are of all business was to form a contingent fund for
such emergencies, it seemed.

Lily listened attentively. Was it because they feared that if they did
not voluntarily divide their profits they would be taken from them?
Enough for all, and to none too much. Was that what they feared? Or was
it a sense of justice, belated but real?

She remembered something Jim Doyle had said:

"Labor has learned its weakness alone, its strength united. But capital
has not learned that lesson. It will not take a loss for a principle.
It will not unite. It is suspicious and jealous, so it fights its
individual battles alone, and loses in the end."

But then to offset that there was something Willy Cameron had said one
day, frying doughnuts for her with one hand, and waving the fork about
with the other.

"Don't forget this, oh representative of the plutocracy," he had said.
"Capital has its side, and a darned good one, too. It's got a sense of
responsibility to the country, which labor may have individually but
hasn't got collectively."

These men at the table were grave, burdened with responsibility. Her
father. Even her grandfather. It was no longer a question of profit. It
was a question of keeping the country going. They were like men forced
to travel, and breasting a strong head wind. There were some there who
would turn, in time, and travel with the gale. But there were others
like her grandfather, obstinate and secretly frightened, who would
refuse. Who would, to change the figure, sit like misers over their
treasure, an eye on the window of life for thieves.

She went upstairs, perplexed and thoughtful. Some time later she heard
the family ascending, the click of her mother's high heels on the
polished wood of the staircase, her father's sturdy tread, and a moment
or two later her grandfather's slow, rather weary step. Suddenly she
felt sorry for him, for his age, for his false gods of power and
pride, for the disappointment she was to him. She flung open her door
impulsively and confronted him.

"I just wanted to say good-night, grandfather," she said breathlessly.
"And that I am sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

"Sorry--" she hesitated. "Because we see things so differently."

Lily was almost certain that she caught a flash of tenderness in his
eyes, and certainly his voice had softened.

"You looked very pretty to-night," he said. But he passed on, and she
had again the sense of rebuff with which he met all her smal