Willie clung to his idea. “But don’t you see. It’s all worked out just the same, just as if they had planned it on purpose. It’s the second time they have cost the Mills thousands of dollars.”
This, somehow, Mrs. Harrison found herself unable to deny.
“Tell me,” she said presently. “How did they appear to take it?... Lily and Irene?”
Willie was once more fumbling with the ruby clasp. “I don’t know. Irene wasn’t even dressed in mourning. She had on the same old gray suit and black hat. She looked like a crow. As for Lily, she was able to smile when she spoke to me. But you can’t tell how she feels about anything. She always smiles.”
After this little speech Willie rose and began to move about the room, fingering nervously the sparsely placed ornaments—a picture of himself as an anemic child with long, yellow curls, a heavy brass inkwell, a small copy in marble of the tomb of Scipio Africanus, the single memento of a voyage to Rome. He drifted over toward the window and drew aside the curtain to look out into the storm.
XLVI
ALL this time his mother, her vast bulk immovable beneath the mountainous sheets, followed him with her eyes. She must have recognized the symptoms, for presently she broke the way.
“Have you anything you want to say?” she asked.
Willie moved back to the bed and for a time stood in silence fingering the carving of the footboard. He cleared his throat as if to speak but only fell silent again. When at last he was able to say what was in his mind, he did so without looking up. He behaved as though the carving held for him the most profound interest.
“Yes,” he said gently, “I want to say that I’m going to get out of the Mills. I hate them. I’ve always hated them. I’m no good at it!” To forestall her interruptions he rushed on with his speech. The sight of his mother lying helpless appeared to endow him with a sudden desperate courage. She was unable to stop him. He even raised his head and faced her squarely. “I don’t like this strike. I don’t like the fighting. I want to be an ordinary, simple man who could walk through Halsted street in safety. I want to be left alone.”