“I can’t, to-night,” she said.  “I must go home—­my mother is all alone.  But I want to help, I want to do something.”

They were standing on a corner, under a street lamp.  And she averted her eyes from his glance.

“Then come to-morrow,” he said eagerly.  “You know where Headquarters is, in the Franco-Belgian Hall?”

“What could I do?” she asked.

“You?  You could help in many ways—­among the women.  Do you know what picketing is?”

“You mean keeping the operatives out of the mills?”

“Yes, in the morning, when they go to work.  And out of the Chippering Mill, especially.  Ditmar, the agent of that mill, is the ablest of the lot, I’m told.  He’s the man we want to cripple.”

“Cripple!” exclaimed Janet.

“Oh, I don’t mean to harm him personally.”  Rolfe did not seem to notice her tone.  “But he intends to crush the strike, and I understand he’s importing scabs here to finish out an order—­a big order.  If it weren’t for him, we’d have an easier fight; he stiffens up the others.  There’s always one man like that, in every place.  And what we want to do is to make him shut down, especially.”

“I see,” said Janet.

“You’ll come to Headquarters?” Rolfe repeated.

“Yes, I’ll come, to-morrow,” she promised.

After she had left him she walked rapidly through several streets, not heeding her direction—­such was the driving power of the new ideas he had given her.  Certain words and phrases he had spoken rang in her head, and like martial music kept pace with her steps.  She strove to remember all that he had said, to grasp its purport; and because it seemed recondite, cosmic, it appealed to her and excited her the more.  And he, the man himself, had exerted a kind of hypnotic force that partially had paralyzed her faculties and aroused her fears while still in his presence:  her first feeling in escaping had been one of relief—­and then she began to regret not having gone to Headquarters.  Hadn’t she been foolish?  In the retrospect, the elements in him that had disturbed her were less disquieting, his intellectual fascination was enhanced:  and in that very emancipation from cant and convention, characteristic of the Order to which he belonged, had lain much of his charm.  She had attracted him as a woman, there was no denying that.  He, who had studied and travelled and known life in many lands, had discerned in her, Janet Bumpus, some quality to make him desire her, acknowledge her as a comrade!  Tremblingly she exulted in the possession of that quality —­whatever it might be.  Ditmar, too, had perceived it!  He had not known how to value it.  With this thought came a flaming suggestion—­Ditmar should see her with this man Rolfe, she would make him scorch with the fires of jealousy.  Ditmar should know that she had joined his enemies, the Industrial Workers of the World.  Of the world!  Her shackles had been cast off at last!...  And then, suddenly, she felt tired.  The prospect of returning to Fillmore Street, to the silent flat—­made the more silent by her mother’s tragic presence—­overwhelmed her.  The ache in her heart began to throb again.  How could she wait until the dawn of another day?...