“What are you talking about, Robert?” said Risley, laughing a little.

“I say why should all the sympathy go to the workmen who are acting like the pig-headed idiots they are, and none for the head of the factory, who has the sharp-edged, red-hot brunt of it all to bear?”

“You wouldn’t look at it that way if you were one of the poor men just out on strike such weather as this,” said Risley, dryly.  He glanced as he spoke at the window, which was beginning to be thickly furred with frost in spite of the heat of the office.  Robert followed his gaze, and noted the spreading fairy jungle of crystalline trees and flowers on the broad field of glass.

“Do you think that is the worst thing in the world to bear?” he demanded, angrily.

“What?  Cold and hunger not only for yourself, but for those you love?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I think it is pretty bad,” replied Risley.

“Well, suppose you had to bear that, at least for those you loved, and—­and—­” said the young man, lamely.

Risley remained silent, waiting.

“If I had been my uncle instead of myself I should simply have shut down with no ado,” said Robert, presently, in an angry, argumentative voice.

“I suppose you would; and as it was?”

“As it was, I thought I would give them a chance.  Good God, Risley, I have been running the factory at a loss for a month as it is.  With this new wage-list I should no more than make expenses, if I did that.  What was it to me?  I did it to keep them in some sort of work.  As for myself, I would much rather have shut down and done with it, but I tried to keep it running on their account, poor devils, and now I am execrated for it, and they have deliberately refused what little I could offer.”

“Did you explain all this to the committee?” asked Risley.

“Explain?  No!  I told them my course was founded upon strict business principles, and was as much for their good as for mine.  They understood.  They know how hard the times are.  Why, it was only last week that Weeks & McLaughlin failed, and that meant a heavy loss.  I didn’t explain.”  Then Robert hesitated and colored.  “I have just explained to her,” he said, with a curious hang of his head, like a boy, “and if my explanation was met in the same fashion by the others in the factory I might as well have addressed the north wind.  They are all alike; they are a different race.  We cannot help them, and they cannot help themselves, because they are themselves.”

“You mean by her, Ellen Brewster?” Risley said.

Robert nodded gloomily.

“That is all in the paper,” said Risley—­“what she said to the men.”

Robert made an impatient move.

“If ever there was a purely normal outgrowth, a perfect flower of her birth and environments and training, that girl is one,” said Risley, with an accent of admiration.

“She is infected with the ranting idiocy of those with whom she has been brought in daily contact,” said Robert; but even as he spoke he seemed to see the girl’s dear young face, and his voice faltered.