"The idle rich," he explained. "Perhaps you can give her a job--enlist
her in the I.W.W."

"We don't want that kind," Janet declared.

"Have pity on her," he begged. "Nobody wants them--that's why they're so
pathetic."

She accompanied him up the narrow stairway to a great loft, the bareness
of which had been tempered by draped American flags. From the trusses of
the roof hung improvised electric lights, and the children were already
seated at the four long tables, where half a dozen ladies were supplying
them with enamelled bowls filled with steaming soup. They attacked it
ravenously, and the absence of the talk and laughter that ordinarily
accompany children's feasts touched her, impressed upon her, as nothing
else had done, the destitution of the homes from which these little ones
had come. The supplies that came to Hampton, the money that poured into
Headquarters were not enough to allay the suffering even now. And what if
the strike should last for months! Would they be able to hold out, to
win? In this mood of pity, of anxiety mingled with appreciation and
gratitude for what this man was doing, she turned to speak to him, to
perceive on the platform at the end of the room a lady seated. So
complete was the curve of her back that her pose resembled a letter u set
sidewise, the gap from her crossed knee to her face being closed by a
slender forearm and hand that held a lorgnette, through which she was
gazing at the children with an apparently absorbed interest. This
impression of willowy flexibility was somehow heightened by large,
pear-shaped pendants hanging from her ears, by a certain filminess in her
black costume and hat. Flung across the table beside her was a long coat