"I don't think so. The primary is the only chance for a real fight; and the Tennant crowd will stop that in advance. You'll have to brighten up a bit, Mary. You ought to do more entertaining...."
"I'm not very strong, Paul."
His gruff "Nonsense!" was the prelude to the further account of the planned amalgamation with National Steel. "We're still to have control of this district; Florence and I will be elected directors. It had to come; competition is waste; coöperation is the modern method."
His wife sat with her eyes intent upon the melted fragment of colored glass in her hand. She turned it this way and that, up before the fading light, seeking what semblance of the colorful old token of Jackson life remained in it, what part was merely a charred, dead fragment of happier beauty.
"So I thought," he continued, unaware of her absorption, "that we could entertain the visiting gentlemen and their wives at dinner to-morrow evening."
A pinched expression of pain crossed her face. "You have not realized, Paul, that I am frailer this spring than any time since Ned was born...."
"I mean at the Steelmen's Club, not here. It won't be any trouble...."
"I can make the effort."
"You must see Dr. Giles. I had a talk with him about you; he says it's only nerves. If you'd quit thinking about that old fool that shot himself in my office, and those niggers that fooled around the place until they got shot.... There's nothing really wrong with you. Nell must give up the art school; you need someone to look after you."
"She doesn't want to come; she's happier there."