There was silence in the room and Jim glanced round at the haggard visage of his wife, bending, with tears on her cheeks, over the whimpering child.
"Yes, look!" said the tall man. "That's what you fought for, my lad!"
Jim did not reply. He pressed his hand to his brow as though his brain reeled. The Trade Union leader tried to profit by his silence.
"We're properly up against it—there's no dodging it. Mind you, Jim, I think there's a lot of reason in what Mr. Laurence says."
Ann stood up quickly and faced her husband.
"Jim!" she said, and her voice was firm though her chest heaved with weakness. "You'll do what's right—whatever 'appens!"
Laurence spoke again.
"We're perfectly ready to help—but this is the last time of offering. You know the terms. You're responsible for a good many hundreds of starving families, Swain—they mayn't listen to you much longer, don't forget——"
He was interrupted by fierce shouts in the street below, the reiterated blasts of a motor-horn, the crash of broken glass, a whir of machinery and yet fiercer shouts. All three rushed to the window. Below them a motor-car was stationary in the midst of a surging mob. The chauffeur lay senseless amid the debris of a shattered wind-screen. In the rear seat a youngish man was defending himself vigorously against the rain of blows showered on him by the mob which clambered on to the vehicle.