that evening, and was struck anew by her beauty and her repose. While
evidently embarrassed, she said nothing in reply to Kathleen, but sat, a
quiet listener, her hands in her lap. The city, he realized, had not yet
taught her to think in flashes or to move in jerks.

"What has Miss Ogilvie to learn from this strike?" the old man asked.
"Didn't you tell me that she had already led one out?"

"Led it out only to leave it," Kathleen answered vehemently. "The girls
are in the street now working to keep their clothes from being snatched
off their backs by a lot of dirty scabs."

Seeing that an explanation was demanded of her, Hertha turned to the
Major and said with a blush, "I am not willing to picket." Then, with
more animation in her manner, she questioned her friend. "You didn't
tell us how your strike ended. What happened after the children went
home?"

"Well, I'm not saying how their fathers and mothers took it, but they
won at the mill all right. The ogre was given another job."

"I'm glad of that," with a pleasant, propitiatory smile; "I was afraid
you had only won a holiday."

But Kathleen would not be cajoled. "No, indeed," she answered; "we got
our rights by standing out for them."

"Don't be a fool, Kitty," the Major remarked abruptly.

Kathleen looked at him, bewildered and aggrieved. Formerly he had been
her champion when in this same room she had been attacked by bourgeois
guests armed with conventional arguments. Then he had spoken more
bitterly than she and had been placed by her among her revolutionists.
For him to turn upon her now was not only unkind but treacherous. What
did she know about him after all, she thought? Only the common talk of
this place where he was accounted one familiar with strange lands who
could speak in any tongue that sounded over Madame's tables.

"You're an old man, Major," she said a little stiffly, "and I was
counting you a good comrade. Maybe you'll show me the folly in saying
that you get your rights by standing out for them."

"You didn't get your rights," was the blunt answer. "When you led the
children out you merely exchanged one foreman for another a little less
brutal. You did not win the sunshine and the fresh air for every day."

"But that has come now," Applebaum said.

Leaning back in his chair, smoking a good cigar, the younger man had
listened tolerantly to the talk. He spoke now, not to defend Kathleen
who, he knew, was a captain in dialectics where