“If there must be packing, I am ready to help, father.”
“I’m afraid that’s all there’s left to do, dear. But we’re not going to show the white feather, are we? I’ve just been planning a lovely little tour on the Continent for you and me, where we shall forget, for a time, that there is such an ugly thing as a strike in the whole world. You’ll be a princess, and I’ll be the old dethroned king; they always went to the Continent, you know, after a defeat.”
Sartwell’s attempt at banter was a gloomy failure, and he avoided his daughter’s eye, pretending to be sorting out some papers. She saw how hard hit he was, and the tears came into her eyes.
“Is the directors’ meeting over?” she asked at last.
“No. They are in there yet, arranging the terms of surrender—or hardly that, for there are no terms. They simply give the men all they ask—which, of course, they might have done a month ago, and saved all this bother. I knew how it would be when they heard about the ship lying unloaded in Australia. There was not an ounce of fight left in them, and I felt sure a blow dealt so far away would appeal to what little imagination any of them has. It seems to them decisive, but of course it is nothing of the kind. It is merely a theatrical bit of by-play that should have no bearing on the result. But there is little use in kicking against fate. They are at this moment engaged in writing out their letter of capitulation—as if it made any difference how you worded an acknowledgment of defeat and a surrender of your interests to a lot of ignorant, beer-drinking boors who don’t——but what is the use of cursing? Another week of this indecision would have demoralized me; in fact, I think it has done so already, for I don’t generally growl.”
“Will you come home with me, father?”
“No, my dear. I shouldn’t have let you come all this distance merely to hear what we both knew this morning. Run along home, like a good little girl, and don’t sit up for me to-night. I’ll be late. Of course, in spite of my scolding, I’ll stay till the last dog’s hung. I’ll see the thing through, and wave the white flag myself. It wouldn’t be quite the thing, you know, to have all the fun of the fight and then funk the submission. I merely came into this room because you were due at six, and to rest my nerves a bit. I’m going back to the directors, and will write the letter of surrender myself; for they will never summon up courage enough to do even that if I am not at their elbows. I’m going down with the ship, my girl, pretending I like it; so off you go, Edna, and we’ll feel all right about it next week——perhaps.”
Haggard as he looked the night before, Edna now noticed, with a thrill of fear, that for the first time he seemed an old man. His usually well-set shoulders were bent, and even his neatly-fitting clothes hung loosely about him. The hesitation and the tone in which he said the last word, “perhaps,” showed her like an electric flash what was in his own mind, and what had never occurred to her before,—that when he was suddenly wrenched away from the task that had been his life’s work, he would break up in idleness like a useless hulk on the rocks.
“Father,” she cried, “don’t let them send that letter till to-morrow. A day more or less makes no difference, and they will keep it back if you ask them to.”
Sartwell shook his head.