"Mary hardly ever dresses any more," she said as she came down the stairs, "so I feel I have to do double duty."
On the bottom landing she stopped and with extravagant motions of her body sang the opening lines of the Bedouin's Love Song, Wally joining in at last with his plaintive, passionate tenor.
"If you ever lose your money, Wally," she said, coming down the remaining stairs, "we'll take up comic opera." Curtseying low she simpered, "My lord!" and gave him her hand to kiss.
"She knows how to handle men," thought Mary watching, "just as the women at the factory know how to handle metal. I wonder if it comes natural to her, or if she studies it by herself, or if she learned any of it at Miss Parsons'."
She was interrupted by a message from Hutchins, the butler. The spread of the strike had been flashed out by the news association early in the afternoon, and the eight-ten train had brought a company of reporters.
"There are half a dozen of them," said Hutchins, noble in voice and deportment. "Knowing your kindness to them before, I took the liberty of showing them into the library. Do you care to see them, or shall I tell them you are out?"
Mary saw them and they greeted her like old friends. It didn't take long to confirm the news of the strike's extension.
"How many men are out now?" one of them asked.
"About fifteen hundred."
"What are you going to do when you have used up all your local women?" asked another.