“Oh, Mary!” she called.

With an involuntary movement, Mary freed herself from Wally’s hand.

“Four women to see you—­from the factory, I think,” Helen breathlessly announced, and pretending not to notice Wally’s scowl she added, “I wouldn’t have bothered you ... only one of them’s crying....”

CHAPTER XXII

The four women were standing in the driveway by the side of the house, and if you had been there as Mary approached, they might have reminded you of four lost sheep catching sight of their shepherd.

“Come and sit down,” said Mary, “and tell me what’s the matter.”

“We’ve been discharged,” said one with a red face.  “Of course I know that we shouldn’t have come to bother you about it, Miss Spencer, but it was you who hired us, and I told him, said I, ’Miss Spencer’s going to hear about this.  She won’t stand for any dirty work.’”

Mary had seated herself on the veranda steps and, obeying her gesture, the four women sat on the step below her, two on one side and two on the other.

“Who discharged you?” she asked.

“Mr. Woodward.”

“Which Mr. Woodward?”

“The young one—­Burdon.”

“What did he discharge you for?”

“That’s it.  That’s the very thing I asked him.”

“Perhaps they need your places for some of the men who are coming back.”

“No, ma’m.  We wouldn’t mind if that was it, but there’s nobody expected back this week.”

“Then why is it?”

There was a moment’s hesitation, and then the one who had been crying said, “It’s because we’re women.”

A shadow of unconscious indignation swept over Mary’s face and, seeing it, the four began speaking at once.

“Things have never been the same, Miss Spencer, since you were sick—­”

“First they shut down the nursery—­”

“Then the rest room—­said it was a bad example for the men—­”

“A bad example for the men, mind you—­us!”

“And then the canteen was closed—­”

“And behind our backs, they called us ‘Molls.’”

“Not that I care, but ‘Molls,’ mind you—­”

“Then they began hanging signs in our locker room—­”

“‘A woman’s place is in the home’ and things like that—­”

“And then they began putting us next to strange men—­”

“And, oh, their language, Miss Spencer—­”

“Don’t tell her—­”

As the chorus continued, Mary began to feel hot and uncomfortable.  “I had no right to leave them in the lurch like that,” she thought, and her cheeks stung as she recalled her old plans, her old visions.

“And now they’ve got to go back to their kitchens for the rest of their lives—­and told they are not wanted anywhere else—­because they are women—­”

The more she thought about it, the warmer she grew; and the higher her indignation arose, the more remote were her thoughts of Wally—­Wally with his greatest adventure that was ever lived—­Wally with his sweetest story ever told.  She looked at the hands of the two women below her and saw three wedding rings.