She straightened herself, and answered defiantly:
"Probably I have sold you gloves, or socks, or handkerchiefs—certainly not the right to meddle with my personal affairs."
"I went with a San Francisco friend to see a night school for women, which his mother had established. You were there."
"Yes, I was there two winters. Now, sir, have you a police badge hidden inside your coat? Are you playing reporter—disguised as a benevolent gentleman—hunting up the details of last night's meeting and riot at Newark? You know, of course, that I made a speech there?"
"Indeed? I had imagined you sat up all night with your sick boy."
"There is a strike on down there, and I spoke against arbitrating labor grievances, and against the ghastly sham of getting the rights of the poor from a picked judge and a packed jury. Bombs and boycott make the best mill for grinding out justice to starving, over-worked men and women."
"How long have you been an 'anarchist,' or perhaps you prefer the term 'socialist'?"
"From the day I was sixteen years old, and learned how rich men trample and betray and despise and insult the ignorant, helpless poor."
"It must have been a terribly cruel grievance that transformed into a fury one who was intended for a loving, gentle woman."
She laughed, and her beautiful teeth took hold of the glowing under lip.