Most of the front page was filled with stories about the inauguration of President Sinclair, which was set for day after tomorrow. Sylvia read all of them with greedy, gloating interest; she might not be able to vote herself, but the prospect of a Socialist president delighted her. She didn't quite know what Upton Sinclair could do about Frank Best, but she figured he could do something.

Another prominent headline marked the fall of Belfast to the forces of the Republic of Ireland. No wonder that story got prominent play in Boston, with its large Irish population. "Now the whole of the Emerald Isle is free," Irish General Collins was quoted as saying. The folk of Belfast might not agree-surely did not agree, else they wouldn't have fought so grimly-but no one on this side of the Atlantic cared about their opinion.

Sylvia opened the paper to the inside pages. She picked and chose there; the factory was getting close. A headline caught her eye: REBEL ACCUSER PERISHES IN SUSPICIOUS FIRE. Most of the story was about the death of a man whose name was spelled half the time as Brierley and the other half as Brearley. He had drawn the wrath of the Freedom Party, a growing force in the CSA, the Globe's reporter wrote, by claiming that a leading Party official in one of the Carolinas was, while in the C.S. Navy, responsible for deliberately sinking the USS Ericsson although fully aware that the war between the United States and Confederate States had ended. The Freedom Party has denied this charge, and has also denied any role in the deaths of Brierley and his wife.

The trolley came to Sylvia's stop. It had already started rolling again before she realized she should have got off. When it stopped again, a couple of blocks later, she did get off. She knew she should hurry back to the factory-the implacable time card would dock her for every minute she was late, to say nothing of the hard time Frank Best would give her-but she couldn't make herself move fast, not with the way her mind was whirling.

Not a British boat after all, she thought. It was the Rebs. They were the ones George worried about, and he was right. And they did it after the war was over, and the fellow who did it is still running around loose down there. She wanted to scream. She wanted to buy a gun and go hunting for the submarine skipper. Why not? He'd gone hunting for her husband.

"Are you all right, dearie?" May Cavendish asked when Sylvia came in and put her card in the time clock. "You look a little peaked."

"I'm-" Sylvia didn't know how she was, or how to put it into words. She felt as if a torpedo had gone off inside her head, sinking everything she thought she'd known since the end of the war and leaving nothing in its place. Stunned and empty, she went into the factory.

Frank Best greeted her, pocket watch in hand. "You're late, Mrs. Enos."

Most days, she would have apologized profusely, hoping in that way to keep him from bothering her too much. Most days, it would have been a forlorn hope, too. Now she just looked at him and nodded. "Yes, I am, aren't I?" She walked past him toward her station near the molds. If he hadn't quickly stepped out of the way, she would have walked over him. He stared after her. She did not look back over her shoulder to see.

After a while, he came up to her carrying a pair of rubber overshoes. "Thought you could slip these by me, did you?" he said: his usual opening line.

She looked at the galoshes. The red rings around the top looked fine to her, which meant they'd look fine to a customer, too. "They're all right, Mr. Best," she said, brushing a wisp of hair back from her eyes with the sleeve of her shirtwaist. "I really don't have time to play games today. I'm sorry."

He stared at her again, in complete astonishment. "I could have you fired," he said. "You could be on the street in fifteen minutes."

"That's true," she said calmly, and bent to paint a couple of overshoes coming down the line at her.

"Have you gone out of your mind?" the foreman sputtered.

"Maybe." Sylvia considered it for a moment. "I don't think so, but I rather wish I would."

"You're kid-" Frank Best began. He studied Sylvia. She wasn't kidding. That must have been obvious, even to him. He started to say something else. Whatever it was, it never passed his lips. He walked away, shaking his head. He was still carrying the galoshes about which he'd intended to give her a hard time.

So that's the secret, she thought. She'd been drunk only a few times in her life, but she had that same giddy, headlong, anything-can-happen feeling now. Act a little crazy and Frank will leave you alone.

But she hadn't been acting. She didn't just feel drunk. She felt crazy. The world had turned sideways while she wasn't looking. Everything she thought she'd known about who'd killed George turned out to be wrong. Now she was going to have to grapple with what that meant.

As she painted red rings on the next pair of overshoes, she suddenly wished Upton Sinclair hadn't won the election after all. Sinclair, when he talked about dealings with other countries, talked about reconciliation and improving relations with former foes. That had sounded good during the campaign. Now-

Now Sylvia wished Teddy Roosevelt were going to be inaugurated again come Friday. With TR, you always knew where he stood. Most of the time, Sylvia had thought he stood in the wrong place. But he would have demanded that Confederate submersible skipper's head on a silver platter. And, if the Rebs hesitated about turning him over, TR would have started blowing things up. He wouldn't have stopped blowing things up till the Confederates did what he told them, either.

Sylvia sighed. So much for Socialism, she thought. As soon as she wanted the United States to take a strong line with their neighbors, she automatically thought of the Democrats.

That's why they ran things for so long, she realized. Lots of people had wanted the United States to take a strong line with their neighbors. As soon as people thought they didn't need to worry about the CSA and Canada, England and France, any more, they threw the Democrats out on their ear. She'd wanted to throw the Democrats out on their ear, too. Maybe she'd been hasty.

How am I going to get revenge with Upton Sinclair in the Powel House or the White House or wherever he decides to live? she wondered. He won't do it. He's already said he wouldn 't do things like that. Will I have to do it myself?

She laughed, imagining herself invading the Confederate States singlehanded. What would she wear? A pot helmet over her shirtwaist and skirt? A green-gray uniform with a flowered hat? And how would she get rid of the Reb who'd killed her husband? With a hatpin or a carving knife? Those were the most lethal weapons she owned. She had the feeling they wouldn't be enough to do the job.

She kept on doing her job, as automatically as if she were a machine. The factory owners hadn't figured out how to make a machine to replace her. The minute they did, she'd be out of work. Millions of people, all over the country, were in that same boat. That was another reason Sinclair had beaten TR.

When the dinner whistle blew, Sylvia jumped. She couldn't decide whether she thought it came too soon or too late. Either way, it shouldn't have come just then. It snapped her out of a haze: not the haze of work, but the haze of a mind far away-in the Confederate States, in the South Atlantic, and back in her apartment with her husband.

Still bemused, she picked up her dinner pail and went out to meet her friends. "What in the world did you say to Frank?" Sarah Wyckoff demanded. "He's been walking around all morning like he just saw a ghost."

"And the way he's been looking at you," May Cavendish added, taking a bite from a pungent sandwich of summer sausage, pickles, and onions. "Not like he wants to get his hands inside your clothes, the way he usually does, but more like he's scared of you. Tell us the secret."