“Something went wrong overhead; the operator got rattled or somebody was late in his duties and fouled the machinery; anyhow, the converter dumped too soon.  Men were working directly underneath, father among the rest.  Being so young, I had no idea of what it all meant at the time—­but the memory stuck.  I saw him go down under a stream of liquid steel—­”

Lorelei’s horrified exclamation went unnoticed; Lilas’s voice was shrill.

“Yes.  He was blotted out, right there before my eyes, in an instant.  In the time it takes to snap your finger, he—­and the others—­were gone, changed into smoke, into absolute nothingness.  One moment he was whole, alive, flesh and bone, the next he didn’t exist; tons of boiling metal ran over the spot.  Nothing in the world was ever so horrible.  You’ve never seen liquid steel nor felt the awful breath of it, have you?  There wasn’t even a funeral.  Twelve men, twelve pinches of ashes, were lost somewhere, swallowed up in that mass—­nothing more.  There was no insurance, and nobody took the blame.  Another Jew family, a few more widowed and fatherless foreigners, among that army, meant nothing.  Scarcely a month went by without accidents of some sort.

“The shock finished mother, for she was emotional and she had imagination, too.  I’ve never forgotten that day, nor the figure of that shouting, swearing man who came through the Bessemer mill crying for more speed, more speed, more speed—­so that a broom could be hoisted on a halyard and so that other men in other cities, for one short month, could point to him with envy.

“I suppose I was too little to make any foolish vows of vengeance, for I was only a ragged mite of a child among a horde of slaves, but when I grew older I often dreamed of having that man in my power, and—­making him suffer.  Who would—­who could have imagined that I’d ever be living on money wrung from the labor of men like my father, and be in a position to meet that man on an equal footing? I never did—­not in my wildest moments, and yet—­here I am.  Steel-money bought these books, these rugs and paintings.  Any one of those pictures represents the wages of a lifetime for a man like my father.  He was murdered, so was my mother—­but things are queer.  Anyhow, here I am, rich—­and the day of reckoning gets closer all the time.”

She ended with an abruptness that evidenced her agitation.  Rising, she jerked a beaded chain that depended from the center lamp, and the room was flooded with mellow light; then she drew out the table drawer at her guest’s elbow, and with shaking hands selected a small box from the confusion within.  Lorelei recoiled at the sight of a revolver half hidden among the disorder.

“Goodness!  I hope it isn’t loaded,” the latter exclaimed.  “Your story gives me the creeps and that thing—­seems to fit in.”

“It’s loaded, all right.  I keep it for protection,” Lilas explained, carelessly, then rang for the Jap.  She opened the box, which contained several compartments, in one of which was a package of white powder, in another a silver tablespoon.  When the obedient Hitchy Koo appeared she ordered a glass of water.