ion and evil;
and what she beheld now as life was a vast and terrible cruelty. She had
needed only this final proof to be convinced that in his eyes she also
was but one of those brought into the world to minister to his pleasure
and profit. He had taken from her, as his weed, the most precious thing a
woman has to give, and now that she was here again at his side, by some
impulse incomprehensible to herself--in spite of the wrong he had done
her!--had sought him out in danger, he had no thought of her, no word for
her, no use save a menial one: he cared nothing for any help she might be
able to give, he had no perception of the new light which had broken
within her soul.... The telephoning seemed interminable, yet she waited
with a strange patience while he talked with Mr. George Chippering and
two of the most influential directors. These conversations had covered
the space of an hour or more. And perhaps as a result of self-suggestion,
of his repeated assurances to Mr. Semple, to Mr. Chippering, and the
directors of his ability to control the situation, Ditmar's habitual
self-confidence was gradually restored. And when at last he hung up the
instrument and turned to her, though still furious against the strikers,
his voice betrayed the joy of battle, the assurance of victory.

"They can't bluff me, they'll have to guess again. It's that damned
Holster--he hasn't any guts--he'd give in to 'em right now if I'd let
him. It's the limit the way he turned the Clarendon over to them. I'll
show him how to put a crimp in 'em if they don't turn up here to-morrow
morning."

He was so magnificently sure of her sympathy! She did, not reply, but
picked up her coat from the chair where she had laid it.

"Where are you going?" he demanded. And she replied laconically, "Home."

"Wait a minute," he said, rising and taking a step toward her.

"You have an appointment with the Mayor," she reminded him.

"I know," he said, glancing at the clock over the door. "Where have you
been?--where were you this morning? I was worried about you, I--I was
afraid you might be sick."

"Were you?" she said. "I'm all right. I had business in Boston."

"Why didn't you telephone me? In Boston?" he repeated.

She nodded. He started forward again, but she avoided him.

"What's the matter?" he cried. "I've been worried about you all day
--until this damned strike broke loose. I was afraid something had
happened."

"You might have asked my father,"