<h2><SPAN name="IV" id="IV"></SPAN>IV</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">John Amherst</span> was no one-sided idealist. He
felt keenly the growing complexity of the relation
between employer and worker, the seeming hopelessness
of permanently harmonizing their claims, the recurring
necessity of fresh compromises and adjustments.
He hated rant, demagogy, the rash formulating
of emotional theories; and his contempt for bad logic
and subjective judgments led him to regard with distrust
the panaceas offered for the cure of economic<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></SPAN></span>
evils. But his heart ached for the bitter throes with
which the human machine moves on. He felt the
menace of industrial conditions when viewed collectively,
their poignancy when studied in the individual
lives of the toilers among whom his lot was cast; and
clearly as he saw the need of a philosophic survey of
the question, he was sure that only through sympathy
with its personal, human side could a solution be
reached. The disappearance of the old familiar contact
between master and man seemed to him one of the
great wrongs of the new industrial situation. That the
breach must be farther widened by the ultimate substitution
of the stock-company for the individual employer—a
fact obvious to any student of economic tendencies—presented
to Amherst's mind one of the most
painful problems in the scheme of social readjustment.
But it was characteristic of him to dwell rather on the
removal of immediate difficulties than in the contemplation
of those to come, and while the individual employer
was still to be reckoned with, the main thing
was to bring him closer to his workers. Till he entered
personally into their hardships and aspirations—till he
learned what they wanted and why they wanted it—Amherst
believed that no mere law-making, however
enlightened, could create a wholesome relation between
the two.</p>
<p>This feeling was uppermost as he sat with Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></SPAN></span>
Westmore in the carriage which was carrying them to
the mills. He had meant to take the trolley back to
Westmore, but at a murmured word from Mr. Tredegar
Bessy had offered him a seat at her side, leaving
others to follow. This culmination of his hopes—the
unlooked-for chance of a half-hour alone with her—left
Amherst oppressed with the swiftness of the
minutes. He had so much to say—so much to prepare
her for—yet how begin, while he was in utter ignorance
of her character and her point of view, and while
her lovely nearness left him so little chance of perceiving
anything except itself?</p>
<p>But he was not often the victim of his sensations, and
presently there emerged, out of the very consciousness
of her grace and her completeness, a clearer sense of
the conditions which, in a measure, had gone to produce
them. Her dress could not have hung in such
subtle folds, her white chin have nestled in such rich
depths of fur, the pearls in her ears have given back the
light from such pure curves, if thin shoulders in shapeless
gingham had not bent, day in, day out, above the
bobbins and carders, and weary ears throbbed even at
night with the tumult of the looms. Amherst, however,
felt no sensational resentment at the contrast. He
had lived too much with ugliness and want not to believe
in human nature's abiding need of their opposite.
He was glad there was room for such beauty in<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></SPAN></span>
the world, and sure that its purpose was an ameliorating
one, if only it could be used as a beautiful spirit would
use it.</p>
<p>The carriage had turned into one of the nondescript
thoroughfares, half incipient street, half decaying lane,
which dismally linked the mill-village to Hanaford.
Bessy looked out on the ruts, the hoardings, the starved
trees dangling their palsied leaves in the radiant October
light; then she sighed: "What a good day for a
gallop!"</p>
<p>Amherst felt a momentary chill, but the naturalness
of the exclamation disarmed him, and the words called
up thrilling memories of his own college days, when he
had ridden his grandfather's horses in the famous
hunting valley not a hundred miles from Hanaford.</p>
<p>Bessy met his smile with a glow of understanding.
"You like riding too, I'm sure?"</p>
<p>"I used to; but I haven't been in the saddle for
years. Factory managers don't keep hunters," he said
laughing.</p>
<p>Her murmur of embarrassment showed that she took
this as an apologetic allusion to his reduced condition,
and in his haste to correct this impression he added:
"If I regretted anything in my other life, it would certainly
be a gallop on a day like this; but I chose my
trade deliberately, and I've never been sorry for my
choice."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>He had hardly spoken when he felt the inappropriateness
of this avowal; but her prompt response showed
him, a moment later, that it was, after all, the straightest
way to his end.</p>
<p>"You find the work interesting? I'm sure it must
be. You'll think me very ignorant—my husband and
I came here so seldom...I feel as if I ought to
know so much more about it," she explained.</p>
<p>At last the note for which he waited had been struck.
"Won't you try to—now you're here? There's so
much worth knowing," he broke out impetuously.</p>
<p>Mrs. Westmore coloured, but rather with surprise
than displeasure. "I'm very stupid—I've no head for
business—but I will try to," she said.</p>
<p>"It's not business that I mean; it's the personal
relation—just the thing the business point of view
leaves out. Financially, I don't suppose your mills
could be better run; but there are over seven hundred
women working in them, and there's so much to be
done, just for them and their children."</p>
<p>He caught a faint hint of withdrawal in her tone.
"I have always understood that Mr. Truscomb did
everything——"</p>
<p>Amherst flushed; but he was beyond caring for the
personal rebuff. "Do you leave it to your little girl's
nurses to do everything for her?" he asked.</p>
<p>Her surprise seemed about to verge on annoyance:<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></SPAN></span>
he saw the preliminary ruffling of the woman who is
put to the trouble of defending her dignity. "Really,
I don't see—" she began with distant politeness; then
her face changed and melted, and again her blood
spoke for her before her lips.</p>
<p>"I am glad you told me that, Mr. Amherst. Of
course I want to do whatever I can. I should like you
to point out everything——"</p>
<p>Amherst's resolve had been taken while she spoke.
He <i>would</i> point out everything, would stretch his opportunity
to its limit. All thoughts of personal prudence
were flung to the winds—her blush and tone had
routed the waiting policy. He would declare war on
Truscomb at once, and take the chance of dismissal.
At least, before he went he would have brought this
exquisite creature face to face with the wrongs from
which her luxuries were drawn, and set in motion the
regenerating impulses of indignation and pity. He did
not stop to weigh the permanent advantage of this
course. His only feeling was that the chance would
never again be given him—that if he let her go away,
back to her usual life, with eyes unopened and heart
untouched, there would be no hope of her ever returning.
It was far better that he should leave for good,
and that she should come back, as come back she
must, more and more often, if once she could be made
to feel the crying need of her presence.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>But where was he to begin? How give her even a
glimpse of the packed and intricate situation?</p>
<p>"Mrs. Westmore," he said, "there's no time to
say much now, but before we get to the mills I want
to ask you a favour. If, as you go through them, you
see anything that seems to need explaining, will you
let me come and tell you about it tonight? I say tonight,"
he added, meeting her look of enquiry, "because
later—tomorrow even—I might not have the
chance. There are some things—a good many—in
the management of the mills that Mr. Truscomb
doesn't see as I do. I don't mean business questions:
wages and dividends and so on—those are out of my
province. I speak merely in the line of my own work—my
care of the hands, and what I believe they need
and don't get under the present system. Naturally, if
Mr. Truscomb were well, I shouldn't have had this
chance of putting the case to you; but since it's come
my way, I must seize it and take the consequences."</p>
<p>Even as he spoke, by a swift reaction of thought,
those consequences rose before him in all their seriousness.
It was not only, or chiefly, that he feared to lose
his place; though he knew his mother had not spoken
lightly in instancing the case of the foreman whom
Truscomb, to gratify a personal spite, had for months
kept out of a job in his trade. And there were special
reasons why Amherst should heed her warning. In<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></SPAN></span>
adopting a manual trade, instead of one of the gentlemanly
professions which the men of her family had
always followed, he had not only disappointed her
hopes, and to a great extent thrown away the benefits
of the education she had pinched herself to give him,
but had disturbed all the habits of her life by removing
her from her normal surroundings to the depressing
exile of a factory-settlement. However much he
blamed himself for exacting this sacrifice, it had been
made so cheerfully that the consciousness of it never
clouded his life with his mother; but her self-effacement
made him the more alive to his own obligations,
and having placed her in a difficult situation he had
always been careful not to increase its difficulties by
any imprudence in his conduct toward his employers.
Yet, grave as these considerations were, they were
really less potent than his personal desire to remain at
Westmore. Lightly as he had just resolved to risk the
chance of dismissal, all his future was bound up in the
hope of retaining his place. His heart was in the work
at Westmore, and the fear of not being able to get other
employment was a small factor in his intense desire to
keep his post. What he really wanted was to speak
out, and yet escape the consequences: by some miraculous
reversal of probability to retain his position and
yet effect Truscomb's removal. The idea was so
fantastic that he felt it merely as a quickening of all his<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></SPAN></span>
activities, a tremendous pressure of will along undetermined
lines. He had no wish to take the manager's
place; but his dream was to see Truscomb superseded
by a man of the new school, in sympathy with the
awakening social movement—a man sufficiently practical
to "run" the mills successfully, yet imaginative
enough to regard that task as the least of his duties.
He saw the promise of such a man in Louis Duplain,
the overseer who boarded with Mrs. Amherst: a young
fellow of Alsatian extraction, a mill-hand from childhood,
who had worked at his trade in Europe as well
as in America, and who united with more manual skill,
and a greater nearness to the workman's standpoint,
all Amherst's enthusiasm for the experiments in social
betterment that were making in some of the English
and continental factories. His strongest wish was to
see such a man as Duplain in control at Westmore
before he himself turned to the larger work which he
had begun to see before him as the sequel to his factory-training.</p>
<p>All these thoughts swept through him in the instant's
pause before Mrs. Westmore, responding to his last
appeal, said with a graceful eagerness: "Yes, you must
come tonight. I want to hear all you can tell me—and
if there is anything wrong you must show me how
I can make it better."</p>
<p>"I'll show her, and Truscomb shan't turn me out<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></SPAN></span>
for it," was the vow he passionately registered as
the carriage drew up at the office-door of the main
building.</p>
<p>How this impossible result was to be achieved he
had no farther time to consider, for in another moment
the rest of the party had entered the factory with
them, and speech was followed up in the roar of the
machinery.</p>
<p>Amherst's zeal for his cause was always quickened
by the sight of the mills in action. He loved the work
itself as much as he hated the conditions under which
it was done; and he longed to see on the operatives'
faces something of the ardour that lit up his own when
he entered the work-rooms. It was this passion for
machinery that at school had turned him from his
books, at college had drawn him to the courses least
in the line of his destined profession; and it always
seized on him afresh when he was face to face with the
monstrous energies of the mills. It was not only the
sense of power that thrilled him—he felt a beauty in
the ordered activity of the whole intricate organism,
in the rhythm of dancing bobbins and revolving cards,
the swift continuous outpour of doublers and ribbon-laps,
the steady ripple of the long ply-frames, the terrible
gnashing play of the looms—all these varying
subordinate motions, gathered up into the throb of
the great engines which fed the giant's arteries, and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></SPAN></span>
were in turn ruled by the invisible action of quick
thought and obedient hands, always produced in Amherst
a responsive rush of life.</p>
<p>He knew this sensation was too specialized to affect
his companions; but he expected Mrs. Westmore to
be all the more alive to the other side—the dark side of
monotonous human toil, of the banquet of flesh and
blood and brain perpetually served up to the monster
whose insatiable jaws the looms so grimly typified.
Truscomb, as he had told her, was a good manager
from the profit-taking standpoint. Since it was profitable
to keep the machinery in order, he maintained
throughout the factory a high standard of mechanical
supervision, except where one or two favoured overseers—for
Truscomb was given to favoritism—shirked
the duties of their departments. But it was of the essence
of Truscomb's policy—and not the least of the
qualities which made him a "paying" manager—that
he saved money scrupulously where its outlay would
not have resulted in larger earnings. To keep the
floors scrubbed, the cotton-dust swept up, the rooms
freshly whitewashed and well-ventilated, far from adding
the smallest fraction to the quarterly dividends,
would have deducted from them the slight cost of this
additional labour; and Truscomb therefore economized
on scrubbers, sweepers and window-washers, and on
all expenses connected with improved ventilation and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></SPAN></span>
other hygienic precautions. Though the whole factory
was over-crowded, the newest buildings were more
carefully planned, and had the usual sanitary improvements;
but the old mills had been left in their original
state, and even those most recently built were fast
lapsing into squalor. It was no wonder, therefore, that
workers imprisoned within such walls should reflect
their long hours of deadening toil in dull eyes and
anæmic skins, and in the dreary lassitude with which
they bent to their tasks.</p>
<p>Surely, Amherst argued, Mrs. Westmore must feel
this; must feel it all the more keenly, coming from an
atmosphere so different, from a life where, as he instinctively
divined, all was in harmony with her own
graceful person. But a deep disappointment awaited
him. He was still under the spell of their last moments
in the carriage, when her face and voice had promised
so much, when she had seemed so deeply, if vaguely,
stirred by his appeal. But as they passed from one resounding
room to the other—from the dull throb of the
carding-room, the groan of the ply-frames, the long
steady pound of the slashers, back to the angry shriek
of the fierce unappeasable looms—the light faded from
her eyes and she looked merely bewildered and stunned.</p>
<p>Amherst, hardened to the din of the factory, could
not measure its effect on nerves accustomed to the
subdued sounds and spacious stillnesses which are the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></SPAN></span>
last refinement of luxury. Habit had made him unconscious
of that malicious multiplication and subdivision
of noise that kept every point of consciousness
vibrating to a different note, so that while one set of
nerves was torn as with pincers by the dominant scream
of the looms, others were thrilled with a separate pain
by the ceaseless accompaniment of drumming, hissing,
grating and crashing that shook the great building.
Amherst felt this tumult only as part of the atmosphere
of the mills; and to ears trained like his own he could
make his voice heard without difficulty. But his
attempts at speech were unintelligible to Mrs. Westmore
and her companions, and after vainly trying to
communicate with him by signs they hurried on as if
to escape as quickly as possible from the pursuing
whirlwind.</p>
<p>Amherst could not allow for the depressing effect of
this enforced silence. He did not see that if Bessy
could have questioned him the currents of sympathy
might have remained open between them, whereas,
compelled to walk in silence through interminable
ranks of meaningless machines, to which the human
workers seemed mere automatic appendages, she lost
all perception of what the scene meant. He had
forgotten, too, that the swift apprehension of suffering
in others is as much the result of training as the immediate
perception of beauty. Both perceptions may be<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></SPAN></span>
inborn, but if they are not they can be developed only
through the discipline of experience.</p>
<p>"That girl in the hospital would have seen it all,"
he reflected, as the vision of Miss Brent's small incisive
profile rose before him; but the next moment he caught
the light on Mrs. Westmore's hair, as she bent above a
card, and the paler image faded like a late moon in
the sunrise.</p>
<p>Meanwhile Mrs. Ansell, seeing that the detailed inspection
of the buildings was as trying to Mr. Langhope's
lameness as to his daughter's nerves, had proposed
to turn back with him and drive to Mrs. Amherst's,
where he might leave her to call while the
others were completing their rounds. It was one of Mrs.
Ansell's gifts to detect the first symptoms of <i>ennui</i> in her
companions, and produce a remedy as patly as old ladies
whisk out a scent-bottle or a cough-lozenge; and Mr.
Langhope's look of relief showed the timeliness of her
suggestion.</p>
<p>Amherst was too preoccupied to wonder how his
mother would take this visit; but he welcomed Mr.
Langhope's departure, hoping that the withdrawal of
his ironic smile would leave his daughter open to gentler
influences. Mr. Tredegar, meanwhile, was projecting
his dry glance over the scene, trying to converse by
signs with the overseers of the different rooms, and
pausing now and then to contemplate, not so much the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></SPAN></span>
workers themselves as the special tasks which engaged
them.</p>
<p>How these spectators of the party's progress were
affected by Mrs. Westmore's appearance, even Amherst,
for all his sympathy with their views, could
not detect. They knew that she was the new owner,
that a disproportionate amount of the result of their
toil would in future pass through her hands, spread
carpets for her steps, and hang a setting of beauty about
her eyes; but the knowledge seemed to produce no
special interest in her personality. A change of employer
was not likely to make any change in their lot:
their welfare would probably continue to depend on
Truscomb's favour. The men hardly raised their
heads as Mrs. Westmore passed; the women stared,
but with curiosity rather than interest; and Amherst
could not tell whether their sullenness reacted on Mrs.
Westmore, or whether they were unconsciously chilled
by her indifference. The result was the same: the
distance between them seemed to increase instead of
diminishing; and he smiled ironically to think of the
form his appeal had taken—"If you see anything that
seems to need explaining." Why, she saw nothing—nothing
but the greasy floor under her feet, the cotton-dust
in her eyes, the dizzy incomprehensible whirring
of innumerable belts and wheels! Once out of it all,
she would make haste to forget the dreary scene<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></SPAN></span>
without pausing to ask for any explanation of its
dreariness.</p>
<p>In the intensity of his disappointment he sought a
pretext to cut short the tour of the buildings, that he
might remove his eyes from the face he had so vainly
watched for any sign of awakening. And then, as he
despaired of it, the change came.</p>
<p>They had entered the principal carding-room, and
were half-way down its long central passage, when Mr.
Tredegar, who led the procession, paused before one
of the cards.</p>
<p>"What's that?" he asked, pointing to a ragged strip
of black cloth tied conspicuously to the frame of the
card.</p>
<p>The overseer of the room, a florid young man with
dissipated eyes, who, at Amherst's signal, had attached
himself to the party, stopped short and turned a furious
glance on the surrounding operatives.</p>
<p>"What in hell...? It's the first I seen of it," he
exclaimed, making an ineffectual attempt to snatch the
mourning emblem from its place.</p>
<p>At the same instant the midday whistle boomed
through the building, and at the signal the machinery
stopped, and silence fell on the mills. The more distant
workers at once left their posts to catch up the
hats and coats heaped untidily in the corners; but
those nearer by, attracted by the commotion around<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></SPAN></span>
the card, stood spell-bound, fixing the visitors with a
dull stare.</p>
<p>Amherst had reddened to the roots of his hair. He
knew in a flash what the token signified, and the sight
stirred his pity; but it also jarred on his strong sense of
discipline, and he turned sternly to the operatives.</p>
<p>"What does this mean?"</p>
<p>There was a short silence; then one of the hands, a thin
bent man with mystic eyes, raised his head and spoke.</p>
<p>"We done that for Dillon," he said.</p>
<p>Amherst's glance swept the crowded faces. "But
Dillon was not killed," he exclaimed, while the overseer,
drawing out his pen-knife, ripped off the cloth and
tossed it contemptuously into a heap of cotton-refuse
at his feet.</p>
<p>"Might better ha' been," came from another hand;
and a deep "That's so" of corroboration ran through
the knot of workers.</p>
<p>Amherst felt a touch on his arm, and met Mrs. Westmore's
eyes. "What has happened? What do they
mean?" she asked in a startled voice.</p>
<p>"There was an accident here two days ago: a man
got caught in the card behind him, and his right hand
was badly crushed."</p>
<p>Mr. Tredegar intervened with his dry note of command.
"How serious is the accident? How did it
happen?" he enquired.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Through the man's own carelessness—ask the
manager," the overseer interposed before Amherst
could answer.</p>
<p>A deep murmur of dissent ran through the crowd,
but Amherst, without noticing the overseer's reply,
said to Mr. Tredegar: "He's at the Hope Hospital.
He will lose his hand, and probably the whole arm."</p>
<p>He had not meant to add this last phrase. However
strongly his sympathies were aroused, it was against his
rule, at such a time, to say anything which might inflame
the quick passions of the workers: he had meant
to make light of the accident, and dismiss the operatives
with a sharp word of reproof. But Mrs. Westmore's
face was close to his: he saw the pity in her
eyes, and feared, if he checked its expression, that he
might never again have the chance of calling it forth.</p>
<p>"His right arm? How terrible! But then he will
never be able to work again!" she exclaimed, in all the
horror of a first confrontation with the inexorable fate
of the poor.</p>
<p>Her eyes turned from Amherst and rested on the
faces pressing about her. There were many women's
faces among them—the faces of fagged middle-age, and
of sallow sedentary girlhood. For the first time Mrs.
Westmore seemed to feel the bond of blood between
herself and these dim creatures of the underworld: as
Amherst watched her the lovely miracle was wrought.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></SPAN></span>
Her pallour gave way to a quick rush of colour, her
eyes widened like a frightened child's, and two tears
rose and rolled slowly down her face.</p>
<p>"Oh, why wasn't I told? Is he married? Has he
children? What does it matter whose fault it was?"
she cried, her questions pouring out disconnectedly on
a wave of anger and compassion.</p>
<p>"It warn't his fault.... The cards are too close.... It'll
happen again.... He's got three kids at
home," broke from the operatives; and suddenly a
voice exclaimed "Here's his wife now," and the crowd
divided to make way for Mrs. Dillon, who, passing
through the farther end of the room, had been waylaid
and dragged toward the group.</p>
<p>She hung back, shrinking from the murderous machine,
which she beheld for the first time since her
husband's accident; then she saw Amherst, guessed
the identity of the lady at his side, and flushed up to
her haggard forehead. Mrs. Dillon had been good-looking
in her earlier youth, and sufficient prettiness
lingered in her hollow-cheeked face to show how much
more had been sacrificed to sickness and unwholesome
toil.</p>
<p>"Oh, ma'am, ma'am, it warn't Jim's fault—there
ain't a steadier man living. The cards is too crowded,"
she sobbed out.</p>
<p>Some of the other women began to cry: a wave of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></SPAN></span>
sympathy ran through the circle, and Mrs. Westmore
moved forward with an answering exclamation. "You
poor creature...you poor creature...." She opened
her arms to Mrs. Dillon, and the scrubber's sobs were
buried on her employer's breast.</p>
<p>"I will go to the hospital—I will come and see you—I
will see that everything is done," Bessy reiterated.
"But why are you here? How is it that you have had
to leave your children?" She freed herself to turn a
reproachful glance on Amherst. "You don't mean to
tell me that, at such a time, you keep the poor woman
at work?"</p>
<p>"Mrs. Dillon has not been working here lately,"
Amherst answered. "The manager took her back to-day
at her own request, that she might earn something
while her husband was in hospital."</p>
<p>Mrs. Westmore's eyes shone indignantly. "Earn
something? But surely——"</p>
<p>She met a silencing look from Mr. Tredegar, who had
stepped between Mrs. Dillon and herself.</p>
<p>"My dear child, no one doubts—none of these good
people doubt—that you will look into the case, and do
all you can to alleviate it; but let me suggest that this
is hardly the place——"</p>
<p>She turned from him with an appealing glance at
Amherst.</p>
<p>"I think," the latter said, as their eyes met, "that<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></SPAN></span>
you had better let me dismiss the hands: they have
only an hour at midday."</p>
<p>She signed her assent, and he turned to the operatives
and said quietly: "You have heard Mrs. Westmore's
promise; now take yourselves off, and give her
a clear way to the stairs."</p>
<p>They dropped back, and Mr. Tredegar drew Bessy's
arm through his; but as he began to move away she
turned and laid her hand on Mrs. Dillon's shoulder.</p>
<p>"You must not stay here—you must go back to the
children. I will make it right with Mr. Truscomb,"
she said in a reassuring whisper; then, through her
tears, she smiled a farewell at the lingering knot of
operatives, and followed her companions to the
door.</p>
<p>In silence they descended the many stairs and crossed
the shabby unfenced grass-plot between the mills and
the manager's office. It was not till they reached the
carriage that Mrs. Westmore spoke.</p>
<p>"But Maria is waiting for us—we must call for her!"
she said, rousing herself; and as Amherst opened the
carriage-door she added: "You will show us the way?
You will drive with us?"</p>
<p>During the drive Bessy remained silent, as if re-absorbed
in the distress of the scene she had just witnessed;
and Amherst found himself automatically answering
Mr. Tredegar's questions, while his own mind<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></SPAN></span>
had no room for anything but the sense of her tremulous
lips and of her eyes enlarged by tears. He had
been too much engrossed in the momentous issues of
her visit to the mills to remember that she had promised
to call at his mother's for Mrs. Ansell; but now
that they were on their way thither he found himself
wishing that the visit might have been avoided. He
was too proud of his mother to feel any doubt of the
impression she would produce; but what would Mrs.
Westmore think of their way of living, of the cheap
jauntiness of the cottage, and the smell of cooking penetrating
all its thin partitions? Duplain, too, would be
coming in for dinner; and Amherst, in spite of his liking
for the young overseer, became conscious of a
rather overbearing freedom in his manner, the kind of
misplaced ease which the new-made American affects
as the readiest sign of equality. All these trifles, usually
non-existent or supremely indifferent to Amherst, now
assumed a sudden importance, behind which he detected
the uneasy desire that Mrs. Westmore should not regard
him as less of her own class than his connections and
his bringing-up entitled him to be thought. In a flash
he saw what he had forfeited by his choice of a calling—equal
contact with the little circle of people who gave
life its crowning grace and facility; and the next moment
he was blushing at this reversal of his standards,
and wondering, almost contemptuously, what could be<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></SPAN></span>
the nature of the woman whose mere presence could
produce such a change.</p>
<p>But there was no struggling against her influence;
and as, the night before, he had looked at Westmore
with the nurse's eyes, so he now found himself seeing
his house as it must appear to Mrs. Westmore. He
noticed the shabby yellow paint of the palings, the neglected
garden of their neighbour, the week's wash
flaunting itself indecently through the denuded shrubs
about the kitchen porch; and as he admitted his companions
to the narrow passage he was assailed by the
expected whiff of "boiled dinner," with which the steam
of wash-tubs was intimately mingled.</p>
<p>Duplain was in the passage; he had just come out
of the kitchen, and the fact that he had been washing
his hands in the sink was made evident by his rolled-back
shirt-sleeves, and by the shiny redness of the
knuckles he was running through his stiff black hair.</p>
<p>"Hallo, John," he said, in his aggressive voice, which
rose abruptly at sight of Amherst's companions; and
at the same moment the frowsy maid-of-all-work,
crimson from stooping over the kitchen stove, thrust
her head out to call after him: "See here, Mr. Duplain,
don't you leave your cravat laying round in my
dough."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></SPAN></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />