"And I tell you I can't stop it."
"Then I'll find some one who can. Mr. Farrar will help me."
At the mention of the clergyman's name the man's face flushed. For Mary Bradley to go from Lamar to seek the rector's aid was simply to pour oil on a smoldering fire. She had been already too much in this minister's company under pretense of visiting the poor. Why should she hold him, Stephen Lamar, her avowed lover, at arm's length, while bestowing clandestine favors on this discredited hypocrite of the Church? No fire burns so fiercely as the fire of jealousy.
"Oh, Farrar!" he sneered. "What will he do? Go pray with old man Malleson who doesn't give a damn for his pious advice? I tell you this fellow has lost his grip. Capital derides him; labor laughs at him; you might as well"
"Stop! You can't slander him in my presence. He's been the one strong, heroic figure in all this dreadful disaster, and the whole city knows it."
The man's jealous wrath blazed up in words befitting the loafer of the street.
"Oh, you; you think he's a little tin god on wheels! You think he's the greatest thing that ever came down the pike! I say he's a damned hypocrite and a menace to society, and I'll prove it."
She rose from her chair with face aflame and anger flashing from her eyes.
"Steve," she said, "take that back. You coward, take that back!"
He saw that he had overreached himself and grew suddenly penitent.
"Forgive me, Mary! I don't know what I'm saying. I'm driven crazy by this infernal strike—and by you."
"By me?"
"Yes, by you. You have no pity. I'm eating my heart out for you, and you're as cold as an arctic moon."
