That was one of the strangest days which Ellen had ever passed. The
enforced idleness gave her an indefinite sense of guilt. She tried
to assist her mother about the household tasks, then she tried to
sew on the wrappers, but she was awkward about it, from long disuse.
"Do take your book and sit down and read and rest a little, now
you've got a chance," said Fanny, with sharp solicitude.
She said never one word concerning it to Ellen, but all the time she
thought how Ellen had probably lost her lover. It was really
doubtful which suffered the more that day, the mother or the
daughter. Fanny, entirely faithful to her own husband, had yet that
strange vicarious affection for her daughter's lover, and a
realization of her state of mind, of which a mother alone is
capable. It is like a cord of birth which is never severed. Not one
shadow of sad reflection passed over the bright enthusiastic face of
the girl but was passed on, as if driven by some wind of spirit,
over the face of the older woman. She reflected Ellen entirely.
As for Andrew, his anxiety was as tender, and less subtle. He did
not understand so clearly, but he suffered more. He was clumsy with
this mystery of womanhood, but he was unremitting in his efforts to
do something for the girl. Once he tiptoed up to Fanny and
whispered, when Ellen was in the next room, that he hoped she hadn't
made any mistake, that it seemed to him she looked pretty pale.
"Mistake?" cried Fanny, tossing her head, and staring at him
proudly. "Haven't you got any spirit, and you a man, Andrew
Brewster?"
"I ain't thinking about myself," said Andrew.
And he was quite right. Andrew, left to himself and his purely
selfish interests, could have struck with the foremost. He would
never have considered himself when it came to a question of a
conscientious struggle against injustice, though he was so prone to
look upon both sides of an argument that his decision would have
been necessarily slow; but here was Ellen to consider, and she was
more than himself. While he had been, in the depths of his heart,
fiercely jealous of Robert Lloyd, yet the suspicion that his girl
might suffer because of her renunciation of him hurt him to the
quick. Ellen had told him all she had done in the interests of the
strike, and he had no doubt that her action would effectually put an
end to all possible relations between the two. He tried to imagine
how a girl would feel, and being a man, and measuring all passion by
the strength of his own, he exaggerated her suffering. He could eat
nothing, and looked haggard. He remained out-of-doors the greater
part of the day. After he had cleared his own paths, he secured a
job clearing some for a more prosperous neighbor. Andrew in those
days grasped eagerly at any little job which could bring him in a
few pennies. He worked until dark, and when he went home he saw with
a great throb of excitement the Lloyd sleigh waiting before his
door.
Robert had heard from Dennison of Ellen's attitude about the strike.
He had been incredulous at first, as indeed he had been incredulous
about the strike. He had looked out of the office window with the
gaze of one who does not believe what he sees when he had heard that
retreating tramp of the workmen on the stairs.
"What does all this mean?" he said to Dennison, who entered, pale to
his lips.
"It means a strike," replied Dennison. Nellie Stone rolled her
pretty eyes around at the two men from under her fluff of blond
hair. Flynn came in and stood in a curious, non-committal attitude.
"A strike!" repeated Robert, vaguely. "What for?"
It seemed incredible that he should ask, but he did. The calm
masterfulness of his uncle, which could not even imagine opposition,
had apparently descended upon him.
Both foremen stared at him. Nellie Stone smiled a little covertly.
"Why, you know you had a committee wait upon you last night, Mr.
Lloyd," replied Dennison.
Flynn looked out of the window at the retreating throngs of workmen,
and gave a whistle under his breath.
"Have they struck because of the wage-cutting?" asked Robert, in a
curious, boyish, incredulous, aggrieved tone. Then all at once he
colored violently. "Let them strike, then!" he cried. He threw
himself into a chair and took up the morning paper, with its glaring
headlines about the unprecedented storm, as if nothing had happened.
Nellie Stone, after a sly wink at Flynn, which he did not return,
began writing again. Flynn went out, and Dennison remained
standing in a rather helpless attitude. A strike in Lloyd's was
unprecedented, but this manner of receiving the news was more
unprecedented still. The proprietor was apparently reading the
morning paper with much interest, when two more foremen, heads of
other departments, came hurrying in.
"I have heard already," said Robert, in response to their gasped
information. Then he turned another page of the paper.
"What's to be done, sir?" said one of the new-comers, after a
prolonged stare at his companion and Dennison. He was a spare man,
with a fierce glimmer of blue eyes under bent brows.
"Let them strike if they want to," replied Robert.
It was in his mind to explain at length to these men his reasons for
cutting the wages--for his own attitude as he knew it himself was
entirely reasonable--but the pride of a proud family was up in him.
"The strike would never have been on, for the men went to work
quietly enough, if it hadn't been for that Brewster girl," Dennison
said, presently, but rather doubtfully. He was not quite sure how
the information would be received.
Robert dropped his paper, and stared at him with angry incredulity.
"What are you talking about?" he said. "What had Miss Brewster to do
with it?"
He said "Miss Brewster" with a meaning emphasis of respect, and
Dennison was quick to adopt the hint.
"Oh, nothing," he replied, uneasily, "only she talked with them."
"You mean that Miss Brewster talked to the men?"
"Yes; she said a good deal yesterday, and to-day the men would not
have struck if it had not been for her. It only needs a spark to set
them off sometimes."
Robert was very pale. "Well," he said, coolly, "there is no need for
you to remain longer, since the factory is shut down. You may as
well go."
"The engineer is seeing to the fires, Mr. Lloyd," said Dennison.
"Very well." Robert turned to the girl at the desk. "The factory is
closed, Miss Stone," he said; "there is no need for you to remain
longer to-day. Come to-morrow at ten o'clock, and I will have
something for you to do with regard to settling up accounts. There
is nothing in shape now."
That afternoon Robert went to see Ellen. He could not wait until
evening.
Fanny greeted him at the door, and there was the inevitable flurry
about lighting the parlor stove, and presently Ellen entered.
She had changed the gown which she had worn at her factory-work for
her last winter's best one. Her young face was pale, almost severe,
and she met him in a way which made her seem a stranger.
Robert realized suddenly that she had, as it were, closed the door
upon all their old relations. She seemed years older, and at the
same time indefinably younger, since she was letting the childish
impulses, which are at the heart of all of us untouched by time and
experience, rise rampant and unchecked. She was following the lead
of her own convictions with the terrible unswerving of a child, even
in the face of her own hurt. She was, metaphorically, bumping her
own head against the floor in her vain struggles for mastery over
the mighty conditions of her life.
She bowed to Robert, and did not seem to see his proffered hand.
"Won't you shake hands with me?" he asked, almost humbly, although
his own wrath was beginning to rise.
"No, I would rather not," she replied, with a straight look at him.
Her blue eyes did not falter in the least.
"May I sit down?" he said. "I have something I would like to say to
you."
"Certainly, if you wish," she replied. Then she seated herself on
the sofa, with Robert opposite in the crushed-plush easy-chair.
The room was still very cold, and the breath could be seen at the
lips of each in white clouds. Robert had on his coat, but Ellen had
nothing over her blue gown. It was on Robert's tongue to ask if she
were not cold, then he refrained. The issues at stake seemed to make
the question frivolous to offensiveness. He felt that any approach
to tenderness when Ellen was in her present mood would invoke an
indignation for which he could scarcely blame her, that he must try
to meet her on equal fighting-ground.
Ellen sat before him, her little, cold hands tightly folded in her
lap, her mouth set hard, her steady fire of blue eyes on his face,
waiting for him to speak.
Robert felt a decided awkwardness about beginning to talk. Suddenly
it occurred to him to wonder what there was to say. It amounted to
this: they were in their two different positions, their two points
of view--would either leave for any argument of the other? Then he
wondered if he could, in the face of a girl who wore an expression
like that, stoop to make an argument, for the utter blindness and
deafness of her very soul to any explanation of his position was too
evident in her face.
"I called to tell you, if you will permit me, how much I regret the
unfortunate state of affairs at the factory," Robert said, and the
girl's eyes met his as with a flash of flame.
"Why did you not prevent it, then?" asked she. Ellen had all the
fire of her family, but a steadiness of manner which never deserted
her. She was never violent.
"I could not prevent it," replied Robert, in a low voice.
Ellen said nothing.
"You mistake my position," said Robert. It was in his mind then to
lay the matter fully before her, as he had disdained to do before
the committee, but her next words deterred him.
"I understand your position very fully," said she.
Robert bowed.
"There is only one way of looking at it," said Ellen, in her
inexpressibly sweet, almost fanatical voice. She tossed her head,
and the fluff of fair hair over her temples caught a beam of
afternoon sunlight.
"She is only a child," thought Robert, looking at her. He rose and
crossed over to the sofa, and sat down beside her with a masterful
impatience. "Look here, Ellen," he said, leaving all general issues
for their own personal ones, "you are not going to let this come
between us?"
Ellen sat stiff and straight, and made no reply.
"All this can make very little difference to you," Robert urged.
"You know how I feel. That is, it can make very little difference to
you if you still feel as you did. You must know that I have only
been waiting--that I am eager and impatient to lift you out of it
all."
Ellen faced him. "Do you think I would be lifted out of it now?" she
said.
"Why, but, Ellen, you cannot--"
"Yes, I can. You do not know me."
"Ellen, you are under a total misapprehension of my position."
"No, I am not. I apprehend it perfectly."
"Ellen, you cannot let this separate us."
Ellen looked straight ahead in silence.
"You at least owe it to me to tell me if, irrespective of this, your
feelings have changed," Robert said, in a low voice.
Ellen said nothing.
"You may have come to prefer some one else," said Robert.
"I prefer no one before my own, before all these poor people who are
a part of my life," Ellen cried out, suddenly, her face flaming.
"Then why do you refuse to let me act for their final good? You must
know what it means to have them thrown out of work in midwinter. You
know the factory will remain closed for the present on account of
the strike."
"I did not doubt it," said Ellen, in a hard voice. All the bitter
thoughts to which she would not give utterance were in her voice.
"I cannot continue to run the factory at the present rate and meet
expenses," said Robert; "in fact, I have been steadily losing for
the last month." He had, after all, descended to explanation. "It
amounts to my either reducing the wage-list or closing the factory
altogether," he continued. "For my own good I ought to close the
factory altogether, but I thought I would give the men a chance."
Robert thought by saying that he must have finally settled matters.
It did not enter his head that she would really think it advisable
for him to continue losing money. The pure childishness of her
attitude was something really beyond the comprehension of a man of
business who had come into hard business theories along with his
uncle's dollars.
"What if you do lose money?" said Ellen.
Robert stared at her. "I beg your pardon?" said he.
"What if you do lose money?"
"A man cannot conduct business on such principles," replied Robert.
"There would soon be no business to conduct. You don't understand."
"Yes, I do understand fully," replied Ellen.
Robert looked at her, at the clear, rosy curve of her young cheek,
the toss of yellow hair above a forehead as candid as a baby's, at
her little, delicate figure, and all at once such a rage of
masculine insistence over all this obstinacy of reasoning was upon
him that it was all he could do to keep himself from seizing her in
his arms and forcing her to a view of his own horizon. He felt
himself drawn up in opposition to an opponent at once too delicate,
too unreasoning, and too beloved to encounter. It seemed as if the
absurdity of it would drive him mad, and yet he was held to it. He
tried to give a desperate wrench aside from the main point of the
situation. He leaned over Ellen, so closely that his lips touched
her hair.
"Ellen, let us leave all this," he pleaded; "let me talk to you. I
had to wait a little while. I knew you would understand that, but
let me talk to you now."
Ellen sat as rigid as marble. "I wish to talk of nothing besides the
matter at hand, Mr. Lloyd," said she. "That is too close to my heart
for any personal consideration to come between."