Dryfoos!" and he saw that it was a lady speaking to him from a coupe
beside the curbing, and then he saw that it was Miss Vance.

She smiled when, he gave signs of having discovered her, and came up to
the door of her carriage. "I am so glad to meet you. I have been longing
to talk to somebody; nobody seems to feel about it as I do. Oh, isn't it
horrible? Must they fail? I saw cars running on all the lines as I came
across; it made me sick at heart. Must those brave fellows give in? And
everybody seems to hate them so--I can't bear it." Her face was estranged
with excitement, and there were traces of tears on it. "You must think me
almost crazy to stop you in the street this way; but when I caught sight
of you I had to speak. I knew you would sympathize--I knew you would feel
as I do. Oh, how can anybody help honoring those poor men for standing by
one another as they do? They are risking all they have in the world for
the sake of justice! Oh, they are true heroes! They are staking the bread
of their wives and children on the dreadful chance they've taken! But no
one seems to understand it. No one seems to see that they are willing to
suffer more now that other poor men may suffer less hereafter. And those
wretched creatures that are coming in to take their places--those
traitors--"

"We can't blame them for wanting to earn a living, Miss Vance," said
Conrad.

"No, no! I don't blame them. Who am I, to do such a thing? It's
we--people like me, of my class--who make the poor betray one another.
But this dreadful fighting--this hideous paper is full of it!" She held
up an extra, crumpled with her nervous reading. "Can't something be done
to stop it? Don't you think that if some one went among them, and tried
to make them see how perfectly hopeless it was to resist the companies