“I can’t persuade you?” he finished.

“No.  But it is good of you to think of it.”

“You know what the actual trouble was last night?  It was not her coming here.”

“I know, Howard.”

“Don’t let her marry him, Nellie!  Better than any one, you ought to know what that would mean.”

“I knew too, Howard, but I did it.”

In the end he went away not greatly comforted, to fight his own battles, to meet committees from the union, and having met them, to find himself facing the fact that, driven by some strange urge he could not understand, the leaders wished a strike.  There were times when he wondered what would happen if he should suddenly yield every point, make every concession.  They would only make further demands, he felt.  They seemed determined to put him out of business.  If only he could have dealt with the men directly, instead of with their paid representatives, he felt that he would get somewhere.  But always, interposed between himself and his workmen, was this barrier of their own erecting.

It was like representative government.  It did not always represent.  It, too, was founded on representation in good faith; but there was not always good faith.  The union system was wrong.  It was like politics.  The few handled the many.  The union, with its all-powerful leaders, was only another form of autocracy.  It was Prussian.  Yet the ideal behind the union was sound enough.

He had no quarrel with the union.  He puzzled it out, traveling unaccustomed mental paths.  The country was founded on liberty.  All men were created free and equal.  Free, yes, but equal?  Was not equality a long way ahead along a thorny road?  Men were not equal in the effort they made, nor did equal efforts bring equal result.  If there was class antagonism behind all this unrest, would there not always be those who rose by dint of ceaseless effort?  Equality of opportunity, yes.  Equality of effort and result, no.

To destroy the chance of gain was to put a premium on inertia; to kill ambition; to reduce the high without raising the low.

At noon on the same day Willy Cameron went back to the house on Cardew Way, to find Lily composed and resigned, instead of the militant figure he had expected.  He asked her to go home, and she told him then that she had no longer a home to go to.

“I meant to go, Willy,” she finished.  “I meant to go this morning.  But you see how things are.”

He had stood for a long time, looking at nothing very hard.  “I see,” he said finally.  “Of course your grandfather will be sorry in a day or two, but he may not swallow his pride very soon.”

That rather hurt her.

“What about my pride?” she asked.

“You can afford to be magnanimous with all your life before you.”  Then he faced her.  “Besides, Lily, you’re wrong.  Dead wrong.  You’ve hurt three people, and all you’ve got out of it has been your own way.”