Her flushing cheeks stopped him abruptly; and she had not usually found him easy to stop. "But I didn't think they were disappointing at _all_! Not in the _least_!" The young man's eyes fell. "Oh!" he said, with noticeable embarrassment. "I--only thought that possibly--as you--you had not happened to be in the factory district for--for some time,--that possibly you might be just a little surprised that things weren't--well, prettier. You know, business--" "But I wasn't surprised at all, I've said! I knew exactly what it was like, of course. Just exactly. And I consider the Works--_very pretty_ ... for a factory." She gazed up at him indignantly from beneath a little mushroom hat lined with pink, challenging him to contradict her by look or word. But he swallowed her dare without a quiver.... Good heavens, what girl worth her salt would endure apologies on behalf of her own father, from one so much, much worse than a stranger to her? It may be that V. Vivian liked the lovely Hun the better for that lie. "Well," he said, compounding the felony with a gallant gulp, "I--I'm glad you weren't disappointed--" She could certainly have retired upon that with all the honors, but the fact was that the thought of doing so did not at the moment cross her mind. She found the conversation interesting to a somewhat perilous degree. "I suppose _your_ idea is," she said, and it showed her courage that she could say it, "that a factory ought to be a--a sort of _marble palace_!" "No. Oh, no. No--" "But it _is_ your idea, is it not, that it's my father's duty to take his money and build a perfectly gorgeous _new_ factory, full of all sorts of comforts and luxuries for his work-girls? That _is_ your idea of his duty to the poor, is it not?..." There it was, the true call: what ear could fail to catch it? Out they came running from the city again, the old scribes with new faces; pouring and tumbling into the wilderness to ask a lashing from the grim voice there.... Only, to-day, it must have been that he did not hear their clamors. Surely there was no abhorrence in these eager young eyes.... "Well--personally, I don't think of any of those things just as a--a duty to the poor--exactly." "Oh! You mean it's his duty to himself, or something of that sort? That sounds like the catechism.... That _is_ what you meant, is it not?" "Well, I only meant that--I think we might all be happier--if ..." An uproar punctuated the strange sentence. Mr. Beirne's butler had chosen to-day to take in coal, it seemed; a great wagon discharged with violence at precisely this moment. Two shovelers fell to work, and an old negro who was washing the basement windows at the house next door, the Carmichaels', desisted from his labors and strolled out to watch. It was the most interesting thing happening on the block at the moment, and of course he wanted to see it. Carlisle stared at Mr. Beirne's nephew, caught by his word.