Part 23 (1/2)

The more she thought about it, the warmer she grew; and the higher her indignation arose, the more remote were her thoughts of Wally--Wally with his greatest adventure that was ever lived--Wally with his sweetest story ever told. She looked at the hands of the two women below her and saw three wedding rings.

”The roses and lilies didn't last long with them,” thought Mary grimly.

”Oh, I'm sure it's all wrong, somehow.... I'm sure there's some way that things could be made happier for women....”

She interrupted the quartette, in her voice a note which Wally had never heard before and which made him exchange a glance with Helen.

”Now first of all,” she said, ”just how badly do you four women need your pay envelopes every week?”

They told her, especially the one who had been crying, and who now started crying again.

”Wait here a minute, please,” said Mary, that note in her voice more marked than before. She arose and went in the house, and Wally guessed that she had gone to telephone the factory. For a while they couldn't hear her, except when she said ”I want to speak to Mr. Burdon Woodward--yes--Mr. Burdon Woodward--”

They could faintly hear her talking then, but toward the end her voice came full and clear.

”I want you to set them to work again! They are coming right back! Yes, the four of them! I shall be at the office in the morning. That's all.

Good-bye.”

She came out, then, like a young Aurora riding the storm.

”You're to go right back to your work,” she said, and in a gentler voice, ”Wally, can I speak to you, please?”

He followed her into the house and when he came out alone ten minutes later, he drew a deep sigh and sat down again by Helen, a picture of utter dejection.

”Never mind, Wally,” she said, and patted his arm.

”I can't make her out at times,” he sighed.

”No, and n.o.body else,” she whispered.

”What do you think, Helen?” he asked. ”Don't you think that love is the greatest thing in life?”

”Why, of course it is,” she whispered, and patted his arm again.

CHAPTER XXIII

In spite of her brave words the day before, when Mary left the house for the office in the morning, a feeling of uncertainty and regret weighed upon her, and made her pensive. More than once she cast a backward look at the things she was leaving behind--love, the joys of youth, the pleasure places of the world to see, romance, heart's ease, and ”skies for ever blue.”

At the memory of Wally's phrase she grew more thoughtful than before.

”But would they be for ever blue?” she asked herself. ”I guess every woman in the world expects them to be, when she marries. Yes, and they ought to be, too, an awful lot more than they are. Oh, I'm sure there's something wrong somewhere.... I'm, sure here's something wrong....”

She thought of the four women standing in the driveway by the side of the house, looking lost and bewildered, and the old sigh of pity arose in her heart.

”The poor women,” she thought. ”They didn't look as though the sweetest story ever told had lasted long with them--”

She had reached the crest of the hill and the factory came to her view. A breeze was rising from the river and as she looked down at the scene below, as her forbears had looked so many times before her, she felt as a sailor from the north might feel when after drifting around in drowsy tropic seas, he comes at last to his own home port and feels the clean wind whip his face and blow away his languor.