"No," Elizabeth interrupted her mother. "You don't see. None of you can see. It wasn't because he wouldn't let Dick go. It was because that one act of his revealed his true nature, his real self; showed me that he isn't a man, but a machine; not a human being, but a prosecutor; he's an institution, and one can't marry an institution, you know," she concluded oddly.
"Elizabeth!" said Mrs. Ward. "That doesn't sound quite ladylike or nice!"
Elizabeth laughed lightly now, in the content that came with the new happiness that was glowing within her.
XXXIII
Curly Jackson was hurrying along Race Street, glad of his old friend, the darkness, that in February had begun to gather at five o'clock. He passed a factory, a tall, ugly building of brick, and in the light of the incandescent lamps he could see the faces of the machinists bent over the glistening machines. Curly looked at these workmen, thought of their toil, of the homes they would go to presently, of the wives that would be waiting, and the children--suddenly a whistle blew, the roar of machinery subsided, whirred, hummed and died away; a glad, spontaneous shout went up from the factory, and, in another minute, a regiment of men in overalls and caps, begrimed and greasy, burst into the street and went trooping off in the twilight. The scene moved Curly profoundly; he longed for some touch of this humanity, for the fellowship of these working-men, for some one to slap his back, and, in mere animal spirits and joy at release, sprint a race for half a block with him.
Curly felt that these workmen were like him, at least, in one respect, they were as glad to be released from the factory as he had been half an hour before to be released from the jail. He had left the jail, but he was not free. Inside the jail he had the sympathy and understanding of his fellows; here he had nothing but hatred and suspicion. Even these men trooping along beside him and, to his joy, brushing against him now and then, would have scorned and avoided him had they known he was just released from prison. There was no work for him among them, and his only freedom lay still in the fields, the woods, and along the highways of gravel and of iron.
"Well," he thought, grinding his teeth bitterly, "they'll have to pay toll now!"
He found Gibbs in his back room, alone, and evidently in a gloomy mood. Gibbs stretched his hand across the table.
"Well, Curly, I'm glad to see some one in luck."
"You're right, Dan, my luck's good. I'm no hoodoo. To be in the way I was and have your pal topped, to make a clear lamas--that looks like good luck to me."