"To yourself," she said, quickly.
"To THEM—and to the—the future…. But I bucked them off once. Maybe they'll never ride so hard again, and maybe they'll try to break me by riding harder…. Until to-day I never had a notion of fighting back—but I'm going to give them a job of it now…. There are things I WILL do. They sha'n't always have their way. Right now, Miss Frazer, I've broken with the whole thing. They may be able to fetch me back. I don't know…. Sometime I'll have to go. When father's through I'd have to go, anyhow—to head the business."
"Your father ought to change the name of the business to Family Ghosts,
Incorporated," she said, with an attempt to lighten his seriousness.
"I'll be general manager—responsible to a board of directors from across the Styx," he said, with an approach to a smile. "Here's our waiter. I telephoned our order. Hope I've chosen to please you."
"Indeed you have," she replied. "I feel quite the aristocrat. I ought not to do this sort of thing…. But I'm glad to do it once. I abhor the rich," she said, laughing, "but some of the things they do and have are mighty pleasant."
After a while she said: "If I were a rich man's wife I'd be something more than a society gadabout. I'd insist on knowing his business… and I'd make him do a lot of things for his workmen. Think of being a woman and able to do so much for thousands of—of my class," she finished.
"Your class!" he said, sharply.
"I belong to the laboring class. First, because I was born into it, and, second, because my heart is with it."
"Class doesn't touch you. It doesn't concern you. You're YOURSELF." For the first time in her acquaintance with him he made her uneasy. His eyes and the way he spoke those sentences disturbed her.
"Nonsense!" she said.