Part 40 (2/2)

”I wish you could, too.” He laid his paper down. ”Well, I'm off to the club, unless you are particularly in need of me.”

”You are always going to the club.”

”Or coming back.”

”Some husbands--”

”Yes, I know. But the men I play poker with are too much interested in the draw to talk about other men's wives.”

”It's the talk of the town the way you men play cards.”

”Better the purse than the reputation.”

”I haven't any doubt that you are doing your best to deplete both,”

coldly.

Then she sighed profoundly. This man was a great disappointment to her. He did not understand her at all. The truth was, if she but knew it, he understood her only too well. She had married the handsomest man in town because all the other belles had been after him; he had married money, after a fas.h.i.+on. Such mistakes are frequent rather than singular these days. The two had nothing in common. It is strange that persons never find this out till after the honeymoon. Truly, marriage is a voyage of discovery for which there are no relief expeditions.

So Haldene went to the club, while his wife squared another sheet of writing-paper and began again. Half an hour went by before she completed her work with any degree of satisfaction. Even then she had some doubts. She then took a pair of shears and snipped the crest from the sheet and sealed it in a government envelope. Next she threw a light wrap over her shoulders and stole down to the first letter-box, where she deposited the trifle. The falling of the lid broke sharply on the still night. She returned to the house, feeling that a great responsibility had been s.h.i.+fted from hers to another's shoulders.

Indeed, she would have gone to any lengths to save Patty a life of misery. And to think of that woman! To think of her a.s.suming a quasi-leaders.h.i.+p in society, as if she were to the manner born! The impudence of it all! Poor Mrs. Bennington, with her grey hairs; it would break her heart when she found out (as Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene determined she should) the sort of woman her son had married. She straightened her shoulders and pressed her lips firmly and contemplated a duty, painfully but rigorously performed. She cast the sc.r.a.ps of paper into the grate and applied a match. It is not always well that duty should leave any circ.u.mstantial evidence behind.

The evening papers devoted a good deal of s.p.a.ce to the strike at the Bennington shops. They frankly upheld Bennington. They admitted that employers had some individual rights. They berated the men for quarreling over a matter so trivial as the employment of a single non-union man, who was, to say the most, merely an experimenter.

However, they treated lightly Bennington's threat to demolish the shops. No man in his right mind would commit so childish an act. It would be revenge of a reactive order, fool matching fools, whereas Bennington ought to be more magnanimous. The labor unions called special meetings, and with one or two exceptions voted to stand by the action of the men.

There was positively no politics behind this strike; everybody understood that; at least, everybody thought he understood. But there were some who smiled mysteriously and wagged their heads. One thing was certain; Bennington's friend, Warrington would lose many hundred votes in November. For everybody knew which way the Republican convention would go; there was n.o.body in sight but Warrington.

Bennington and Mrs. Jack dined at the old home that evening. There was plenty of gloom and forced gaiety around the board. John pretended that he was well out of a bad job; he was not a dreamer nor a socialist, not he; Utopia was not for the iron age. He told stories, joked and laughed, and smoked frequently. No one but the mother had the courage to ask if he really meant to tear down the mills. She came around the table, smoothed his hair as she had done since he was a boy, and leaned over his chair.

”John?”

”Well, mother mine?”

”Shall you really do it?”

”Do what?”

”Tear it down.”

He did not answer at once, and she waited, trembling.

”You would not have me take back my words to the men, would you, mother?” quietly.

”Your father loved the place.”

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