Bannon was buttoning his coat, and looking at her.  He felt the different tone that had got into their talk.  It had been impersonal a few minutes before.

“Oh, St. Joe isn’t bad,” he was saying; “it’s quiet and restful and all that, but it’s not the same sort of thing at all.  You go over there and ride up the river on the May Graham, and it makes you feel lazy and comfortable, but it doesn’t stir you up inside like the St. Lawrence does.”

She looked up.  Her eyes were sparkling as they had sparkled that afternoon on the elevator when she first looked out into the sunset.

“Yes,” she replied.  “I think I know what you mean.  But I never really felt that way; I’ve only thought about it.”

Bannon turned half away, as if to go.

“You’ll have to go down there, that’s all,” he said abruptly.  He looked back at her over his shoulder, and added, “That’s all there is about it.”

Her eyes were half startled, half mischievous, for his voice had been still less impersonal than before.  Then she turned back to her work, her face sober, but an amused twinkle lingering in her eyes.

“I should like to go,” she said, her pencil poised at the top of a long column.  “Max would like it, too.”

After supper that evening Max returned early from a visit to the injured man, and told Hilda of a new trouble.

“Do you know that little delegate that’s been hanging around?” he asked.

“Grady,” she said, and nodded.

“Yes, he’s been working the man.  I never saw such a change in my life.  He just sat up there in bed and swore at me, and said I needn’t think I could buy him off with this stuff”—­he looked down and Hilda saw that the bowl in his hand was not empty—­“and raised a row generally.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Give it up.  From what he said, I’m sure Grady’s behind it.”

“Did he give his name?”

“No, but he did a lot of talking about justice to the down-trodden and the power of the unions, and that kind of stuff.  I couldn’t understand all he said—­he’s got a funny lingo, you know; I guess it’s Polack—­but I got enough to know what he meant, and more, too.”

“Can he do anything?”

“I don’t think so.  If we get after him, it’ll just set him worse’n pig’s bristles.  A man like that’ll lose his head over nothing.  He may be all right in the morning.”

But Hilda, after Max had given her the whole conversation as nearly as he could remember it, thought differently.  She did not speak her mind out to Max, because she was not yet certain what was the best course to take.  The man could easily make trouble, she saw that.  But if Max were to lay the matter before Bannon, he would be likely to glide over some of the details that she had got only by close questioning.  And a blunder in handling it might be fatal to the elevator, so far as getting it done in December was concerned.  Perhaps she took it too seriously; for she was beginning, in spite of herself, to give a great deal of thought to the work and to Bannon.  At any rate, she lay awake later than usual that night, going over the problem, and she brought it up, the next morning, the first time that Bannon came into the office after Max had gone out.