"You 're going to marry me, Jeanie, and I 'll start the mill again, and we 'll all be fine—"
"And you 'll gi'e the working people the raises they're entitled to?"
"I will not," he flashed out suddenly, as of old. "They 're entitled to nothing."
"Then I'll ha' nothing to do wi' you." She looked at him calmly. "Nor will this wee fellow. I 'm a working-woman, Aleck, and he 's a working-woman's son. We 're no' your kind."
He saw the baby's face now, crumpled with sleep. Very like an old man's face it seemed to him, and yet there was something indefinably pulling about it.
"The wee workin'-fellow!" There was such a pathetic touch to the idea.
"By God!" he blurted suddenly. "I'll gi'e them the mill!"
She smiled again. "The wee thing then was missing in you, Aleck—I think you got it now. And I 'll marry you, Aleck, just when you say. It's no' too soon," she added simply.
For a minute he was sunk in abstraction while she patted his hand with the old, familiar gesture. He raised his head and spoke with conviction.
"You know, Jeanie, you know, it's queer to think that an hour ago I had no idea of all this. You and thon wee fellow, and the mill's working again and a' right between me and the men. I had made an end, and now there 'll be no end. You know, it seems ordained in a manner of speaking. Ay, as it were, ordained. It does," he said. "It does that. Ay, indeed. It does so."