“Well, here I am.  I heard the explosion, and came.”

“The explosion!  The strike!” she exclaimed; suddenly enlightened.  “Now I remember!  You said something about Hampton being nitro-glycerine—­human nitro-glycerine.  You predicted this strike.”

“Did I? perhaps I did,” he assented.  “Maybe you suggested the idea.”

“I suggested it!  Oh no, I didn’t—­it was new to me, it frightened me at the time, but it started me thinking about a lot of things that had never occurred to me.”

“You might have suggested the idea without intending to, you know.  There are certain people who inspire prophecies—­perhaps you are one.”

His tone was playful, but she was quick to grasp at an inference—­since his glance was fixed on the red button she wore.

“You meant that I would explode, too!”

“Oh no—­nothing so terrible as that,” he disclaimed.  “And yet most of us have explosives stored away inside of us—­instincts, impulses and all that sort of thing that won’t stand too much bottling-up.”

“Yes, I’ve joined the strike.”  She spoke somewhat challengingly, though she had an uneasy feeling that defiance was somewhat out of place with him.  “I suppose you think it strange, since I’m not a foreigner and haven’t worked in the mills.  But I don’t see why that should make any difference if you believe that the workers haven’t had a chance.”

“No difference,” he agreed, pleasantly, “no difference at all.”

“Don’t you sympathize with the strikers?” she insisted.  “Or—­are you on the other side, the side of the capitalists?”

“I?  I’m a spectator—­an innocent bystander.”

“You don’t sympathize with the workers?” she cried.

“Indeed I do.  I sympathize with everybody.”

“With the capitalists?”

“Why not?”

“Why not?  Because they’ve had everything their own way, they’ve exploited the workers, deceived and oppressed them, taken all the profits.”  She was using glibly her newly acquired labour terminology.

“Isn’t that a pretty good reason for sympathizing with them?” he inquired.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I should think it might be difficult to be happy and have done all that.  At any rate, it isn’t my notion of happiness.  Is it yours?”

For a moment she considered this.

“No—­not exactly,” she admitted.  “But they seem happy,” she insisted vehemently, “they have everything they want and they do exactly as they please without considering anybody except themselves.  What do they care how many they starve and make miserable?  You—­you don’t know, you can’t know what it is to be driven and used and flung away!”

Almost in tears, she did not notice his puzzled yet sympathetic glance.

“The operatives, the workers create all the wealth, and the capitalists take it from them, from their wives and children.”

“Now I know what you’ve been doing,” he said accusingly.  “You’ve been studying economics.”