Edna had developed into a beautiful woman; more beautiful, indeed, than she herself had any idea of. She was more sedate and reserved than when she had left home, and more prone to sit thoughtfully, chin in hand, and ponder, with her dreamy eyes trying to peer into the future. Resolutely as she had set herself to put Marsten forever out of her thoughts, she never succeeded, and his vibrant, deep-toned voice often came back to her. Although she had been brought up in a democratic way, and theoretically held that one person was technically as good as another, yet she lived in a country where a grocer’s daughter considers it quite beneath her dignity to be seen in company with a green-grocer’s daughter; while the daughter of a draper, from her serene social altitude, would have some difficulty in distinguishing the relative status of the other two, although she would be well aware that the adjective “green” carried comparative degradation with it. Edna was the daughter of a man who had been a workman; yet, when she thought over the proposal she had received in the school garden, she was slightly shocked to think that a workman should aspire to the hand of his master’s daughter. She had conversed with Marsten, and discussed the problems that had interested them both, yet never for a moment had the thought of equality between them entered her mind. He was merely a workman, and, when that was said, a gulf yawned. But love levels all ranks, as a distinguished man has sung, and, as the young woman meditated on the subject in all its bearings, the social barriers seemed to become less and less tangible. She remembered that no thought of social inequality had ever occurred to her while in his presence. She got no further in the understanding of her own feelings than the conclusion that she liked him very much indeed, and had a strong admiration for his manliness and his determination to succeed.
When the strike came on, and she knew that her father and her lover were opponents, her state of mind was one of great perplexity. It was hard that one or the other must be defeated, and she sighed when she thought of the relentlessness of fate in bringing into savage opposition the two men who were now dearer to her than all the world beside.
As the contest went on and she saw her father bending under the storm, ageing perceptibly day by day, becoming more and more silent, her strong affection for him grew stronger; she yearned towards him, wishing she could comfort him, yet knowing she was helpless. Sometimes a fierce resentment against Marsten would spring suddenly up in her heart. He had all the world to fight against, yet he must choose as his antagonist, out of the many millions, her father. It disconcerted her to perceive that this resentment never lasted long; that she found herself sympathizing too with the younger of the combatants, and making excuses for him. A partisan has an easy time of it in this world, compared with one who sees that all the good or all the bad rarely rests with one side solely, but is interwoven like the cotton and the wool in a piece of cloth. Sartwell and Marsten each believed he was fighting for the right; but Edna saw wrong on both sides and right on both sides, although—once the fight was started—she had not the courage to say this to her father.
But, as war goes on, the original right or wrong almost invariably sinks out of sight, and we choose our side from other considerations than those which appeal in times of peace to thinking beings. He who holds aloof is branded as a traitor: and yet man, with his marvellous capacity for self-esteem, flatters himself that he is a reasoning animal.
Sartwell generally came home late, sometimes returning by the last train. It had come to be recognized that it was Edna’s privilege to sit up for him, and, although he faintly protested once or twice when he found her there after midnight, it was quite evident that her presence was a comfort to him. She had a soothing, restful way with her, moving silently about the room, anticipating a tired man’s needs without unnecessary fuss, and with no irritating questions to ask; yet she was a sympathetic and receptive listener if there was anything to be told. In the wake of some women inanimate nature seems to clash: doors bang, plates fall, cups and saucers clatter, and chairs upset, jangling nerves sensitive to sound; but Edna could deftly set out a supper without so much as a chink of china. She knew the value of trivialities,—the setting of the arm-chair at just the right angle so that the light fell over the shoulder as it should, the placing of the slippers where the stockinged feet fell into them without effort; and, when her father was too much fatigued to care for the formality of sitting up to the festive board late at night, a small gipsy table, covered with spotless linen and some dainty that might tempt the appetite of a Lucullus, would appear at his right elbow as if they had come noiselessly up through the floor. All this came under the general head of “pampering” in Mrs. Sartwell’s vocabulary, and the good woman, finding that her example was of no effect in putting a stop to it, retired early to rest, so that she might not countenance such proceedings by her presence. There was a time to eat and a time to drink, and if a man presumed to be hungry at midnight, it was a sin that should be punished by dyspepsia in this world and goodness knows what in the next.
In spite of the compact between them, Sartwell told his daughter little about the progress of the strike; and she, seeing him indisposed to speak, forbore to question him, feeling that no suggestion she might have to offer could be of any value to him, contenting herself with protecting him from annoyance at home, and cheering him as much as possible whenever she had him to herself. But it wrung her heart to see him failing perceptibly day after day, his step, which she eagerly listened for, losing more and more its selfreliant tread.
One night she sat in his arm-chair waiting for him, thinking deeply. She looked suddenly up with a start, and saw her father standing beside the table gazing down at her. His face was white, gaunt, and haggard, and the gloom of his countenance was deepened rather than relieved by the sombre smile that parted his lips as he regarded her. He seemed like a man on the verge of a serious illness, and so startled was the girl, that for a moment she looked at him with wide-open eyes, fearing that an apparition stood before her.
“Father!” she cried at last, springing to her feet. “What has happened?”
“Nothing, my girl, except that you have been asleep in the chair when you should have been in bed long ago.”
“I don’t think I have been asleep, yet I didn’t hear you open the door. But you are ill.”