ciation. I want to
live with the woman I love and I want to work within the limits of my
capacity. Curse all Hullo! Damn his eyes!--Steady, ah! The spark!...
Good! No skid."

He had come round a corner at five and twenty miles an hour and had
stopped his spark and pulled up neatly within a yard of the fore-wheel
of a waggon that was turning in the road so as to block the way
completely.

"That almost had me....

"And now you feel better?" said Miss Grammont.

"Ever so much," said Sir Richmond and chuckled.

The waggoner cleared the road and the car started up again.

For a minute or so neither spoke.

"You ought to be smacked hard for that outbreak,--my dear," said Miss
Grammont.

"I ought--MY dear. I have no right to be ill-tempered. We two are
among the supremely fortunate ones of our time. We have no excuse for
misbehaviour. Got nothing to grumble at. Always I am lucky. THAT--with
the waggon--was a very near thing. God spoils us.

"We two," he went on, after a pause, "are among the most fortunate
people alive. We are both rich and easily rich. That gives us freedoms
few people have. We have a vision of the whole world in which we live.
It's in a mess--but that is by the way. The mass of mankind never gets
enough education to have even a glimpse of the world as a whole. They
never get a chance to get the hang of it. It is really possible for us
to do things that will matter in the world. All our time is our own;
all our abilities we are free to use. Most people, most intelligent and
educated people, are caught in cages of pecuniary necessity; they
are tied to tasks they can't leave, they are driven and compelled and
limited by circumstances they can never master. But we, if we have
tasks, have tasks of our own choosing. We may not like the world, but
anyhow we are free to do our best to alter it. If I were a clerk in
Hoxton and you were a city typist, then we MIGHT swear."

"It was you who swore," smiled Miss Grammont.

"It's the thought of that clerk in Hoxton and that city typist who
really keep me at my work. Any smacking ought to come from them.
I couldn't do less than I do in the face of their helplessness.
Nevertheless a day will come--through what we do and what we refrain
from doing when there will be no bound and limited clerks in Hoxton and
no captive typists in the city. And nobody at all to consider."

"According to the prophet Martineau," said Miss Grammont.

"And then you and I must cont