presents and bright plans of domestic felicity. "Marcia?" he said. "Marcia ?" Suddenly, the girl started violently and RECENT STRIDES OF FEDERAL AUTHORITY clutched at the brocade. Eric, too, leaped as if struck, and both turned their heads involuntarily in the same direction. Buzz, buzz, buzz. The telephone! Eric made a movement toward the door. In a flash the girl was on her feet; the sparkling robe slipped from her shoulders and lay in a glowing pool about her feet; in the dying firelight her figure seemed to become insubstantial-like a delicate column of smoke rising above embers-embers of gold and quivering scarlet that were paling to ashes about her feet. Her dark eyes were fixed on Eric's with a great 639 question in their depths. His feet seemed rooted to the floor. Buzz, buzz, buzz. With a mighty effort he took a step toward the bedroom. "Eric!" the girl cried, and in her voice there was only a great compassion. He turned and looked at her. "Eric?" she repeated. And her words rang like a solemn prophecy that would echo down vacant years: "If you answer that ring, you'll regret it all the days that you have to live.' And, as he looked at her with hunted eyes, he knew that it was true. Recent Strides of Federal Authority BY WILLIAM CABELL BRUCE HE recent adoption of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amend T ments to the Federal Constitution calls attention afresh to the fact that the most prominent feature of the constitutional history of the United States is the almost incessant rivalry between the national and State governments that has attended its course. Like Esau and Jacob, who wrestled with each other in the womb of Rebecca, these warring authorities clashed even before the actual birth of American nationality. On the one hand, under the Virginia plan, brought forward in the early stages of the Federal convention of 1787, it was proposed to confer on the national legislature nothing less than the power to negative any State law repugnant, in its opinion, to the acts of the Union, or to any treaty to which the Union might be a party. On the other hand, under the New Jersey plan, presented to the same convention, a projet was sketched with national organs almost as feeble as those of the former Articles of Confederation. Later, the Federal constitution was adopted, and the Federal system established, under which a form of civil polity went into effect consisting of two governments, each of which operates directly upon the individual citizen-one a central government created by that constitution, and clothed with supreme authority throughout the United States for certain specific purposes of national moment; and the other the government organized by each of the American States, under its own State constitution, and endowed, within its own limits, with all the proper powers for the management of its domestic affairs. To keep these two governments in their respective orbits the Supreme Court of the United States was devised, and that it, on the whole, has endeavored, with marked ability, dignity, and fidelity, to uphold the American constitutional ideal of an "indestructible Union composed of indestructible States," may be safely affirmed. It was the belief of The Federalist that it would always be far easier for the State governments to encroach upon the domain of the Federal government than for the latter to encroach upon that of the State governments; and for this belief it gave many reasons that seemed plausible enough at the time: such as the remoteness of the national government from the observation of the citizen, the larger circle of vital concerns that connected "Mildred or Myrtle, it makes ference; you'll find explaining much the same." For a time Eric gave undivi "Eric?" Marcia asked pres "Do you remember that w "Yes," he said shortly as to sort neckties. "With Mount Etna all f the moonlight, and the fes Taormina?" "The liquefaction of sor wasn't it?" "Yes.... Remember candles in those dark Remember how they c through the town-up how you insisted on ca even though I pointed had a beard?" Eric was fumbli "Yes," he said gruf "And how, after stood looking off o He made no repi "And after that me good-night dow "Well, Eric, you: dangerous thing, your way into n "I was just a "But there's know." With feel that she v "Something prompted, as hands, tangle opening and "Yes." "Well?" "Eric, I that night." Eric beca The girl you see. fact. But there in n. I-I wan "Then flung aro She sm run away T ons and activities of the r, that government became a greater and greater deortance and dignity in the eneral mass of the American especially of that large body ambitious men whom Joseph thought, even when State is substantially unimpaired, r rewards of fame, or emoluinfluence, connected with a re of action," might "allure to al councils." Moreover, with ous growth of facilities for interation between the States, prothe multiplication of newshe opening of improved roads erways, and the steamboat, the ar, and the telegraph, State boundcame less and less significant, and onsciousness and reserve less and onounced. preserved by the court with a high degree of vigilant impartiality, considering the extent to which even courts are always influenced, more or less unconsciously, by profound changes in public opinion. Where a power was distinctly national, such as the power to regulate interstate commerce, it has not hesitated to interpret it in a liberal spirit; and where the power was one that clearly belonged to the States, such as the power to regulate child labor, it has, with equal resolution, repelled every effort of Congress to encroach upon it. But, except so far as it is impeded by the retarding influence of the Supreme Court, the drift in the United States, since the decision in the Slaughterhouse Cases, has been almost unceasingly in the direction of the still further centralization of all political authority in the Federal government. The explanation of this fact is to be found in many causes: hese gradual influences, which did such as, the continuation, on a still more .ch to strengthen the standing of enlarged scale, aside from the transitory deral government, and to diminish effects operated by the Civil War, of the of the States, the triumph of the centripetal forces that had been at work nal idea in the Civil War gave a before the decision in the Slaughterhouse endous impetus, which, among other Cases; the invention of the telephone and S, brought about the adoption of the the radio; the rise of separate groups and teenth Amendment; and, if that blocs of voters, bred by the increasing ndment had been construed by the complexity of our social and political life, reme Court of the United States to and each enthusiastically bent upon the an what its radical framers intended it propagation by incessant importunity and mean, Congress would have been in- pressure of some pet hobby or darling obsted with a degree of power over the ject, too eagerly cherished to brook the ates little short of that sought to be delay of an appeal to forty-five or more onferred upon it by the Virginia plan State legislatures instead of to one naof the Federal convention. To use the tional legislature; the admission to Stateanguage of the court in the Slaughter- hood of Western communities, reared. house Cases, it would have constituted under the fostering care of the Federal the Supreme Court "a perpetual censor government and destitute of any State upon all legislation of the States on the traditions or background; the disinclinacivil rights of their own citizens." This tion of women voters, in cases where revolutionary result the court averted by human sentiment or human sympathy is deciding that it was not the intent of the strongly solicited, to defer to constituamendment to bring within the power of tional principles foreign to their previous Congress, or the jurisdiction of the Su- training; the existence of one-party preme Court, "the entire domain of civil States in the South, free to depart from rights, heretofore belonging exclusively fixed party tenets without paying any to the States." Since this decision, which electoral penalties for doing so; and, lastwas accompanied, at the same general ly, perhaps to some extent the Socialistic crisis, by others in which the court up- impulses which cannot accomplish their held the rights of the States or their citi- visionary objects except through the inzens as firmly as it had upheld those of strumentality of a single, all-powerful the nation, the balance between the na- super-state. tional and State jurisdictions has been. In the earlier history of the Federal |