Page:Stanwood Pier--The ancient grudge.djvu/70

Rh There was nothing for Floyd to build. Worst of all, he had a discouraged feeling that this was not the kind of thing that he would have most cared to build.

The six o'clock whistle blew while Floyd was still walking the homogeneous streets and indulging in these meditations. The "day turn" was at an end, the "night turn" was beginning. Floyd had a thought of the diversity of workmen he had seen that afternoon, of the men who were giving up their lives to the performance of some trifling task,—spooning along hot metal in a trough, kicking hot steel rods to one side, measuring steel plates, pulling levers. Floyd thought of them all compassionately. He did not pity himself for having to work with them; indeed, he still looked forward to that experience as to an adventure in which the interesting would counterbalance the unpleasant. But the years afterwards—when he had ceased to work with his hands and these men were growing old in his service, and other men, young and with life to face, were entering it—these years loomed suddenly before Floyd, and their image seemed sombre and reproachful to his mind.

It was growing late; Floyd betook himself to the house where he had seen the girl with the red hair. When he rang the bell, she came to the door.

"I am looking for a room," he said. "I remembered the sign in your window and thought I would come here."

She had recognized him, and as he spoke he thought that the expression of her face became unfriendly.

"If you will step inside," she said in a tone which held out no welcome, "I will speak to my mother."

He entered a cramped and dark hallway and followed her into the parlor. There she left him and ran upstairs. The folding-doors between the parlor and the dining-room were open; through them Floyd saw the table set for three, and on it in the centre a white frosted cake, surrounded with a palisade of pink candles. He hoped