"It's a foreman's job I'm after," returned Johnson, glancing about.
The debate continued, but in the end Johnson's name went in to Mr. Baxter, and Johnson himself soon followed it. When he came out Mr. Baxter's information was as complete as Buck Foley's.
That evening Johnson's news came into the conversation of Mr. Baxter and his wife. After dinner she drew him into the library—a real library, booked to the ceiling on three sides, an open wood fire on the other—to tell him of a talk she had had that day with chance-met Ruth. With an aunt's privilege she had asked about the state of affairs between her and Mr. Berman.
"There's no telling what she's going to do," Mrs. Baxter went on, with a gentle sigh. "I do hope she'll marry him! People are still talking about her strange behavior in leaving us to go to work. How I did try to persuade her not to do it! I knew it would involve us in a scandal. And the idea of her offering to go to work in your office!"
Mr. Baxter continued to look abstractedly into the grate, as he had looked ever since she had begun her half-reminiscent strain. Now that she was ended, she could but note that his mind was elsewhere.
"James!"
"Yes." He turned to her with a start.
"Why, you have not spoken a word to me. Is there something on your mind?"
He studied the flames for a moment. "I learned this afternoon that the Iron Workers' Union will probably demand a ten per cent. increase in wages."
"What! And that means a strike?"