"No?" McTaggart felt somewhat at a loss. But Jill was plainly absorbed in the simple tragedy. She leaned towards him, elbows planted on the table, her chin propped on her hands, her eyes far away.
"She was such a nice little thing!—I've known her for years. She used to come with her grandmother, who did upholstery work, on Saturday afternoons and give her a hand. She, herself, was employed at a laundry and engaged to the baker even then.
"For five long years they saved all they could and at last they were married and took a tiny house next door to where our charwoman lives. It's not the baker himself, you know, but one of his employés who makes the bread—he's the head man. They were so happy, and then—all this trouble came!
"The 'bakers' went out on strike—d'you remember it?—and, bit by bit, all their savings melted away. The husband was worried out of his life. He couldn't go back on his pals, you see, or find any other job to do; and so at last his wife returned to the laundry and begged for some employment again.
"There happened to be a vacancy in the ironing room just then—far too heavy work for a delicate woman!—but the rate of pay is higher there, so, pluckily, she took it on. She kept this a secret from her husband and gave the latter to understand it was just a matter of light mending, without dangerous exertion. And in this way she earned enough to keep them afloat to the end of the strike. Then she collapsed—broke down utterly!—and her baby was born, before its time. The baker nearly went off his head when the true story leaked out. To think of her, with those heavy irons, on her feet all day in the heat and steam! ... I call her a real heroine." Jill's gray eyes flashed as she spoke, then softened as she added, sadly:
"But the baby died. It hadn't a chance, so the doctor said, and she was so ill. Now she's simply broken-hearted at losing it and can't pick up. I heard about it from our charwoman and promised to go and see her to-day. I must, Peter." Her voice was firm. "You won't mind if I call there first?"
"Of course not——" said McTaggart gravely. He felt a trifle taken aback by this pitiful, sordid chapter of life from the lips of his little friend: a man's discomfort, too, at the thought of her youthful knowledge of matters he deemed better kept from her awhile. He realised with sudden force the outlook, purely practical, of the growing generation of girls. Healthy, but somewhat startling too, this determination to face the facts of life in defiance of old traditions.
Jill still sat there, chin on hands, absorbed in the problem offered to her by this contrast in the life of the poor with that of the well-to-do around him.
Serenely devoid of self-consciousness she looked up suddenly at McTaggart, meeting the kindly blue eyes with a faint trouble in their depths.
"I wish these strikes could be avoided. They seem to bring such misery. I can't understand life at all!—the hopeless suffering involved..." Her voice held a note of rebellion.