Wemyss struggles with some speech about his indifference to the birthplace of the rose he wears; but Flossie is not hearing him; her eyes wander over the arid, unsightly factory-yard, the blue pyramids of barrels, and up to the tramways high in the air, and the masts of the iron ships. “Come,” she says; “give the reins to that man there.” Wemyss does as he is bid, and leaves the man with a silver dollar, wondering; and, wondering no less himself, he follows Flossie through the iron maze she seems to know so well. They go up the foul ladder to the summit of the great storage-tank, Wemyss caring for his fine overcoat, and almost sickened with the heavy smell of the crude petroleum, while Flossie’s delicate nostrils dilate as she breathes it in once more. She guides him to the “tail-house,” where the first run of naphtha has just begun, mobile, metallic, with its evil shine. Flossie looks at it closely, and notes, with an adept’s eye, the hour of the run. A few hours more and it will be standard, water-white, as she has made herself; but she with gold, not tested yet with fire. Then she takes him to the spraying-house, where the tested oil lies lazily, girdled by the sun with brilliant rings, fair to look upon as any sylvan spring. This finest oil shall burn in quiet household lamps; it is the naphtha, surface oil, that flies to gas and fire. Mrs. Gower was obstinately silent, going home, while Mr. Wemyss still wondered. They dined together and went to the play; and it was after midnight when he got to his rooms. He had his valet pull his boots off and bring his smoking-jacket; and then, dismissing him, began to cut the pages of the last French novel. “She is capable of anything,” he said to himself, before he had read the first page of his book. “She is a devil,” he added, under his breath, somewhat flattered, somewhat frightened at the thought. CHAPTER XXVII. JEM STARBUCK AMUSES HIMSELF. James Starbuck’s breach with his sister had been a permanent one. He probably had as little affection in his nature as any man you could well find; but what he had was centred in pretty Jenny, and he was both grieved and annoyed by this. He said to himself that his love was given to his brethren, and his work the cause of labor; and certainly he had no love for his master, the great double monopoly of a corporation that employed him, and his maker he deemed a cleverly contrived bogy of the rich. Perhaps it was more his hate of these than even love of his fellow-laborers that really ruled his actions; he recognized no difference among men but riches, and put on these the burden of all their miseries.