Barry looked at her with uncomprehending eyes.
“Eh?” he said. “I don’t quite get you.”
“Why, they’re bound to destroy him. They’ll do it. That’s a foregone conclusion. It would be vastly better for him to make his peace with them now, to abandon his heresies along with his poor, and save himself from ecclesiastical annihilation. But,” and she looked beyond Barry into some sunlit, splendid distance, “if he does hold out, if he does defy them, if he does go down fighting, he’ll be a hero, like—like his own Jesus Christ.”
The flame was in her cheeks, her eyes were burning, her muscles were tense with the stress of her emotion. Suddenly she changed the subject. She was again calm. Her voice took on its accustomed, musical, well-modulated tones.
“There’s another thing,” she said, “about which I wanted to speak to you.”
Barry started, as if from sleep. Apparently she could cast a spell on him, and waken him from it at her will.
“Eh?” he replied; “how was that?”
“There’s another thing,” she repeated, “about which I wanted to speak to you.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s about your men. I hear they are dissatisfied with the present wage scale, and are going to demand concessions when the agreement expires in January.”