“We've gone on double turn. I rather like it at night. It's—well, it's like something on the stage. The sparks fly from the lathes, and they look like fireworks. And when they hammer on hot metal it's lovely.”
She talked on, incoherent but glowing. She liked her big turret lathe. It gave her a sense of power. She liked to see the rough metal growing smooth and shining like silver under her hands. She was naively pleased that she was doing a man's work, and doing it well.
Audrey leaned back in her chair and listened. All this that Clare was talking about was Clayton's doing. He at least had dreamed true. He was doing a man's part, too, in the war. Even this girl, whose hand Natalie Spencer would not have touched, this girl was dreaming true.
Clare was still talking. The draft would be hard on the plant. They were short-handed now. There was talk of taking in more girls to replace the men who would be called.
“Do you think I could operate a lathe, Clare?”
“You! Why, Mrs. Valentine, it's not work for a lady! Look at my hands.”
But Audrey made an impatient gesture.
“I don't care about my hands. The question is, could I do it? I don't seem able to do anything else.”
“Why, yes.” Clare was reluctant. “I can, and you're a lot cleverer than I am. But it's hard. It's rough, and some of the talk—oh, I hope you don't mean it, Mrs. Valentine.”
Audrey, however, was meaning it. It seemed to her, all at once, the way out. Here was work, needed work. Work that she could do. For the first time in months she blessed the golf and riding that had kept her fit.