"
"Is it allowable, then, to ask why he was discarded?"
"It is allowable, surely. He was dismissed because the choice lay
between him and seven hundred men."
"And you"--her face was very pale now, the flush all gone out of
it--"you have nothing to do with your father's works, but you are his
son,--did you do naught? protest, for instance?"
"I protested--and yielded. The contest would have been not merely with
seven hundred men, but with every machinist in the city. Justice
_versus_ prejudice, and prejudice had it; as, indeed, I suppose it will
for a good many generations to come: invincible it appears to be in the
American mind."
"Invincible! is it so?" She paused over the words, scrutinizing him
meanwhile with an unconscious intensity.
"And this black man,--what of him? He was flung out to starve and die;
a proper fate, surely, for his presumption. Poor fool! how did he dare
to think he could compete with his masters! You know nothing of _him _?"
Surely he must be mistaken. What could this black man, or this matter,
be to her? yet as he listened her voice sounded to his ear like that of
one in mortal pain. What held him silent? Why did he not tell her, why
did he not in some way make her comprehend, that he, delicate exclusive,
and patrician, as the people of his set thought him, had gone to this
man, had lifted him from his sorrow and despondency to courage and hope
once more; had found him work; would see that the place he strove to
fill in the world should be filled, could any help of his secure that
end.
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