was listened to with sympathy and
respect--but nothing was done! The world had turned upside down indeed if
the City Government of Hampton refused to take the advice of the agent of
the Chippering Mill! American institutions were a failure! But such was
the fact. Some unnamed fear, outweighing their dread of the retributions
of Capital, possessed these men, made them supine, derelict in the face
of their obvious duty.

By the faint grey light of that bitter January morning Ditmar made his
way to the mill. In Faber Street dark figures flitted silently across the
ghostly whiteness of the snow, and gathered in groups on the corners;
seeking to avoid these, other figures hurried along the sidewalks close
to the buildings, to be halted, accosted, pleaded with--threatened,
perhaps. Picketing had already begun! The effect of this pantomime of the
eternal struggle for survivals which he at first beheld from a distance,
was to exaggerate appallingly the emptiness of the wide street, to
emphasize the absence of shoppers and vehicles; and a bluish darkness
lurked in the stores, whose plate glass windows were frosted in quaint
designs. Where were the police? It was not fear that Ditmar felt, he was
galvanized and dominated by anger, by an overwhelming desire for action;
physical combat would have brought him relief, and as he quickened his
steps he itched to seize with his own hands these foreigners who had
dared to interfere with his cherished plans, who had had the audacity to
challenge the principles of his government which welcomed them to its
shores. He would have liked to wring their necks. His philosophy, too,
was environmental. And beneath this wrath, stimulating and energizing it
the more, was the ache in his soul from the loss for which he held these
enemies responsible. Two days ago happiness and achievement had both been
within his grasp. The only woman--so now it seemed--he had ever really
wanted! What had become of her? What obscure and passionate impulse had
led her suddenly to defy and desert him, to cast in her lot with these
insensate aliens? A hundred times during the restless, inactive hours of
a sleepless night this question had intruded itself in the midst of his
scheming to break the strike, as he reviewed, word by word, act by act,
that almost incomprehensible revolt of hers which had followed so
swiftly--a final, vindictive blow of fate--on that other revolt of the
workers. At moments he became confused, un