a few minutes. She waited in some
anxiety for him to speak. When he did so, she realised that there was a
new gravity in his face and in his tone.

"Lady Elisabeth," he said, "I am afraid that there is very little hope
of our coming to any agreement. You must remember that when I promised
to come here--"

"Oh, I know that!" she interrupted. "Only I wish that we had a little
longer time. You think that my interest in the people is an amateurish
affair, half sentimental and half freakish, don't you? You were
probably surprised to hear that I had ever read a volume of political
economy in my life. But I have. I have studied things. I have read
dozens and dozens of books on Sociology, and Socialism, and Syndicalism,
and every conceivable subject that bears upon the relations between your
class and ours, and I can't come to any but one conclusion. There is
only one logical conclusion. Violent methods are useless. The
betterment of the poor must come about gradually. If religion hadn't
interfered, things would have been far better now, even."

He looked at her, a little startled.

"It seems strange to hear you say that," he remarked.

"Strange only because you will think of me as a dilettante," she replied
swiftly. "I have some sort of a brain. I have thought of these
matters, talked of them with my uncle, with many others whom even you
would admit to be clever men. I, too, see that charity and charitable
impulses have perhaps been the greatest drawback of the day to a
scientific betterment of the people. I, too, want to see the thing done
by laws and not by impulses."

"You and how many more," he sighed, "and, alas! this is an age of
majorities. People talk a good deal. I wonder how many of your hateful
middle class would give up a tithe of their luxuries to add to the
welfare of the others. There isn't a person breathing with so little
real feeling for the slaves of the world, as your middle-class
manufacturer, your tradesman. That is why, in the days to come, he will
be the person who is going to suffer most."

Maraton was appealed to from across the table with reference to some of
the art treasures which were reputed to have found their way from Italy
to New York. He gave at once the information required, speaking
fluently and with the appreciative air of a connoisseur, of many of the
pictures which were under discussion. Soon afterwards, Lady Grenside
rose and the men drew up their chairs. The evening papers had