Page:Storm Over Paris.pdf/39

see for yourself whether they're laying anyone off, can't you?"

Morris contented himself with a brief answer. "Not so far," he said shortly.

"And are there any prospects for a raise?" she persisted.

Morris got up from his chair and began his customary pacing, from the window to the door and back to the window again. He was trapped in a few feet of hard reality.

"How many times must you be told," Morris began quietly, "that you can't expect them to give you anything of their own free will? Not unless we call a strike-"

"A strike!" Gertrude wrung her hands. "At a time like this! When we haven't a penny saved up-."

"And who has stopped you from saving?" Morris went over to the customarily playful tone he used in addressing her.

"What are you talking about? You know as well as I, how things are." Gertrude's cheeks burned. "How could I save anything-when Robert had one sickness after another-and he's still not over the whooping cough. And Paul is practically out of his shoes-going around almost barefoot. And the few francs I borrowed from Anna-God only knows when I'll be able to pay her back! It bothers me all the time. A girl like that needs money to buy things for herself-and instead-"

As the recital of their familiar troubles went on, the shadows around Morris' eyes grew deeper. His mind shrank to the trapped space of the room, to a pin-point on the greasy wall-paper. Depressed, he stood at the table, abstractedly plucking at the threads of the worn oilcloth covering. The flame of the gaslight flickered spasmodically over the worn dishes, the discarded newspaper and the heads of the silent pair.