"Better go, sir," said a nurse. "He's hurting himself."
Bonbright gazed at her blankly. "How can I go?" he asked. "He won't believe me. He's got to believe me…."
"You lie!… you lie!…" Hammil cried. "I won't talk to you…. My lawyer'll—do my talkin'."
Bonbright paused a moment. Then he saw it would do no good to remain. The man's mind was poisoned against him; was unable to conceive of a man in Bonbright's place meaning him otherwise than treachery…. It went deeper than suspicion of an individual; it was suspicion of a class.
"I'll do what I promised, Jim…. That'll prove it to you."
"You—lie…. You lie…" the man called after him, and Bonbright heard the words repeated again and again as he walked down the long corridor.
CHAPTER XXXI
Bonbright worked feverishly. These were the best days he had known since he left college, but they were not happy days. He could not forget Ruth—the best he could do was to prevent himself from remembering too much, and so he worked. He demanded of himself more than it is in a single man to give, but he accomplished an astonishingly large part of it. Day and night he drove himself without relaxation and without pause. If he stopped, the old feeling of emptiness, of the futility of his existence, and the bitterness of his fortune returned. His nature might have become warped, but for the labor.
The building of the new shops he left to Mershon, knowing himself incompetent. He knew what sort of shops he wanted; Mershon knew how to produce them, and Mershon was dependable. Bonbright had implicit confidence in the engineer's ability and integrity, and it was justified. The new mills were rising….
Bonbright's part in that was enough to keep one man occupied, for, however much he might leave to Mershon, there were countless details that he must decide; innumerable points to be referred to him and discussed. But his chief interest was not in producing a plant to manufacture engines, but in producing a crew of men to operate the plant; not merely hiring capable workingmen, but producing a condition where himself and those working-men would be in accord; where the men would be satisfied, happy in their work; a condition millennial in that the known as labor unrest should be eliminated. He had set himself to find a solution to the age-old problem of capital and labor….