“So you see my peace of mind is quite safe.  Mr. Pond is right, of course....”  And then, thinking that this cool distance was rather absurd under the circumstances, she added in a friendlier way:  “But why aren’t you the Director here, instead of Mr. Pond?  I should think you would be, since it’s your Settlement.”

But the result of that was only to bring new stiffness into the strange young man’s manner.

“My Settlement!...  Oh, I beg that you won’t speak or think of it in that way.  I assure you I’ve nothing at all to do with it, other than as one worker out of many.”

Her unwarlike reply was:  “Well, I haven’t told anybody.”

She glanced at him with a touch of bewilderment, and glanced away again, turning toward the door.  Surely he had not always been like this....

“Mr. Avery will think I’m lost,” said Cally.

However, Mr. V.V. successfully checked her departure, saying: 

“I’m sure you can be of the realest help to the Settlement, Miss Heth, if you care to be.”  And, then, veering abruptly, he said with his air of making a plunge:  “But I must take this opportunity to speak to you of another matter.  A matter which, I fear, will be disagreeable to you.”

That sufficiently arrested her; she stood looking at him, with a conflict of sensations within.  Faces of Settlementers appeared in the door, looked in at the bare room, passed from view again.  The tall young man in the new suit pushed back his hair, with the quaint gesture he had.

“You once said,” he continued, in a voice of light hardness, “that I brought you nothing but trouble.  That seems to continue true, though perhaps you won’t regard this as so—­so serious....”

Trouble?  More trouble for Cally Heth?

“Why—­what do you mean?”

“The question of the Heth Works—­has come up again.  That, at least, is the particular application.  Of course many other factories are involved.”

The girl was completely taken aback.  “Why, I don’t understand.  What has come up?”

He then explained himself, in well-ordered sentences: 

“The State Labor Commission feels strongly that the public good demands a new factory law at this time, requiring all owners to conform to a certain higher standard of comfort and safety for their employees.  I must add that I fully share the Commission’s feeling.  It is considered that some publicity in the press is needed, preparing the public mind for a progressive law by showing what present conditions are.  A series of articles has been decided upon, to begin about the first of November and continue daily till the legislature meets in January.  I have agreed to write these articles.  I thought it only fair,” he ended short, “to tell you this.”