in his eyes she also was but one of those brought into the world to minister to his pleasure and profit.  He had taken from her, as his weed, the most precious thing a woman has to give, and now that she was here again at his side, by some impulse incomprehensible to herself—­in spite of the wrong he had done her!—­had sought him out in danger, he had no thought of her, no word for her, no use save a menial one:  he cared nothing for any help she might be able to give, he had no perception of the new light which had broken within her soul....  The telephoning seemed interminable, yet she waited with a strange patience while he talked with Mr. George Chippering and two of the most influential directors.  These conversations had covered the space of an hour or more.  And perhaps as a result of self-suggestion, of his repeated assurances to Mr. Semple, to Mr. Chippering, and the directors of his ability to control the situation, Ditmar’s habitual self-confidence was gradually restored.  And when at last he hung up the instrument and turned to her, though still furious against the strikers, his voice betrayed the joy of battle, the assurance of victory.

“They can’t bluff me, they’ll have to guess again.  It’s that damned Holster—­he hasn’t any guts—­he’d give in to ’em right now if I’d let him.  It’s the limit the way he turned the Clarendon over to them.  I’ll show him how to put a crimp in ’em if they don’t turn up here to-morrow morning.”

He was so magnificently sure of her sympathy!  She did, not reply, but picked up her coat from the chair where she had laid it.

“Where are you going?” he demanded.  And she replied laconically, “Home.”

“Wait a minute,” he said, rising and taking a step toward her.

“You have an appointment with the Mayor,” she reminded him.

“I know,” he said, glancing at the clock over the door.  “Where have you been?—­where were you this morning?  I was worried about you, I—­I was afraid you might be sick.”

“Were you?” she said.  “I’m all right.  I had business in Boston.”

“Why didn’t you telephone me?  In Boston?” he repeated.

She nodded.  He started forward again, but she avoided him.

“What’s the matter?” he cried.  “I’ve been worried about you all day —­until this damned strike broke loose.  I was afraid something had happened.”

“You might have asked my father,” she said.

“For God’s sake, tell me what’s the matter!”

His desire for her mounted as his conviction grew more acute that something had happened to disturb a relationship which, he had congratulated himself, after many vicissitudes and anxieties had at last been established.  He was conscious, however, of irritation because this whimsical and unanticipated grievance of hers should have developed at the moment when the caprice of his operatives threatened to interfere with his cherished plans—­for Ditmar measured the inconsistencies of humanity by the yardstick of his desires.  Her question as to why he had not made inquiries of her father added a new element to his disquietude.  As he stood thus, worried, exasperated, and perplexed, the fact that there was in her attitude something ominous, dangerous, was slow to dawn on him.  His faculties were wholly unprepared for the blow she struck him.