Tom knew that the scene he had been expecting so long was now at hand. "Yes," he answered, in a kind of triumphant dread.
She did not speak at once, but stood looking down on him, her throat pulsing, her face puckered in its effort to be immobile. "Well, it was about time something of this sort was happening. You know what I've had to put up with in the last five months. I suppose you think I ought to beg your pardon. But you know what I said, I said because I thought it was to our interest to do that. And you know if we'd done what I said we'd never have seen the hard times we have."
"I suppose not," Tom admitted, with a dull sinking of his heart.
She stood looking down on him for a moment longer, then turned abruptly about and went into the kitchen. These five sentences were her only verbal acknowledgment that she had been wrong, and her only verbal apology. She felt much more than this—grudgingly, she was proud that he had succeeded, she was proud that others praised him, she was pleased at the prospect of better times—but more than this she could not bend to admit.
While Tom lay on the couch reasoning himself into a fuller and fuller understanding of Mr. Baxter's part in last night's events, out in the kitchen Maggie's resentment over having been proved wrong was slowly disappearing under the genial influence of thoughts of the better days ahead. Her mind ran with eagerness over the many things that could be done with the thirty-five dollars a week Tom would get as walking delegate—new dresses, better than she had ever had before; new things for the house; a better table. And she thought of the social elevation Tom's new importance in the union would give her. She forgot her bitterness. She became satisfied; then exultant; then, unconsciously, she began humming.
Presently her new pride had an unexpected gratification. In the midst of her dreams there was a rapping at the hall door. Opening it she found before her a man she had seen only once—Tom had pointed him out to her one Sunday when they had walked on Fifth Avenue—but she recognized him immediately.
"Is Mr. Keating at home?" the man asked.
"Yes." Maggie, awed and embarrassed, led the way into the sitting-room.
"Mr. Keating," said the man, in a quiet, even voice.
"Mr. Baxter!" Tom ejaculated.