places, he would be soon out of a job. I'm not blaming him, you
know. I've got a son-in-law who is a real estate agent. It's just one of
the cases where it's nobody's fault, and everybody's."

Without replying, Stephen turned away and got into the car. He felt
bruised and sick, and he wanted to be alone, to think things out by
himself in the darkness. "This is only one instance," he thought, as
they started down the dim street toward the white blaze of the business
quarter in the distance. "Only one out of millions! In every city. All
over the world it is the same. Wherever there is wealth it casts its
shadow of poverty."

"I used to bother about it too when I was young," said the old man at
his side. "I used to feel, I reckon, pretty near as bad as you are
feeling now, but it don't last. When you get on a bit you'll sort of
settle down and begin to work it out. That's life. Yes, but it ain't the
whole of life. It ain't even the biggest part. Those folks we've been to
see have had their good times like the rest of us, only we saw 'em just
now when they were in the midst of a bad time. Life ain't confined to a
ditch any more than it is to what Gideon calls a lily-pond. Keep your
balance, that's the main thing. Whatever else you lose, you must be sure
to keep your balance, or you'll be in danger of going overboard."

"Do you mean that there is no remedy for conditions like this?"

The old man pondered his answer so long that Stephen thought he had
either given up or forgotten the question.

"The only remedy I have ever been able to see is to work not on
conditions, but on human nature," he replied. "Improve human nature, and
then you will improve the conditions in which it lives. Improve the rich
as well as the poor. Teach 'em to be human beings, not machines, to one
another--that's Gideon's idea, you know,--humanize--Christianize, if you
like it better--civilize. It's a pretty hopeless problem--the individual
case--charity is all rotten from root to branch. If you could see the
harm that's been done by mistaken charity! Why, look at my friend, Mrs.
Page, now. She tried to work it out that way, and what came of it
except more rottenness? And yet until the State looks after the
unemployed, there is obliged to be charity."

"Do you mean Mrs. Kent Page?" asked Stephen in surprise, and remembered
that his mother had once accused Corinna of trying to "undermine
society."

"She is one of my best friends," answered the ol