“If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may this hand wither from the arm I now raise.”

By this oath Rhona was bound.  And so were thirty thousand others—­Americans, Italians, Jews—­and with them were some of the up-town women, some of the women of wealth, some of the big lawyers and the labor-leaders and reformers.

“Some of the up-town women!” thought Myra.  She was amazed to find herself so interested, so wrought up.  And she felt as if she had stumbled upon great issues and great struggles; she realized, dimly, that first moment, that this strike was involved in something larger, something vaster—­swallowed up in the advance of democracy, in the advance of woman.  All the woman in her responded to the call to arms.

And she was discovering now what Joe had meant by his “crisis”—­what he had meant by his fight for “more democracy; a better and richer life; a superber people on earth.  It was a real thing.  She burned now to help Joe—­she burned to do for him—­to enter into his tragic struggle—­to be of use to him.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked Rhona.

“Now?  Now I must go picketing.”

“What’s picketing?”

“March up and down in front of a factory and try to keep scabs out.”

“What are scabs?” asked ignorant Myra.

Rhona was amazed.

“You don’t even know that?  Why, a scab’s a girl who tries to take a striker’s job and so ruin the strike.  She takes the bread out of our mouths.”

“But how can you stop her?”

“Talk to her!  We’re not allowed to use violence.”

“How do you do it?”

Rhona looked at the eager face, the luminous gray eyes.

“Would you like to see it?”

“Yes, I would.”

“But it’s dangerous.”

“How so?”

“Police and thugs, bums hanging around.”

“And you girls aren’t afraid?”

Rhona smiled.

“We don’t show it, anyway.  You see, we’re bound to win.”

Myra’s eyes flashed.

“Well, if you’re not afraid, I guess I haven’t any right to be.  May I come?”

Rhona looked at her with swift understanding.

“Yes, please do come!”

Myra rose.  She took a last look about the darkening room; saw once more the sleeping men, the toiling Giotto, the groups of girls.  Something tragic hung in the air.  She seemed to breathe bigger, gain in stature, expand.  She was going to meet the test of these newer women.  She was going to identify herself with their vast struggle.

And looking once more, she sought Joe, but could not find him.  How pleased he would be to know that she was doing this—­doing it largely for him—­because she wanted to smooth out that gray face, and lay her cheek against its lost wrinkles, and put her arm about his neck, and heal him.

Tears dimmed her eyes.  She took Rhona’s arm and they stepped out into the bleak street.  Wind whipped their faces like quick-flicked knives.  They walked close together.