McQueen’s taxi had a puncture on the way back to Portland and he sat in the back seat while the driver jacked it up and changed the tire. Inland on U.S. 1 there was no fog and the sun beat straight down through the moist air. When finally he reached Portland, McQueen had barely time to catch his train. He paused just long enough to pick up a newspaper, a copy of Fortune, and a left-wing weekly featuring an article on the British Empire.
When he reached his compartment he was sweating profusely and his hand stuck to the lining of his pocket as he fished for coins to tip the red-cap. He was tired, worried and overheated, and because the train was air-conditioned he was sure he was going to catch cold. If the Americans kept on with this mania for comfort, he thought, they would ruin the health of their whole nation inside another twenty-five years.
He mopped his forehead with a large silk handkerchief and stumbled through to the dining car. As soon as he had eaten, he returned to his compartment and locked himself in. He took off his jacket and waistcoat and put on a thick woolen dressing-gown made of the McQueen plaid. He removed his shoes and thrust his feet into a pair of felt-lined slippers, put the magazines on the seat beside him and tried to relax.
Last week a cabinet minister had telephoned from Ottawa to ask if he would consent to serve in his department if the worst happened. The thought of working for the government was revolting to McQueen, but if the worst came to the worst, he supposed he would have to do his duty. There was no doubt about it, they were worried sick in Ottawa, and so was he. Every time he read a newspaper he felt personally badgered by what was happening in Europe. He simply couldn’t believe there would be a war. And yet…
On top of everything, it was worse than too bad of Heather to choose a time like the present to make trouble for her mother. She was showing no more sense of responsibility than a servant. McQueen’s ponderous jaw hardened. He could not understand the lack of common decency and ordinary loyalty in young people these days. Everywhere he looked, he saw signs of decay. He wouldn’t be surprised…
Well, McQueen decided, this nonsense was going to be stopped, for if Heather married someone like Paul Tallard anything might come of it. So he was a writer, was he? McQueen would very much like to see what he had ever written. Probably some modernistic nonsense about socialism and sex that no decent publisher would touch.
What Heather needed was a stable husband to make her toe the line. If she married this Paul Tallard, they would both sponge on her mother. It stood to reason the fellow was no good if he hadn’t a decent job at this age. The moment they got their hands on the Methuen house they would sell it to some contractor and the contractor would demolish it. Then he would build a ten-story apartment house on the lot. Another house on the same level as his own, a thirty-room stone mansion with a conservatory and sixteen gargoyles, had been demolished last spring, and the mahogany panelling of its dining room had been sold to a funeral parlour. That was what happened nowadays if you let your standards down. He had worked hard all his life. And for what? To be able to associate on equal terms with people like the Methuens.
McQueen got up and wiped his forehead vigorously with a towel, then took a muffler from his bag and wrapped it around his neck. He felt much better now. He wouldn’t be surprised if he escaped the cold after all.
He sat down and crossed his legs. There was nothing to worry about once you figured things out. He would stop this nonsense, all right. Paul Tallard might be a socialist, but he couldn’t marry without money and he couldn’t get it unless he had a job. Janet would see that Heather’s allowance was stopped if she tried any nonsense. But then–McQueen chuckled at his own sagacity–Paul Tallard was going to have a job! McQueen intended to be perfectly fair. He would do the best he could for the boy. There was a job in British Columbia and he might consider himself very lucky to get it. If he worked hard enough, he might even think of getting married in ten years. But not to Heather! Oh, no! Once they were separated by three-quarters of a continent, Heather would soon come to her senses. Later on in life she would thank him for what he had done for her. He and Janet had been agreed on that.
McQueen picked up the newspaper and began to read. After five minutes he dropped it on the floor. Things were getting to be a nightmare. You gave a scoundrel like Hitler an inch and he tried to take everything. If a major war broke out it wouldn’t matter where a man’s money was. The government would get it somehow.
It particularly exasperated McQueen not to know what was going to happen, not to be positive. He had been positive enough a year ago. He had maintained after Munich that Mr. Chamberlain had shown Hitler the meaning of true states manship. But now? Last week Chislett had told him in confidence that if war broke out the government had no intention of making it attractive to business. Things were certainly bad if a man like Chislett forgot himself sufficiently to make a remark like that. It was the kind of phrase that could be given a nasty twist if the wrong people got hold of it. Well, if war did come, McQueen was prepared to thank God that the Prime Minister was an able man who knew how to keep his mouth shut.
Looking for something less disturbing to read, McQueen picked up the weekly. On the first two pages he was informed that the true cause of the world crisis was the selfish decadence of capitalists. They had made a mess out of their own affairs. They had sold Manchuria, Abyssinia and Czechoslovakia down the river, and now they were hoist with their own petard.
In a rage, McQueen hurled the magazine across the compartment. The Mounted Police ought to keep that sort of perjury out of Canada. So he was decadent, was he? So he was supporting Hitler and Mussolini against the Bolsheviks? He’d like to see the socialist who would dare make a statement like that in a court of law. He had worked hard all his life, had saved his money, had never got drunk or gone with women. If anyone was to blame, blame the socialists. Hitler was a socialist himself. He had always said so, and he defied anyone to refute him.
His sense of outrage mounted. Let Hitler make another move! Just let him dare! Deep in his core, McQueen felt the reverberations of fighting ancestors.