Thyme's foot shot forth; it nearly came into contact with Miranda, the
little bulldog.

"Oh, duckie!"

But the little moonlight bulldog backed away.

"I hate these slums, uncle; they're so disgusting!"

Hilary leaned his face on his thin hand; it was his characteristic
attitude.

"They are hateful, disgusting, and heartrending. That does not make the
problem any the less difficult, does it?"

"I believe we simply make the difficulties ourselves by seeing them."

Hilary smiled. "Does Martin say that too?"

"Of course he does."

"Speaking broadly," murmured Hilary, "I see only one difficulty--human
nature."

Thyme rose. "I think it horrible to have a low opinion of human nature."

"My dear," said Hilary, "don't you think perhaps that people who have
what is called a low opinion of human nature are really more tolerant of
it, more in love with it, in fact, than those who, looking to what human
nature might be, are bound to hate what human nature is."

The look which Thyme directed at her uncle's amiable, attractive face,
with its pointed beard, high forehead, and special little smile, seemed
to alarm Hilary.

"I don't want you to have an unnecessarily low opinion of me, my dear.
I'm not one of those people who tell you that everything's all right
because the rich have their troubles as well as the poor. A certain
modicum of decency and comfort is obviously necessary to man before
we can begin to do anything but pity him; but that doesn't make it any
easier to know how you're going to insure him that modicum of decency
and comfort, does it?"

"We've got to do it," said Thyme; "it won't wait any longer."

"My dear," said Hilary, "think of Mr. Purcey! What proportion of the
upper classes do you imagine is even conscious of that necessity? We,
who have got what I call the social conscience, rise from the platform
of Mr. Purcey; we're just a gang of a few thousands to Mr. Purcey's tens
of thousands, and how many even of us are prepared, or, for the
matter of that, fitted, to act on our consciousness? In spite of your
grandfather's ideas, I'm afraid we're all too much divided into classes;
man acts, and always has acted, in classes."

"Oh--classes!" answered Thyme--"that's the old superstition, uncle."

"Is it? I thought one's class, perhaps, was only oneself
exaggerated--not to be shaken off. For instance, what are you and I,
with our particular prejudices, going to do?"

Thyme gave him the cruel look