He was sitting in their dressing room, smoking his last cigarette as he watched her braid her wonderful hair for the night. She, observing him in the glass, saw that he was looking at her with that yearning for sympathy which is always at its strongest in a man in the mood that was his at sight of those waves and showers of soft black hair on the pallid whiteness of her shoulders. Before he realized what she was about she was in his lap, her arms round his neck, his face pillowed against her cheek and her hair. "What is it, little boy?" she murmured, with that mingling of the mistress and the mother which every woman who ever loved feels for and, at certain times, shows the man she loves. He laughed. "Business--business," said he. "But let's not talk about it. The important thing is that I have _you_. The rest is--smoke!" And he blew out a great cloud of it and threw the cigarette through the open window. "Tell me," she said; "I've been waiting for you to speak, and I can't wait any longer." "I couldn't--just now. It doesn't at all fit in with my thoughts." And he kissed her. She moved to rise. "Then I'll go back to the dressing table. Perhaps you'll be able to tell me with the width of the room between us." He drew her head against his again. "Very well--if I must, I will. But you know all about it. For some mysterious reason, somebody--you say it's Whitney, and probably it is--won't let me buy grain or anything else as cheaply as others buy it. And for the same mysterious reason, somebody, probably Whitney again, won't let me get to market without paying a heavier toll than our competitors pay. And now for some mysterious reason somebody, probably Whitney again, has sent labor organizers from Chicago among the men and has induced them to make impossible demands and to walk out without warning." "And you think there's nothing to do but walk out, too," said Madelene. "Or wait until I'm put out." His tone made those words mean that his desperate situation had roused his combativeness, that he would not give up. Her blood beat faster and her eyes shone. "You'll win," she said, with the quiet confidence which strengthens when it comes from a person whose judgment one has tested and found good. And he believed in her as absolutely as she believed in him. "I've been tempted to resign," he went on. "If I don't everybody'll say I'm a failure when the crash comes. But--Madelene, there's something in me that simply won't let me quit." "There is," replied she; "it's your father." "Anyhow, _you_ are the only public opinion for me." "You'll win," repeated Madelene. "I've been thinking over that whole business. If I were you, Arthur"--she was sitting up so that she could look at him and make her words more impressive--"I'd dismiss strike and freight rates and the mill, and I'd put my whole mind on Whitney. There's a weak spot somewhere in his armor. There always is in a scoundrel's."