"It's her affair," muttered Violet as she mounted to the kitchen to finish preparing breakfast. "It's her affair. If she chooses to work two hours on a Monday morning on an empty stomach, I can't help it." And there followed a shamed little thought: "It saves the gas."
When the breakfast tray was ready she slipped off her blue apron. At the bedroom door she set the tray down on the floor and went into the bedroom to put on the mantle which she had already worn that morning as a seamstress in bed. Before taking the tray again she called out to Elsie:
"Your breakfast's all ready for you, Elsie."
Mr. Earlforward was waiting for her at the dining-room table. He wore his overcoat. In this manner, at his instigation, they proved on chilly mornings that they could ignore the outrageous exactions of coal trusts and striking colliers.
"What's that?" demanded Henry with well-acted indifference as he observed an unusual object on the tray.
"It's a boiled egg. It's for you."
"But I don't want an egg. I never eat eggs."
"But I want you to eat this one." She smiled, cajolingly.
Useless! She was asking too much. He would not eat it.
"It'll be wasted if you don't."