Page:The Green Bay Tree (1926).pdf/77

 though the delight was too great to escape expression by any other means. Her blue eyes shone with a wicked gleam. "It's happened at last!" she said. "It's happened at last! I've been waiting for it . . . all these years."

"And what did you tell them?" asked Lily.

"Tell them! Tell them!" cried Julia Shane. "What could I tell them? Only that I could do nothing. I told them they were dealing with an honest man. It is impossible to corrupt Hattie's husband. I could do nothing if I would, and certainly I would do nothing if I could. They'll have to pay . . . just when they're in the midst of building new furnaces." Suddenly her face grew serious and the triumph died out of her voice. "But I'm sorry for Charlie and Hattie, just the same. He'll suffer for it. He has killed himself politically. The Jew is too powerful for him. It'll be hard on Hattie and the children, just when Ellen was planning to go away to study. Judge Weissman will fight him from now on. You've no idea how angry he was. He tried to bellow at me, but I soon stopped him."

And the old woman laughed again at the memory of her triumph.

As for Lily her handsome face grew rosy with indignation. "It can't be as bad as that! That can't happen to a man because he did his duty! The Town can't be as rotten as that!"

"It is though," said her mother. "It is. You've no idea how rotten it is. Why, Cousin Charlie is a lamb among the wolves. Believe me. I know. It's worse than when your father was alive. The mills have made it worse."

Then both of them fell silent and the terrible roar of the Cyclops Mills, triumphant and monstrous, invaded the room once more. Irene came in from a tour of the Flats and looking in at the door noticed that they were occupied with their own thoughts, and so hurried on to her room. At last Mrs. Shane rose.

"We must help the Tollivers somehow," she said. "If only they weren't so damned proud it would be easier."

Lily, her eyes dark and serious, stood at the window now looking across the garden buried beneath blackened snow. "I know," she said. "I was thinking the same thing."