“About the throw-in.”

“And did they settle anything?”

“They’re going to try it—­and they’ll come out if it isn’t satisfactory.”

“The butties won’t have it, I know,” she said.  He gave a short laugh, and went on with his meal.

The two children were squatted on the floor by the tree.  They had a wooden box, from which they had taken many little newspaper packets, which they were spreading out like wares.

“Don’t open any.  We won’t open any of them till we’ve taken them all out—­and then we’ll undo one in our turns.  Then we s’ll both undo equal,” Millicent was saying.

“Yes, we’ll take them all out first,” re-echoed Marjory.

“And what are they going to do about Job Arthur Freer?  Do they want him?” A faint smile came on her husband’s face.

“Nay, I don’t know what they want.—­Some of ’em want him—­whether they’re a majority, I don’t know.”

She watched him closely.

“Majority!  I’d give ’em majority.  They want to get rid of you, and make a fool of you, and you want to break your heart over it.  Strikes me you need something to break your heart over.”

He laughed silently.

“Nay,” he said.  “I s’ll never break my heart.”

“You’ll go nearer to it over that, than over anything else:  just because a lot of ignorant monkeys want a monkey of their own sort to do the Union work, and jabber to them, they want to get rid of you, and you eat your heart out about it.  More fool you, that’s all I say—­more fool you.  If you cared for your wife and children half what you care about your Union, you’d be a lot better pleased in the end.  But you care about nothing but a lot of ignorant colliers, who don’t know what they want except it’s more money just for themselves.  Self, self, self—­that’s all it is with them—­and ignorance.”

“You’d rather have self without ignorance?” he said, smiling finely.

“I would, if I’ve got to have it.  But what I should like to see is a man that has thought for others, and isn’t all self and politics.”

Her color had risen, her hand trembled with anger as she sewed.  A blank look had come over the man’s face, as if he did not hear or heed any more.  He drank his tea in a long draught, wiped his moustache with two fingers, and sat looking abstractedly at the children.

They had laid all the little packets on the floor, and Millicent was saying: 

“Now I’ll undo the first, and you can have the second.  I’ll take this—­”

She unwrapped the bit of newspaper and disclosed a silvery ornament for a Christmas tree:  a frail thing like a silver plum, with deep rosy indentations on each side.

“Oh!” she exclaimed.  “Isn’t it lovely!” Her fingers cautiously held the long bubble of silver and glowing rose, cleaving to it with a curious, irritating possession.  The man’s eyes moved away from her.  The lesser child was fumbling with one of the little packets.