t in his factory, was one to command
respect. Even if he did not like him personally, it was a great thing to
work under him, to have his approval, to be trusted by him.

When Quin went up to his room at eleven o'clock, his head was whirling
with statistics and other newly acquired facts, which he spent an hour
recording in his note-book.

It was not until he went to bed and lay staring into the darkness that
the mental tumult subsided and the moral tumult began. The questions that
he had resolutely kept in abeyance all evening began to dance in impish
insistence before him. What right had he to take Shields's place, when he
had said exactly the things that Shields had been fired for saying? Did
he want to go the way Shields had gone, compromising with his conscience
in order to keep his job, ashamed to face his fellow man, cringing,
remorseful, unhappy?

Then Mr. Bangs's arguments came back to him, specious, practical,
convincing. Business was like politics; you could keep out if you didn't
like it, but if you went in you must play the game as others played it or
lose out. Five hundred a month! Why, a fellow wouldn't be ashamed to ask
even a rich girl to marry him on that! The thought was balm to his pride.

As he lay there thinking, he was conscious of a disturbing sound in the
adjoining room, and he lifted his head to listen. It sounded like some
one crying--not a violent outburst, but the hopeless, steady sobbing of
despair. His thoughts flew back to that blue scarf on the porch, to the
inquiry about an extra seat at the table. They were true, then, those
rumors about the lonely, unhappy woman whom Mr. Bangs had kept a virtual
prisoner for years. Quin wondered if she was young, if she was pretty. A
fierce sympathy for her seized him as he listened to her sobs on the
other side of the wall. What a beast a man was to put a woman in a
position like that!

His wrath, thus kindled, threw Mr. Bangs's other characteristics into
startling relief. He saw him at the head of his firm, hated and despised
by every employee. He saw him deceiving Madam Bartlett, sneering at Mr.
Ranny's efforts at reform, terrorizing little Miss Leaks. Then he had a
swift and relentless vision of himself in his new position, a well
trained automaton, expected to execute Mr. Bangs's orders not only in the
factory but in the Bartlett household as well.

He tossed restlessly on his pillow. If only that woman would stop crying,
perhaps he could g