Kind! Mather's fingers itched for Jim's collar. Perhaps he had intended no harm with the girl, but such things went easily from bad to worse. And what had he been doing with the money? But the only real reason for complaint lay in the new system of fortnightly pay. Mather concluded that he would wait till Saturday; then he would come down, see the men paid, and have it out with Jim.
[CHAPTER XXI]
Ellis Takes His Last Step but One
It was midwinter, in the full swing of social events, yet Judith had been withdrawing herself more and more from what was going on. She disliked people's talk; besides, her interest in mere frivolity was growing less, fixing itself with proportionate keenness upon Ellis's affairs.
For Ellis came continually oftener, and at last she had begun to look forward to his visits. More than one of his interests had been growing complicated; he told her of them freely. Most of all, the street-railway matter promised trouble from the threatened strike.
On the evening of Ellis's and the Colonel's third exchange of note and check Ellis came to see Judith; she was very ready for a talk. It pleased and flattered him to see the flash of the eye lighting up her beauty, the eagerness with which she led him to the familiar subject. "Stunning!" he thought to himself. "Is she dressed up so for me?" The handsome gown, the few but valuable jewels—and the face! "Soon!" he said to himself confidently. Meanwhile, step by step!
He had planned the next one carefully, spending on it more thought than on many of his great strokes in politics or business. She was more on his mind than ever, partly because, as a woman, she was a strange problem to him; partly, however, because his interest in her was growing steadily deeper, and to win her was becoming constantly of greater moment. The unnamed emotion still increasing in him, he explained it by the fact that it was impossible for him to be contented as he once was, in the days when he drove without rest at his politics or business, having nothing to look forward to at the day's end, and with only the dull set of common-minded men as his companions. How far finer was Judith than they! Though he still feared her idealism, it gave him a sense of the worth of beauty and refinement. And that other faculty in her, to appreciate his material achievements, was not only a stimulus which he felt had become indispensable, but was also the susceptibility by which he hoped to win her. Aiming all his powers at that weakness, and looking back on the occasion when the mere sight of Mather was enough to capture Judith's attention from him, Ellis planned so to raise her interest in himself that it would permit of no interruption.