Mather smiled. "We were all good friends in those days."
The man went away, and Judith asked as much as she dared. "How does it seem to be so in demand?"
"I'm not so sure how much in demand I am," he replied, and then spoke of other things.
She thought that he was avoiding the subject, and told herself that he did not need her any more. Far away were those days when he sought her advice—and this thought made her sigh occasionally over her work. The tasks grew harder as she felt herself left out; she became eager to do more than merely study, feeling that, with so much going on around her, she was nothing.
One night when Mather came he spoke for a while with Pease privately, then hurried away without waiting to see the others. Judith had put her books away; now she took them again, and went into the dining-room to work. But she could not fix her mind on her figures, and after a while she said aloud in the room: "A month ago when he came to see me I would not stop work to speak with him. Now when he comes I put away my books, but he does not wait."
Then she heard Pease speaking with Beth in the parlour, and heard George's name coupled with Ellis's. So Beth was learning all about the plans! Smothering a sudden jealousy, Judith determined to go and ask what had been said, yet at the door her resolution failed her, and she turned back. Let others know, she would go without—and she applied herself to her figures until her head swam with them. She went unhappily to bed and lay there thinking.
Through her loneliness was rising a dread of Ellis as an overhanging menace; she began to fear that he would defeat Mather a second time. Ellis's sinister force began to oppress her, not only as a cause of general evil, but also as threatening disaster to that friend whose value, even whose excellence, her anxieties were teaching her to acknowledge. As Judith's thoughts dwelt on the man in whom, without brilliance or the stamp of genius, there was nothing false, nothing base or mean, and nothing hidden, Ellis seemed like an enemy who, once successful against herself, was slowly approaching for an attack on Mather—an enemy whose skill she knew, whose resources she feared, and whose mercy she doubted. Dreading thus for Mather, she began to tremble also for herself: she was in Ellis's debt so deep that only a miracle could ever clear her, while every day was rolling up the interest against her. Where would this end?
And through her dread increased her loneliness. Looking for help, she found that she must depend solely upon herself. Day by day she had learned how small were her powers beside the immense energies of the city. The definite fear of Ellis suggested still other calamities, vague, hid in the impenetrable future; there was no misfortune which fate could not bring upon her, no defense which she could interpose. She was alone—and suddenly she began to long for companionship, the fellowship which some one could give, which some one once offered, which then she had refused, but which now seemed more precious than anything in the world.
Thus Judith, in her trouble, was unmindful of the power which still was hers, and ignorant of the revenge which she was to take for all of her misfortunes. For though she felt herself so weak, it was she, and she alone, who brought on Ellis the strike which his supporters were so anxious to prevent.
On a morning, the consequences of whose events were to reach far, going as usual to her school she passed Ellis in the street. Faltering and shocked, he stood still while she passed. He had not seen her since the night of her rejection of him, and the change in her was startling. She was in black, had grown thin and pale, and her spirited carriage had changed to the walk of weariness, yet her beauty of face shone out the clearer, and still she was a picture which men turned to watch. She did not notice Ellis, but passed with face set, eyes looking far away, absorbed in thought. When she had gone from his sight Ellis hurried to his offices and locked himself in the inner room. There for an hour he walked up and down, up and down.