Chapter II

Martin, the lame man, had been brought from Lyons by Mr. Denison, the silk manufacturer, apparently under the most favorable conditions. In the silk factory in New Jersey he had proven himself a most skillful dyer. The Denison wares came to be noted for their likeness to the Lyonese goods, and in a short time, through their similarity to the imported ones, surpassed all that had hitherto been made on this side of the ocean. For this reason the goddess, Fortune, added continually to the Denison stock of worldly treasures.

But the continued pressure of the long workdays began to call forth loud remonstrances from the workmen in the Denison factory. Martin, generally looked upon as being responsible for the improvement in the product, was, consequently, hated as being the indirect cause of that pressure.

"I'll be damned if I work a day longer for such beggarly wages!" cried a red-headed Irishman one day, bringing his fist down on the dye-tub with an angry look.

"I can't blame him; he's in the right of it!" answered a second workman.

"A twelve-hour day, and such hard work at that!" cried a third one, leaving his work-bench.

"Right you are!" exclaimed all the others, rolling up their sleeves aggressively.

"If the boss doesn't give us an eight-hour day and higher wages, we quit tomorrow, eh, boys?" cried the angry Irishman, his nose turning from red to purple in his excitement.

Martin had been endeavoring, with ever-increasing earnestness, to calm the excited minds of the workmen, but all that he had been able to say to this end had been laughed to scorn. The next morning he was the only one who appeared at the factory.

At ten o'clock came a deputation of the employees to the office of the manufacturer. Mr. Denison was perfectly willing to agree to a raise in wages, but he would hear nothing of an eight-hour workday, even at the risk of having to stop work for an indefinite period. Orders were coming in day by day. The busy season had just opened and the shutting down of the works would have meant a considerable loss to the manufacturer.

Accordingly, Martin received orders to engage new workmen at once and set them going at their different tasks. The strikers no sooner became aware of this than they began to cast angry glances at Martin.

"Our places to be taken by others?" cried the red-headed Irishman to Martin, in a voice choked with rage, as the latter, weary and worn, prepared to take his way homeward.

"The dog of a foreigner is to blame for it all!" said another with threatening gestures.

This was the beginning. The whole of the brutal crew fell upon Martin, and soon left him lying senseless on the ground. In this state he was carried home. His wife, an intelligent woman, the daughter of a doctor in Basle, and his four children, wept loudly, as the beloved father was carried unconscious into the house. The help of a physician was soon at hand and after a thorough examination a fracture was discovered in the upper part of the right thigh.

The poor wife tended her unfortunate husband with the entire self-sacrifice of a true woman, keeping up the house as long as possible with what little money she could painfully scrape together.

The eldest son, a youth of twenty-four, who, having regard to his manifest talent, had educated himself to be a painter, was unfortunately unable to find employment just at this time, in spite of his diligent and anxious search for it. To the serious financial situation was added the bitter recognition of the fact that the condition of the beloved sufferer was daily growing worse.

Despair seized the unhappy family. The head of the firm was the only person from whom they might expect help. Accordingly Mrs. Martin decided to go to him as soon as possible, since the factory was to be closed for an indefinite time.

Shyly and hesitatingly she entered the office. The thought of having to confess her dire poverty brought a flood of red to her thin face. No one was in the office but a clerk. To the question as to whether she could see Mr. Denison he answered with a contemptuous laugh that Mr. Denison had more important business on hand that day, and was visible to no one. Her urgent entreaty to be allowed to see him if only for a moment was in vain. The clerk rudely showed her the door.

During this conversation, Lucy, the recently betrothed daughter of the manufacturer, sat listening in an adjoining room. The continued disturbances at the factory had caused her so much anxiety that she had insisted upon accompanying her father to the works, which she had scarcely visited before since her return from Germany. She had studied for two years at a school in Leipzig, and through the intellectual treasures of German literature and art she had become conversant with nobler pleasures than those which proved so attractive to Mr. Elmore, her _fiance_. Her aspirations for high and beautiful ideals found rich satisfaction in the finer and more artistic pursuits.

She was sitting thoughtfully by the window, looking out at the grey clouds that chased each other across the sky like a troop of headless ghosts. Her profile was, perhaps, lacking in the classic lines which esthetic laws prescribe for beauty; but a rich spiritual life gave an indescribable charm to her pale countenance.

Her large, meditative eyes seemed shadowed today by a deep melancholy. However she tried to fix her thoughts on George Elmore, the companion of her childhood, to whom, at her parents' wish she had engaged herself, today she found it impossible. Always there arose from the depths of her memory the face of a shy, gentle youth with light, curling hair and deep searching eyes, and the vision made her tremble.

Chance had made them acquainted at the Art School. She had been trying, unsuccessfully, to reproduce the luminous expression of a saint. Her neighbor, watching her conflict with her difficult task, showed, in his shy fashion, his willingness to be of use to her. With a few strokes of his brush he succeeded in catching the desired expression, and at the same time gave her in a hesitating voice an explanation of the picture, and its purpose. He spoke of the light effects which he considered an erroneous conception on the part of the painter, while the next picture, belonging in part to the school of Rembrandt, reached a happier effect from the depths of the shadows in one place and the heightening of the light in another.

From that time on they worked for hours side by side, he explaining the lights and shadows of each picture with such fullness of comprehension, such a thorough knowledge of history, literature, and art, as to make a deep impression on her mind. Her two years' sojourn in Germany had not been able to efface these art-school recollections. She did not know his name, to say nothing of his social position and still--she could not forget--even now she thought of him--even now his picture thrust itself between her and her _fiance_.

Involuntarily she sprang to her feet to escape those torturing thoughts. Her attention was caught by the sound of low sobbing. She was able to observe through a crack in the partition the distress of poor Mrs. Martin, as the clerk refused her admittance into the manufacturer's private office.

Broken with discouragement and suffering, Mrs. Martin had scarcely closed the door behind her when Lucy entered the office.

"Who is that sobbing woman?" she asked hastily of the clerk.

"That woman? She is the wife of the former foreman, whom--the strikers--handled somewhat roughly," he answered, hesitatingly, dropping his malicious eyes.

"She wished to speak to papa, didn't she? Why didn't you let her in?" she demanded, frowning.

"Because I had strict orders not to let anyone in today," he replied shortly, suppressing his rebellious feelings.

"Then I must hurry after the poor woman and ask her if there is anything I can do for her," murmured Lucy with quick decision, taking up her hat and cape from an adjoining room.

"I suppose the distinguished Mr. Martin's last dollar's gone," sneered the clerk after her in an Irish accent.