"You can suppose again," she returned, shortly. "If I should marry him, it would be out of pure spite to those women."
"If?"
"Yes, 'if.' Because, when he asked me, I told him No. You weren't counting on that, were you?" And having fired this final shot of contradiction she departed.
After Miss Grierson had driven home from the bank between ten and eleven in the morning, an admiring public saw her no more until just before bank-closing hours in the afternoon. Broffin was among those who made obeisance to her as she passed down Main Street in the basket phaeton between half-past two and three; and a minute later he abandoned his chair on the hotel porch to keep the phaeton in view and to mark its route.
"It's Raymer, all right, and not the other one," he mused when the little vehicle had gone rocketing over the railroad crossing to take the turn toward the Iron Works. "The iron-man is the duck she's tryin' to help out of the labor-rookus. She was over there this morning, and she's goin' there again, right now."
As the phaeton sped along through the over-crossing suburb there were signs of an armistice apparent, even before the battle-field was reached. Pottery Flat was populated again, and the groups of men bunched on the street corners were arguing peacefully. Miss Grierson pulled up at one of the corners and beckoned to the young iron-moulder who had offered to be her horse-holder on the morning visit.
"Anything new, Malcolm?" she asked.
"You bet your sweet life!" said the young moulder, meeting her, as most men did, on a plane of perfect equality and frankness. "We was hoodooed to beat the band, and Mr. Raymer's got us, comin' and goin'. There wasn't no orders from the big Federation, at all; and that crooked guy, Clancy, was a fake!"
"He has gone?" she said.
"He'd better be. If he shows himself 'round here again, there's goin' to be a mix-up."