Her talks with the Interpreter, the slow forming of the lines of the
approaching industrial struggle, with the sharpening of the contrast
between McIver and John, her acquaintance with Bobby and Maggie,
even--all tended to drive her on in her search for the answer to her
problem.
And so she had been carried to the Martin cottage--to her talk with
John at the old house--to the Mill--to this.
As one may intuitively sense the crisis in a great struggle between
life and death, this woman knew that in this man all her disturbing
life questions were centered. Deep beneath the many changes that her
father's material success in life had brought to her, one unalterable
life fact asserted itself with startling power: It was this man who had
first awakened in her the consciousness of her womanhood. Face to face
with this workman in her father's Mill, she fought to control the
situation.
To all outward appearances she did control it. Her brother saw only a
reserved interest in his workman comrade. Captain Martin saw only the
daughter of his employer who had so coldly preferred her newer friends
to the less pretentious companions of her girlhood.
But beneath the commonplace remarks demanded by the occasion, the Helen
of the old house was struggling for supremacy.
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