“You must have been,” said Arthur.  “I never heard a hint of this; and if anyone suspected, the whole town would be talking.”

“I guess the fact that she’s a Wilmot has helped us.  Who’d ever suspect a Wilmot of such a thing?”

“Why not?” said Arthur.  “She couldn’t do better.”

Lorry looked amused.  “What’d you have said a few months ago, Ranger?”

“But my father was a workingman.”

“That was a long time ago,” Lorry reminded him.  “That was when America used to be American.  Anyhow, she and I don’t care, except about the mother.  You know the old lady isn’t strong, especially the last year or so.  It wouldn’t exactly improve her health to know there was anything between her daughter and a washerwoman’s son, a plain workingman at that.  We—­Estelle and I—­don’t want to be responsible for any harm to her.  So—­we’re waiting.”

“But there’s the old gentleman, and Arden—­and Verbena!”

Lorry’s cheerfulness was not ruffled by this marshaling of the full and formidable Wilmot array.  “It’d be a pleasure to Estelle to give them a shock, especially Verbena.  Did you ever see Verbena’s hands?”

“I don’t think so,” replied Arthur; “but, of course, I’ve heard of them.”

“Did you know she wouldn’t even take hold of a knob to open a door, for fear of stretching them?”

“She is a lady, sure.”

“Well, Estelle’s not, thank God!” exclaimed Lorry.  “She says one of her grandmothers was the daughter of a fellow who kept a kind of pawn shop, and that she’s a case of atavism.”

“But, Lorry,” said Arthur, letting his train of thought come to the surface, “this ought to rouse your ambition.  You could get anywhere you liked.  To win her, I should think you’d exert yourself at the factory as you did at home when you were going through Ann Arbor.”

“To win her—­perhaps I would,” replied Lorry.  “But, you see, I’ve won her.  I’m satisfied with my position.  I make enough for us two to live on as well as any sensible person’d care to live.  I’ve got four thousand dollars put by, and I’m insured for ten thousand, and mother’s got twelve thousand at interest that she saved out of the washing.  I like to live.  They made me assistant foreman once, but I was no good at it.  I couldn’t ‘speed’ the men.  It seemed to me they got a small enough part of what they earned, no matter how little they worked.  Did you ever think, it takes one of us only about a day to make enough barrels to pay his week’s wages, and that he has to donate the other five days’ work for the privilege of being allowed to live?  If I rose I’d be living off those five days of stolen labor.  Somehow I don’t fancy doing it.  So I do my ten hours a day, and have evenings and Sundays for the things I like.”

“Doesn’t Estelle try to spur you on?”

“She used to, but she soon came round to my point of view.  She saw what I meant, and she hasn’t, any more than I, the fancy for stealing time from being somebody, to use it in making fools think and say you’re somebody, when you ain’t.”