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“Why do you refuse to give me the ballot?”

“I never knew until tonight that women like you wished it. If I had – ”

“You would have agreed?”

“My dear Miss Holland, I not only would have agreed but I would have gone out after it and brought it to you. And all against my better judgment. If women are allowed to vote, there must be a law against your kind entering politics – ”

“Yes?”

“Decidedly.”

“And may I ask why?” she demanded.

He smiled and hesitated.

“If you ever get into Congress – I can see the finish of that aggregation as a deliberative body. You would be a majority from the moment you entered the Chamber – ”

“Please, Mr. Vassar – “ she protested. “We have no time for chaff – ”

He rose abruptly from the depths of the armchair, seized a light one, moved it nearer to the corner of the table, sat down and bent close to his charming opponent.

“I’m not chaffing,” he began eagerly. “I’m in earnest. Your personality has upset all my preconceived ideas of the leaders of this woman’s movement. I am more than ever alarmed at its sinister significance. You take my judgment by storm because you’re charming. You stop the process of reasoning by merely lifting your eyes to mine. Such a power cannot be used to further the ends of justice or perfect the organization of society. The power you wield defies all law – ”

Virginia laughed in spite of an effort at self-control.

“Are you making love to me, Mr. Vassar?” she cried.

He blushed and stammered.

“Well – not – deliberately – ”

“Unconsciously?”

He mopped the perspiration from his brow in confusion.

“Perhaps.”

Virginia rose, and her lips closed firmly.

“I think our interview had better end. We are wasting each other’s time – ”

“Please, Miss Holland,” he begged with deep humility, “forgive me. I was never more sincere in my life. I should have been more careful. But there’s something about your frank manner that disarmed me. You seemed so charmingly friendly. I forget that we are enemies – forgive me – ”

“There’s nothing to forgive. You are the type of man who cannot understand my position – and for that reason cannot meet me as an intellectual equal. I resent it – ”

“But I’m not the type of man who cannot understand. I will meet you as an intellectual equal. I’ll do more. I concede your superiority. You have baffled and defeated me at every turn tonight – I go puzzled and humiliated. I refuse to accept such a defeat. You cannot dismiss me in this absurd fashion. I’ll camp on your doorstep until we have this thing out.”

“You’ll not call without an appointment, I hope?”

“Oh, yes, I will. I’m going to cultivate your father. I’ll accept his invitation. I’ll make your house my happy home until we at least come to an intelligent understanding of our differences – ”

“Tomorrow then?” she said. “I’m tired tonight. Tomorrow at eleven o’clock – ”

Vassar smiled at the business-like hour.

“I’ve an important engagement at eleven that will keep me an hour. It’s Flag Day at my schools – the kiddies expect me – ”

“Flag Day?”

“A little device of mine to teach our boys and girls to love their country – won’t you join us tomorrow at the old Tenth Armory and inspect my forces?”

Virginia hesitated.

“All right, I will. I’ll ask Mr. Waldron to pick me up there at noon.”

“I’ll expect you at eleven.”

He pressed her hand with a new sense of uneasiness, defeat and anger which Waldron’s name had aroused.

CHAPTER VIII

JOHN VASSAR’S sleep had been fitful and unsatisfying. Through hours of half-conscious brooding and dreaming he had seen the face of Virginia Holland. He had thus far found no time for social frivolities. The air of America was just the tonic needed to transform the tragic inheritance of the Old World into a passion for work that had practically ruled women out of the scheme of things.

He had dreamed of a home of his own in the dim future – yes – when the work of his career, the work he had planned for his country should have been done. This had been his life, the breath he breathed, his inspiration and religion – to lead an American renaissance of patriotism. America had never had a national spirit. His ambition was to fire the soul of thoughtless millions into a conscious love of country which would insure her glorious destiny.

A woman’s smile had upset this dream. Through the night he had tried in vain to throw off the obsession. At daylight he had fallen into a sleep of sheer exhaustion. It was nine o’clock before he was roused by a gentle knock on his door.

Marya’s voice was calling somewhere out of space.

“Uncle John – breakfast is waiting – may I come in?”

“All right – dearie – break right in!” he groaned.

“And I’ve a letter for you – a special letter – ”

The sleeper was awake now, alert, eager —

“A special letter?”

“A big black man brought it just now. He’s waiting in the hall – says Miss Holland would like an answer.”

Vassar seized the letter and read with a broad grin. The handwriting was absurdly delicate. The idea that a suffragette could have written it was ridiculous!

My dear Mr. Vassar:

I’m heartily ashamed of myself for losing my temper last night. Please call for me at ten o’clock. I wish a little heart-to-heart talk before we go to your Flag Festival. Please answer by the bearer.

Virginia Holland.

Vassar drew Marya into his arms and kissed her rapturously.

“You’re an angel – you’ve brought me a message from the skies. Run now and tell the big black man – Miss Holland’s butler – to thank her for me and say that I’ll be there promptly at ten. Run, darling! Run!”

The child refused to stir without another kiss which she repeated on both his cheeks. She stopped at the door and waved another.

“Hurry, Uncle John – please – we’re all starved.”

“Down in five minutes!” he cried.

The weariness of the night’s fitful sleep was gone. The world was suddenly filled with light and music.

“What the devil’s come over me!” he muttered, astonished at the persistent grin his mirror reflected. “At this rate I can see my finish – I’ll be the secretary of the Suffragette Campaign Committee before the week’s over – bah!”

Old Peter, the black butler, ushered him into the parlor with a stately bow.

“Miss Virginia be right down, sah. She say she des finishin’ her breakfus’ – yassah!”

Vassar seated himself with a sense of triumph. She must have written that note in bed. He flattered himself someone else had not slept well. He hoped not.

Her greeting was gracious, but strictly business-like – he thought a little too business-like to be entirely convincing.

She motioned him to resume his seat and drew one for herself close beside. She sat down in a quiet determined manner that forbade sentimental reflections and began without preliminaries.

“We lost track of our subject last night, Mr. Vassar, in an absurd personal discussion. I’ve asked you to come back this morning to make a determined effort to win you for our cause – ”

She paused, leaned forward and smiled persuasively.

“We need you. Your influence over the foreign-born population in New York would be enormous. I see by this morning’s paper an enthusiastic account of your work among the children. You are leading a renaissance of American patriotism. Good! So am I – a renaissance of the principles of the Declaration of Independence. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal! that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure those rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.’ Come now, I appeal to your sense of justice. What right have you to govern me without my consent? Am I not created your equal?”

Her eloquence was all but resistless. The word of surrender was on his lips, when the voice of an honest manhood spoke within.

“You’re not convinced. The magnetism of a woman’s sex is calling. You’re a poltroon to surrender your principles to such a force. In her soul a true woman would despise you for it.”

She saw his hesitation and leaned closer, holding him with her luminous eyes.

“Come now, in your heart of hearts you know that I am your equal?”

Something in the tones of her voice broke the spell – just a trace of the platform intonation and the faintest suggestion of the politician. The voice within again spoke. There was another reason why he should be true to his sense of right. He owed it to this woman who had moved him so profoundly. He must be true to the noblest and best that was in him.

He met her gaze in silence for a moment and spoke with quiet emphasis.

“If I followed my personal inclinations, Miss Holland, I would agree to anything you ask. You’re too downright, too honest and earnest to wish or value such a shallow victory – am I not right?”

The faintest tinge of red colored Virginia’s cheeks.

“Of course,” she answered slowly, “I wish the help of the best that’s in you or nothing – ”

“Good! I felt that instinctively. I could fence and hedge and trim with the ordinary politician. With all respect to your pretensions, you’re not a politician at all. You’re just a charming, beautiful woman entering a field for which God never endowed you either physically, temperamentally or morally – ”

Virginia frowned and lifted her head with a little gesture of contempt.

“I must be honest. I must play the game squarely with you! I’m sorely tempted to cheat. But there’s too much at stake. You ask if you are not my equal? I answer promptly and honestly. I know that you are more – you are my superior. For this reason I would save you from the ballot. It is not a question of right, it is a question of hard and difficult duty. The ballot is not a right or a privilege. It is a solemn and dangerous duty. The ballot is force – physical force. It is a modern substitute for the bayonet – a device which has been used to prevent much civil strife. And yet man never votes away his right to a revolution. The Declaration of Independence embodies this fact – ‘Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it– ’ There you have the principle in full. Back of every ballot is a bayonet and the red blood of the man who wields it – ”

“But we will substitute reason for force!”

“How, dear lady? Government is force– never was anything else – never can be until man is redeemed and this world is peopled by angels. Man is in the zoological period of his development. Scratch the most cultured man beneath the skin and you find the savage. Scratch the proudest nation of Europe beneath the skin and you find the elemental brute. I do not believe in forcing our mothers, our sisters, our wives and sweethearts into the blood-soaked mud of battle trenches. That work is the dangerous and difficult duty of man. So the ballot, on which peace or war depends, is his duty – not his right or privilege – ”

“Give us the ballot and we will make war impossible,” Virginia broke in.

“How? If women vote with their men, their voting will mean nothing. We merely multiply the total by two. We do not change results. If women vote against the men on an issue of war or peace, will men submit to such a feminine decision? Certainly not. Force and force alone can decide the issue of force. Back of every ballot is a bayonet or there’s nothing back of it. The breath of revolution will drive such meaningless ballots as chaff before a whirlwind – ”

“We’ll stop your blood-stained revolutions!” Virginia cried.

“All right. Do so and you stop the progress of humanity. The American Revolution was blood-stained. It gave us freedom. The Civil War was blood-stained. It freed this nation of the curse of slavery and sealed the Union for all time. There are good wars and bad wars. True war is the inevitable conflict between two irreconcilable moral principles. One is right – the other wrong. One must live – the other die. Wrong may triumph for a day. Right must win in the end or else the universe is ruled by the Devil, not by God. You cannot abolish war until the Devil is annihilated and God rules in the souls and lives of men and in their governments as well.”

For the moment the woman was swept from the moorings of her pet arguments. She quickly recovered.

“We are going to make America the moral and spiritual leader of mankind!” she cried with elation.

“Yes, I know. In the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World – your poet’s dream as far removed from the beastly realities of life today as Heaven is from Hell – ”

“We are going to make this dream a living fact in the world – and free America shall lead the way – ”

“And how will you begin?”

“By setting the proud example of building our national life on spiritual realities first, not on guns and forts. We will begin the disarmament of the world – ”

“And end your movement by surrender to the armed bullies of Europe!”

“At least my dream is a dream,” Virginia laughed, “yours a silly nightmare. But I give you up for the present. I see that Ephraim is joined to his idols. My mission is a failure. At least I thank you for your candor. I shall have to turn you over now to the tender mercies of Mr. Waldron and the Executive Committee. Come, we’ll see your flags and the children. The sight will be restful after our battle.”

She rose quickly, led the way to the hall, adjusted the little turban on the mass of auburn blond hair and opened the door.

Vassar passed out with a queer sense of defeat. He had vanquished her in the argument. But the trouble was she had not argued. She had merely demanded his submission without argument.

CHAPTER IX

ANOTHER thing that had upset Vassar’s equanimity was the baffling quality of Virginia Holland’s character. The more honestly he had tried to approach her in friendly compromise the more bristling her mental resistance had become. She held him at arms’ length personally.

He was surprised at her final decision to go to the Armory. No doubt only an uncompromising honesty had caused her to fulfil a promise. Clearly she was bored.

As a matter of fact she was anything but bored. She was lashing herself at every step with reproaches at her idiotic inconsistency in accompanying an East Side politician on a fool’s errand. No doubt the whole thing was a scheme to pose before enraptured constituents. Why had she consented to come? She asked herself the question a hundred times and finally accepted the weak lie that she was studying his eccentricities to make his defeat the more sure.

With each moment of her association she had become more and more clearly conscious of his charm. Its strength and its antagonism were equally appealing. It would be sweet to demonstrate her own power in his defeat at the polls and then make up to him by confessing her admiration.

She began to receive striking evidence of his popularity. At every street-corner and from almost every door came a friendly nod or wave of a hand.

Schultz, the fat German who kept a delicatessen store on the corner, waved to him from the doorway.

“Mein Frau und der kids – all dere, gov’ner. I vish I could be!”

On the next block Brodski gripped his hand and whispered a word of cheer.

“They all seem to know you down here, Mr. Congressman,” Virginia laughed.

“Yes, it’s my only hope – if we fight – ”

“You’ll need help if we do,” she answered quietly.

He didn’t like the tone of menace in her words. There was no bluster about it. There was a ring of earnestness that meant business.

“Perhaps I’m going to win you to my cause before you know it,” he ventured. “I’m going to show you something today that’s really worth while – ”

“Meaning, of course,” she interrupted, “that the cause in which I am at present expending my thought and energy is not worth while – ”

“I didn’t say that!” he protested. “And I most humbly apologize if I implied as much – ”

“All the same you think it, sir – ”

She stopped short in amazement at the sight of her brother Billy standing straight and fine beside Zonia at the door of the old Armory, a marshal’s sash across his shoulder, arrayed in a captain’s uniform of the Boy Scouts of America.

Zonia grasped her outstretched hand in loyal greeting, her eyes sparkling with pride at her uncle’s triumphant march beside her heroine.

Virginia’s gaze fixed Billy’s beaming countenance.

“Well, Mr. Sunny Jim!” she exclaimed, “will you kindly give an account of yourself. How long have you been a marshal of the empire?”

“Oh, ever so long, Virginia – Mr. Vassar didn’t know I was your brother, that’s all. I’m a captain now. I didn’t let you know ’cause I thought you might raise a rumpus. Father and mother know. They don’t care. I like it.”

He turned abruptly to Vassar and saluted.

“Everything ready, sir!”

Virginia shook her head and smiled at Zonia. She too wore a marshal’s sash.

“I want you to meet some of the mothers, Miss Holland,” she whispered eagerly. “I made a lot of them go to our meetings.”

“With pleasure, dear.” She smiled at Vassar. “We’ll take occasion to mend some of our fences in this benighted district today!”

The young Congressman turned his guest over to his niece and hurried away with Billy to inspect the assignment of kids for the ceremonies of the Flag.

Virginia was surprised to find the hall packed with women and children, more than a thousand, of all ages and nationalities. They were chattering like magpies – a babel of foreign tongues – German, Italian, Polish, Bohemian, Russian, Greek, Yiddish.

“I must introduce you first,” Zonia whispered, “to my favorite mother, an Italian with the cutest little darling boy you ever saw. She heard you speak in the Square – ”

She darted into the crowd and led forth a slender, dark-haired young Italian mother with a beautiful boy of five clinging to her skirts.

“Miss Holland, this is my good friend Angela Benda and Mr. Tommaso!”

Angela bowed and blushed.

“Ah, Signorina, I hear you speak so fine – so beautiful! I make my man Tommaso vote for you or breaka his neck! I done tell him so too – ”

“And did he promise?”

“Si, si, signorina – I mak him – ”

Virginia stooped and gathered the child in her arms. Shy at first, he put his hand at last on her shining hair, touched it gracefully, and looked into her face with grave wide eyes.

Virginia pressed him suddenly to her heart and kissed him.

“You glorious little creature!” she cried. The act was resistless. In all her career she had never before done so silly and undignified a thing in public. She blushed at her folly. What crazy spell could she be under today? She asked the question with a new sense of uneasy annoyance as her eyes swept the room in search of the hero of the occasion.

Vassar could scarcely walk for the crowds of joyous women and children who pressed about him and tried to express their love and pride in his leadership.

A fight suddenly broke out between the Benda and Schultz kids close beside Virginia.

Zonia tried in vain to separate them. Vassar saved the situation by picking up Angela’s boy by his suspenders, and the German kid by the seat of his pants. He lifted them bodily out of the scene and carried them into a quiet corner.

Virginia laughed heartily.

Vassar demanded mutual apologies.

“He called me ‘Sausage,’ ” complained the Schultz kid.

“He calla me a Dago,” answered the Italian.

“Now salute each other with a handshake!” Billy commanded. “And remember that you’re good Americans.”

“He made them both take off their caps and yell:

“Hurrah for Uncle Sam!”

Virginia looked about the old hall with increasing amazement at the effective way in which the interior had been decorated. Around the walls in graceful festoons the beautiful red, white and blue emblems hung an endless riot of color. From the ceiling they fell in soft, billowing waves stirred by the breezes from the open windows. The eye of every child kindled with delight on entering.

The exercises began with a song.

A band of six pieces led them. Everybody rose and sang one stanza. John Vassar first wrote it in big plain letters on the blackboard where all could read:

MY COUNTRY, ’TIS OF THEE,

SWEET LAND OF LIBERTY,

OF THEE, I SING!

They sang it with a fervor that stirred Virginia’s soul.

Vassar took the chair as presiding officer and directed the exercises, Billy acting as his chief lieutenant to Virginia’s continuous amusement.

“Now, children, give me the cornerstone of the American nation – let’s get that in place first. Now everybody! All together!”

From the crowd came a shout that stirred the big flags in the ceiling:

“ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL!”

Again he wrote it on the blackboard and asked them to repeat it.

They did it with a will.

“Now, children,” he said, “I’ve a distinguished artist here today who gives us this valuable hour of his useful life to draw a picture on the board. Watch him closely and don’t forget the message.”

With quick, sure stroke the cartoonist drew a wonderful symbolic Stairway of Life for the American child.

On the left of the scene appeared Uncle Sam holding the lamp of knowledge to light the way to success for the crowd of eager boys and girls at the bottom of the hill. In sharp outline he drew the steps upon which they might mount – each step a book they could master. The first step was marked – Primer, the next First Reader and then came Elementary Arithmetic, Second Reader, Grammar, Geography, History, Physiology, Rhetoric, Algebra, Physics, Latin, Greek, Geometry, Political Economy and Trigonometry. The last step faded out in the blazing light of the Sun of Success at the top of the hill. He drew the figures of little boys and girls on the lower rounds, bigger boys and girls on the middle ones, young men and women mounting the hill crest. At the bottom of the cartoon he wrote:

“Uncle Sam invites all his children of every race and kindred and tongue to come up higher!”

“Now, once more, children,” Vassar cried, “tell me on what this country’s greatness rests?”

Again the shout came as from a single throat:

“All men are created equal!”

“Good! Now give me the passwords!”

“Liberty!”

“Equality!”

“Fraternity!”

The three shouts came as three salvos from a battery of artillery.

On another blackboard he wrote the words in huge capitals and left them standing.

“Now, children, I want you to think for just one minute every day of your life what it means to be a citizen of this mighty free Democracy – where men are learning to govern themselves better than any king has ever done it for them. I want you to realize that the inspired founders of this nation made it the hope and refuge of the oppressed of all the world. And I want you to love it with all your heart – ”

He lifted his hands and the crowd rose singing “The Star Spangled Banner.” They sang it with a swing and lilt Virginia had never heard before. For the first time in her life it had meaning. Her eyes unconsciously filled with tears.

At a wave of Vassar’s hand the crowd sank to their seats.

Vassar stooped over the platform and motioned to Angela to hand to him her boy.

The mother proudly passed the child to the leader. Vassar lifted the smiling youngster in his arms and held him high. In ringing tones he cried:

“Don’t forget, my friends, that the humblest boy here today may become the president of the United States!”

A ringing cheer swept the crowd.

Vassar passed the child back to the mother and continued his address. The rest of it was lost on Angela. A new light suddenly flashed in her brown eyes.

She sat down, flushed, and rose again. Tommaso tugged at her dress and begged her to sit down. Her soul was too full. The act of the speaker was a divine omen. She must know if he really meant that her little Tommaso might be the president of a great free nation. The thought was too big. Her heart was bursting. She tried timidly to attract Vassar’s attention.

Tommaso, alarmed, drew her back to the seat.

Angela looked across the side aisle and saw Virginia in the front row. Bending low she approached and whispered:

“My own bambino – he may be president – yes?”

Virginia nodded tearfully.

Angela darted back to her seat, snatched the head cloth from her rich brown hair and seized one of her husband’s earrings. The fight was brief. The Italian struggled to save his ornaments but the wife won. He also lost a gay sash about his waist. The mother pressed the boy to her heart and whispered passionately to her man:

“We Americano now – our bambino be bigga de boss president!”

Tommaso succeeded finally in quieting her before Vassar noticed the disturbance.

“Now, Captain,” Vassar called to Billy, “give us the order of the day for the Boy Scouts of America.”

Billy sprang on the little platform, lifted his smiling face, his hands tightly gripped behind his back and spoke in firm, boyish tones:

“My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my country!”

“And what do you say to that, children?” Vassar shouted.

“Three cheers for Uncle Sam!” they answered. Three times three they gave it without the need of a prompter.

Vassar waved a signal to the right and from the dressing-room slowly marched a procession of children of all nations, dressed in their native costume, each child bearing the tiny flag of their old-world allegiance. The line of floating color circled the open space in front of the platform, and, as they passed Vassar surrendered the old flag and received from his hand the Stars and Stripes which each waved in answer to a cheer from the crowd.

When the last nation had surrendered allegiance the procession marched again around the circle to the continuous cheering of the crowd and took their places about Vassar who held aloft the regimental standard of the nation with its golden eagle gleaming from the staff. The little children crowded close and about them gathered a ring of Boy Scouts and beyond them the mothers of the kids.

He lifted high the flag and every Scout and grown up and every child saluted it with uplifted hands and cheered.

“Now, boys and girls!” Vassar cried to the outer circle.

They solemnly responded in chorus:

“I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands – one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

“Now, kiddies!” he shouted to the little ones.

The answer came in straggling unison:

“I give my hand and my heart to God and my country. One country, one language, one flag – ”

“And now!” the leader cried:

“Hurrah for the President of the United States!”

With a shout they gave the cheers and the ceremony ended again in a babel of joyous polyglot chatter.

Vassar found Virginia surrounded by a mob of mothers struggling to shake hands under the guidance of Angela.

“I must say,” he laughed, “that your methods are quite up to date.”

“I assure you I’m not trying to take advantage of my host to seduce his constituents. I’m only doing my best to make Angela happy by meeting her friends – ”

“Si, signor – we will vote for the signorina – and you, too, is it not so?”

“Apparently they need no seduction,” Vassar laughed.

Virginia blushed and lifted her hands in protest.

“Well,” the young leader asked in conciliatory tones, “how did you like it?”

“I’ve been charmed beyond measure,” was the quick answer. “I’ve got a new view of my country. I’ve a new view of the possibilities of political leadership. I’m more determined than ever to wield a ballot – ”

“You’re not willing to trust me with that duty?”

“No. We can add something you can never give to these people. These mothers know instinctively that I can understand them as you could not.”

“And I had hoped,” he said regretfully, “that I might win you for a helper in this work. You’re determined to be my rival – ”

“Not unless you fight – ”

“Can’t you see,” he persisted, “that what America needs today is not the multiplication of her voting population by two – but the breathing of a conscious national soul into the people and giving that soul expression. What we need is not more millions of voters but a deeper sense of responsibility developed in those who already vote. We must show the world that democracy is a success, that democracy means the best in government, the best in commerce, the best in art and literature. I grant you that many of our new foreign voters are ignorant, but, dear Miss Holland, their wives and mothers are far more ignorant. Why add to this sum total of inefficiency? New York is in reality a foreign city set down here in the heart of America. More than one-half of the men of voting age are foreign-born. Only thirty-eight per cent of them are naturalized. More than half a million of these men are in no way identified with our political life. Twenty thousand a year in our city claim their right of citizenship and become voters. We have before us a gigantic task to teach these men the meaning of true Americanism. This work has not been done. It has been left to chance. We must break up these foreign groups. Eighty per cent of our foreign population live in groups and take no interest in any problem which does not directly affect their group life. They neither know nor are known by American-born citizens. Men like your father should get acquainted with these people. They are yet speaking a foreign tongue, living within the narrow ideals of their European origin. In time of supreme trial if this nation should call on them, what could one expect? What have we a right to expect?”

Virginia shook her head in hopeless protest.

“Always your nightmare of an imaginary impossible attack by a foreign foe!”

“I wish it were imaginary,” he answered thoughtfully. “Do you think for a moment that there is a foot of soil in the old world of Northern and Central Europe on which I could stand and dare to write the sentences and mottoes on that blackboard? Do the rulers of Europe believe that all men are created equal? Remember, dear lady, that Democracy is a babe not yet out of swaddling clothes. The might of kings is as old as the recorded history of man. The kingly conception of government and its divine right to govern is inbred into the human race through thousands of years until it is accepted without question. The idea becomes as fixed and automatic as the beat of the human heart.