"A strike!" she exclaimed.
"So the older men tell me. A little one."
"How can you take it so easily?" she asked.
He smiled. "I think I can meet it. Well, here we are at the gate. Thank you for coming, Judith. Good-by." He started away briskly, then turned back. She was looking at him seriously.
"Here is Jim Wayne coming up the road," he said. "He comes to see Beth?"
"Yes."
"And what of my employer?"
"Poor Mr. Pease!"
"Mr. Pease," repeated Mather. "There it all is in a nutshell. Jim is Jim, twenty-three. Pease is Mr. Pease, forty-five. The young to the young, as Salvation Yeo said. Poor Pease! Good-night again, Judith."
And this time he was off for good, not turning again. Judith returned thoughtfully to the house. He had interested her—turned her back a little toward her real self, her old self. No small part of the effect he had made was caused by his cheerful self-command. Did he love her still? She thought of what he had done for Chebasset. He was very much of a man.