"Then," she shrugged her shoulders. He hated to see the bitter smile on these childishly curved lips. "Then I had no father, and I had no money, all because Mr. Machi had wanted to take a gambler's chance to increase his millions. But he kept his motor and his villa, and we, whose money he had used, we kept nothing. Then I remembered what my father had so often told me, and then I decided that I would do what I could to help the poor against the rich, to do my share to put an end to a government which allows such things, that cares only for the plutocrats. So I got a job in a silk filature. I might have done better, of course, but I wanted to see first what the life of the workers was like, and I had no money, anyway, so it made no difference.
"I thought I would begin cautiously; so I found a position in one of the Ohara 'model mills.' I thought I was lucky. Of course, I didn't like the looks of the high board fence that surrounded the whole place and made it appear like a prison; and it was a prison, too, I soon found out. They never let us out except on what they called 'excursions' and then there were always guards with us. They made a great fuss about these excursions, but the fact is that most of us stayed home to sleep—we could never get enough sleep—and then they scolded us and said we were lazy and ungrateful. It was the same way with the flower garden and the tennis courts that they were always showing visitors—for it was a model factory, you remember. It is true, we had the right to use them, but we almost never did; we were too tired, we never had the time. We wanted to sleep, just rest.
"There were hundreds of girls in the factory, most of them young, who had come there because they had been shown pictures of these fine flower gardens and tennis courts and thought they would have a much nicer time than they had on the farms or in the tenements where they came from. I worked in a room with over a hundred girls, taking the silk from the cocoons from the boiling water in great big kettles and winding it on machines. We couldn't sit down and we couldn't speak or hear others speak. We couldn't even look up from our task. The boiling kettles made the heat almost unbearable and the stench from the pupæ was nauseating. My head ached most of the time, and we had to work from four in the morning until seven at night. Of course, I always wanted to sleep, and I was lucky that it was a model factory, for the dormitory was clean, even though there were sixteen of us in each room; and we were allowed a full tatami, a mat six by three, you know, each. But even there the futon were thin and hard like boards. There had been sheets once, some of the older girls said, but some had been stolen by girls leaving the factory, so they had done away with sheets.
"I became just like an animal, only thinking of time to rest. I had heard how in other factories the girls sometimes got better conditions by banding together or by complaining. In one of the textile mills the girls composed a song about the hem of the silk crepe shift of Mrs. Ohara being dyed crimson with blood from working girls' fingers, and I thought I would like to make up songs like that, do something to bring the girls together, but I was too weak to think. Sometimes I was afraid I might get consumption, as so many of the working girls do, but if we were sick, they only scolded us and said we were shamming. I was sorry I had come there, but I couldn't get away till my time was up. That's what the fence was for. The food was poor, but I didn't mind that so much, for poor food costs very little, and I had decided to save my money so when I got out I might go to typewriter school."
Again she paused. She was looking straight at Kent; he could almost feel her gaze, as were she trying to look into his mind, appraising him.
"You poor, dear girl," he tried to draw her closer. The thought of that frail, sweet beauty being cooped up in that steaming hell that she had depicted incensed him, made him want to take her in his arms and hold her, protect her, comfort her. But she waved him aside impatiently.
"Hugh-san, don't caress me. I am going to tell you something I have never told any one, and then, Hugh-san, you'll understand why you and I can never be more than this, just friends. Maybe you won't want to be even that then, but I'm going to tell you." There was an uncanny high pitch of excitement in her voice. She was becoming overwrought, possibly a little hysterical. He tried to quiet her. "No, Sadako-san, don't think of these things. They are all over now. I don't want to hear any more about all that. I shall take care of you and protect you."
"But you must hear." He could feel the small hands lying in his clench tightly as she fought for self-control. She looked straight into his eyes. "In that factory the Oharas themselves never came, but they had a banto, a young clerk, who came often to look after the business. Once when I was so sick that I had not been able to drag myself to work, he inspected the dormitory and found me alone there. He was very kind. We talked and we became very friendly. He said he felt sorry for me, that I was different from the other girls and that he would get me better work. And he did. I got a job in the office, and gradually things became better with me. I saw him often then; and, Hugh-san," by an effort of will she was keeping her gaze straight into his, "I came to think that I loved him.
"Then one night, it was fine moonlight, and I walked out into the garden. My work was not so hard, and I didn't have to think of sleep always. There had been a little party over at the head overseer's house, and that man, the man I'm telling you about, came back from there, through the garden. He saw me. He had been drinking sake, but he was not drunk, and I was always glad to see him, and I ran up to him. But he just took me in his arms roughly, and pulled me over into the shadow and forced me down on the ground, and—oh, Hugh-san——" Her eyes wavered, fell. She threw herself forward, on his shoulder, voice half-smothered, sobbing. "And I had really loved him. There in that horrible factory, he had been good to me, and had helped me, and he was the only one in the world who cared for me, and—and I think that if he had only held me gently, and spoken softly to me and loved me,—yes, Hugh-san, I think I should have done anything he wanted. But now I hated him, even more than I would have hated any other man, and I shall always hate him.
"And that's one more reason why I shall always hate capital and its men, and that's why I have made friends with those who feel like I do, the Socialists, the Communists and all those, the young men in Tokyo, the labor leaders, the anti-militarists. That's why I finally managed to get into Viscount Kikuchi's office, so I might learn all I could about what they are doing, the bureaucrats and the plutocrats—and, Hugh-san, that's the reason that I can't love you."