FROM THE LIFE
ated Con Gorman from the surrounding cosmos by an act of will. Williamson's face I did not under- stand till I met him later; he had, in fact, the absent-minded eyes of young Europe, gravely condemned to death and watching contemporary America dance to rag-time. Having regarded Con a moment blankly, he shifted the same regard to a passing couple.
As for Flora Furness, she seemed, at first, naturally, surprised at Con. She smiled a formal, polite refusal. He persisted. She glanced at her mother and then darted a look at him that confessed—I did not know what. It was an alarmed, reluctant, warning look. It was a look as of conspiracy betrayed. And it was so evidently private that I turned away at once as if I had been spying.
I found that the coal-dealer was refuting an editorial allegation that coal-dealers had caused the rise in the price of coal. When I looked at Flora Furness again she was talking to Williamson, with her eyes fixed on me. Con had disappeared. For a moment I thought guiltily that she was studying me to see what I had noticed. Then I understood that she wished to speak to me.
I made a strategic retreat from the labor war in the Pennsylvania coal-fields and moved toward her with the current that was being sucked in to the music. It seemed impossible that Con could have told her what I had said about his acting. Why should he? And yet why, otherwise, should she
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