"You don't look unhappy, Nellie."
"Things have been much better the last few years."
"Is he kind to you?"
"Not always, Howard. He doesn't drink now, so that is over. And I think there are no other women. But when things go wrong I suffer, of course." She stared past him toward the open window.
"Why don't you leave him?"
"I couldn't go home, Howard. You know what it would be. Worse than Lily. And I'm too old to start out by myself. My habits are formed, and besides, I--" She checked herself.
"I could take a house somewhere for both of you, Lily and yourself," he said eagerly; "that would be a wonderful way out for everybody."
She shook her head.
"We'll manage all right," she said. "I'll make Lily comfortable and as happy as I can."
He felt that he had to make his own case clear, or he might have noticed with what care she was choosing her words. His father's age, his unconscious dependence on Grace, his certainty to retire soon from the arbitrary stand he had taken. Elinor hardly heard him. Months afterwards he was to remember the distant look in her eyes, a sort of half-frightened determination, but he was self-engrossed just then.
"I can't persuade you?" he finished.
"No. But it is good of you to think of it."
"You know what the actual trouble was last night? It was not her coming here."
"I know, Howard."
"Don't let her marry him, Nellie! Better than any one, you ought to know what that would mean."
"I knew too, Howard, but I did it."
In the end he went away not greatly comforted, to fight his own battles, to meet committees from the union, and having met them, to find himself facing the fact that, driven by some strange urge he could not understand, the leaders wished a strike. There were times when he wondered what would happen if he should suddenly yield every point, make every concession. They would only make further demands, he felt. They seemed determined to put him out of business. If only he could have dealt with the men directly, instead of with their paid representatives, he felt that he would get somewhere. But always, interposed between himself and his workmen, was this barrier of their own erecting.
It was like representative government. It did not always represent. It, too, was founded on representation in good faith; but there was not always good faith. The union system was wrong. It was like politics. The few handled the many. The union, with its all-powerful leaders, was only another form of autocracy. It was Prussian. Yet the ideal behind the union was sound enough.