vague uneasiness and awkward silence that was evident among these working men, as they stood there in the hall dressed in their “good clothes,” nervously fingering their hats in their big hands, there was something immensely moving. The men had the look that working people the world over have always had when they found themselves suddenly gathered together on terms of social intimacy with their employers or with members of the governing class.
And Helen, coming out at this instant from her father’s room into the hall, suddenly saw and felt the awkward division between these two groups of men, as she had never before felt or noticed it, as sharply as if they had been divided with a knife.
And, it must be admitted, her first feeling was an unworthy one—an instinctive wish to approach the more “important” group, to join her life to the lives of these “influential” people who represented to her a “higher” social level. She found herself walking towards the group of wealthy and prominent men at the front of the hall, and away from the group of working men who had really been Gant’s best friends.
But seeing the brick-red race of Alec Ramsay, the mountainous figure of Mike Fogarty, suddenly with a sense of disbelief and almost terrified revelation of the truth, she thought: “Why-why-why—these men are really the closest friends he’s got—not rich men like Uncle Will or Uncle Jim or even Mr. Sluder—but men like Mike Fogarty—and Jannadeau—and Mr. Duncan—and Alec Ramsay—and Ernest Pegram—and Ollie Gant—but—but—good heavens, no!” she thought, almost desperately—“surely these are not his closest friends—why-why—of course, they’re decent people—they’re honest men—but they’re only common people—I’ve always considered them as just working men—and-and-and—my God!” she thought, with that terrible feeling of discovery we have when we suddenly see ourselves as others see us—“do you suppose that’s the way people in this town think of Papa? Do you suppose they have always thought of him as just a common working man—oh, no! but of course not!” she went on impatiently, trying to put the troubling thought out of her mind. “Papa’s not a working man—Papa is a business man—a well-thought-of business man in this community. Papa has always owned property since he came here—he has always had his own shop”—she did not like the sound of the word “shop,” and in her mind she hastily amended it to “place”—“he’s always had his own place, up on the public square—
