Chapter 53

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_ Chapter LIII

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." _

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