“Thank you,” he said, involuntarily.

“For what?” she asked, raising her brows.

“For—­why, I’m sure I don’t know,” he said.  “I don’t know why I said that. ...  Will you take some letters, please?”

He began dictating slowly, laboriously.  It was a new work to him, and he went about it clumsily, stopping long between words to arrange his thoughts.  His attention strayed.  He leaned back in his chair, dictation forgotten for the moment, staring at Ruth Frazer without really being conscious of her presence.  She waited patiently.  Presently he leaned forward and addressed a question to her: 

“Did you and Mr. Dulac mention me as you walked home?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Would it be—­impertinent,” he asked, “to inquire what you said?”

She wrinkled her brows to aid recollection.

“Mr. Dulac,” she replied, “wondered what you were up to.  That was how he expressed it.  He thought it was peculiar—­your asking to know him.”

“What did you think?”

“I didn’t think it was peculiar at all.  You”—­she hesitated—­“had been taken sort of by surprise.  Yes, that was it.  And you wanted to know.  I think you acted very naturally.”

“Naturally!” he repeated after her.  “Yes, I guess that must be where I went wrong.  I was natural.  It is not right to be natural.  You should first find how you are expected to act—­how it is planned for you to act.  Yourself—­why, yourself doesn’t count.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Foote?”

“This morning,” he said, bitterly, “cards with my name signed to them have been placed, or will be placed, in every room of the works, notifying the men that if they join a labor union they will be discharged.”

“Why—­why—­”

“I have made a statement that I am against labor unions.”

She looked at him uncomprehendingly, but somehow compelled to sympathize with him.  He had passed through a bitter crisis of some sort, she perceived.

“I am not interested in all those men—­that army of men,” he went on.  “I don’t want to understand them.  I don’t want to come into contact with them.  I just want to sit here in my office and not be bothered by such things. ...  We have managers and superintendents and officials to take care of labor matters.  I don’t want to talk to Dulac about what he means, or why our men feel resentment toward us.  Please tell him I have no interest whatever in such things.”

“Mr. Foote,” she said, gently, “something has happened to you, hasn’t it?  Something that has made you feel bitter and discouraged?”

“Nothing unusual—­in my family—­Miss Frazer.  I’ve just been cut to the Bonbright Foote pattern.  I didn’t fit my groove exactly—­so I was trimmed until I slipped into it.  I’m in now.”

A sudden tumult of shouts and cheers arose in the street under his window; not the sound of a score of voices nor of a hundred, but a sound of great volume.  Ruth looked up, startled, frightened.  Bonbright stepped to the window.  “It’s only eleven o’clock,” he said, “but the men are all coming out. ...  The whistle didn’t blow.  They’re cheering and capering and shaking hands with one another.  What does that mean, do you suppose?”