"Either capital gets its fair remuneration"—he went on in an argumentative voice—"and ability its fair wages—or the Marxian state, labour-notes, and the rest of it. There is no half-way house—absolutely none. As for me, I am not going to lend my capital for nothing—nor to give my superintendence for nothing. And I don't ask exorbitant pay for either. It is quite simple. My conscience is quite clear."
"I should think so!" said Letty, resentfully. "I wonder whether Marcella—is all for the men? She has never mentioned the strike in her letters."
As the Christian name slipped out, she flushed, and he was conscious of a curious start. But the breaking through of a long reticence was deliberate on Letty's part.
"Very likely she is all for the men," he said drily, after a pause. "She never could take a strike calmly. Her instinct always was to catch hold of any stick that could beat the employers—Watton and I used often to tease her about it."
He threw himself back against the sofa, with a little laugh that was musical in Letty's ear. It was the first time that Lady Maxwell's name had been mentioned between them in this trivial, ordinary way. The young wife sat alert and straight at her work, her cheek still pink, her eyes bright.
But after a silence, George suddenly sprang up to pace the little room, and she heard him say, under his breath, "But who am I, that I should be coercing them and trampling on them!—men old enough to be my father—driving them down to-morrow—while I sleep—for a dog's wage!"
"George, what is the matter with you?" she cried, looking at him in real anxiety.
"Nothing! nothing!—Darling, who's ill? I saw the old doctor on the road home, and he threw me a word as he passed about having been here—looked quite jolly over it. What's wrong—one of the servants?"
Letty put down her work upon her knee and her hands upon it. She grew red and pale; then she turned away from him, pressing her face into the back of her chair.
He flew to her, and she murmured in his ear.