"I don't know," Sylvia said vaguely. She remembered talking with the foreman not long after the shift started, but hardly anything of what had passed between them. Most of what had gone on since she'd seen that story in the Boston Globe was a blur to her.

"You all right, dearie?" May asked.

"I don't know," Sylvia said again. She realized she had to do better than that, and did try: "I'm having a lot of trouble keeping my mind on my work-on much of anything-this morning."

"Well, I know all about that" Sarah said. "This isn't the most exciting place they ever built, and that's the Lord's truth." May nodded while lighting a cigarette.

Sylvia lit one, too. The surge of well-being that went with the first couple of puffs penetrated the fog around her wits. In thoughtful tones, she asked, "May, what would you do if you could find the soldier who killed your husband? I mean the soldier, the one who fired the machine gun or rifle or whatever it was"

"I don't know," May Cavendish answered. "I never thought about that before. For all I know, he's already dead." Her eyes went flat and hard. When she spoke again, her voice was cold as sleet: "I hope he's already dead, and I hope he took a long time to die, too, the stinking son of a bitch." But then, after a savage drag on her cigarette, she sounded much more like her usual self, saying, "But how could you ever tell? With so many bullets flying around, nobody knew who shot people and who didn't. Herbert always used to talk about that when he came home on leave." Now she sighed and looked sad, remembering.

"I suppose you're right," Sylvia said. She'd forgotten the differences between the wars the Army and the Navy fought. She knew the name of her husband's killer: Roger Kimball. She knew he lived down in South Carolina and agitated for the Freedom Party. She had no idea whether the Freedom Party was good, bad, or indifferent.

"What would you do, Sylvia?" Sarah asked. "If you knew?"

"Who can say?" Sylvia sounded weary. "I like to think I'd have the gumption to try and kill him, but who can say?" The whistle blew, announcing the end of the dinner break. "I like to think I'd have the gumption to try and kill Frank Best, too, but it hasn't happened yet," Sylvia added. Chuckling, she and her friends went back to work.

Flora Hamburger remembered the last presidential inauguration she'd attended, four years before. That long? She shook her head in wonder. So much had changed since 1917. She'd been brand new in Congress then, unsure of herself, unsure of her place in Philadelphia. Now she was starting her third term. The war had still raged. Now the United States were at peace with the world. And she'd gone to the inauguration of a Democrat then. Now-

Now half the bunting that decorated Philadelphia was the traditional red, white, and blue. The other half was solid red, symbol of the Socialists who had come into their own at last.

A lot of people in Philadelphia were going around with long faces. Being the home of the federal government since the Second Mexican War, it had also been the home of the Democratic Party since the 1880s. Now President Sinclair would be choosing officials ranging from Cabinet members down to postmasters. A horde of Democrats who'd thought they owned lifetime positions were discovering they'd been mistaken and would have to go out and look for real work.

President-elect Sinclair had chosen to hold the inauguration in Franklin Square, to let as large a crowd as possible see him. He'd thought about going down to Washington, D.C., but the de jure capital remained too war-battered to host the ceremony. Philadelphia it was. "We are the party of the people," he had said a great many times. "Let them know how they are governed, and they will ensure they are governed well."

Before Sinclair took the presidential oath, Hosea Blackford would take that of the vice president. Flora shook her head again. In March 1917, she'd had a mild friendship with the Congressman from Dakota. Now… Now I am the mistress of the vice president-elect of the United States.

The title should have left her feeling sordid and ashamed- and it did, sometimes. What, after all, was mistress but a fancy word for fallen woman? But she also knew she'd never been so happy as in the time since she and Blackford became lovers. Did that make her depraved? She didn't think so-most of the time, she didn't think so-though no doubt others would if they knew.

Whatever she was, it didn't show on the outside. Dressed in a splendid maroon wool suit (Herman Bruck would have approved) and a new hat, she had one of the best seats for the ceremony. Why not? She was a Socialist member of Congress. Then she wondered, Is it a matter of rank? Is this what we get? Will we become part of the ruling class, the way the Democrats did?

She hoped not. The people had elected Upton Sinclair to prevent that kind of thing, not to promote it. Then all her thought about anything but the immediate present blew away. A rising hum from the enormous crowd behind her announced the arrival of the motorcars full of dignitaries who would go through the ceremony that marked the changing of the guard for the United States.

People clapped and cheered to see them. In the lead, behind an honor guard of soldiers and Marines, strode Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He was a little thinner, a little more stooped, than he had been when Flora first saw him four years before, but he still moved like a much younger man.

Behind him came Vice President McKenna, an amiable nonentity who was almost as fat as Congressman Taft. In white tie and tails, he looked like a penguin that had swallowed a beach ball. And behind McKenna walked Theodore Roosevelt, also in white tie and tails. As he moved toward the raised platform on which President Sinclair would take the oath of office, Senators and Representatives got to their feet and began to applaud him. Democrats rose sooner than Socialists and Republicans, but soon, regardless of party, members of both houses of Congress stood and cheered the man who had led the United States to victory in the Great War.

Roosevelt did not seem to have expected such a tribute. He doffed his stovepipe hat several times. Once, he took off his spectacles for a moment and rubbed at his eyes. Had he got a cinder in them, or was he wiping away a tear? Flora had trouble believing that of an old Tartar like TR. Then, spotting her among the crowd of nearly identical-looking men, the outgoing president waved and blew her a kiss. He could hardly have astonished her more if he'd turned a cartwheel.

She stayed on her feet after he passed, as did all the other Socialists, most of the Midwestern corporal's guard of Republicans, and the more courteous Democrats-about half. Here came Hosea Blackford, about to make the change from vice president-elect to vice president. He too wore formal attire. He didn't look like a penguin, not to Flora. He looked splendid.

Flora called his name while she was applauding. He smiled at her, but he was smiling at everybody. He hurried after Roosevelt toward the platform.

And behind him-in front of another honor guard, this one of sailors and soldiers-walked the man of the hour, Upton Sinclair. Craning her neck to look back at him, Flora saw a sea of red flags waving in the crowd. Her heart slammed against her rib cage in excitement and delight. As the dialectic predicted, the people had at last turned to the party that stood for their class interests.

Up on the platform, Theodore Roosevelt shook Sinclair's hand, a formal gesture, and then slapped him lightly on the back, one much less so. The president that was and the president that would be grinned at each other. Flora remembered how Senator Debs had stayed personally cordial toward TR even after losing two presidential elections to him.

Whatever Roosevelt and Sinclair said to each other, they were too far away from the microphone for it to pick up their words. Chief Justice Holmes stood by it, a Bible in his hand. He beckoned to Hosea Blackford. When Blackford took the vice-presidential oath, the electric marvel let the whole enormous crowd hear him doit.