f his
fellows upon his shoulders. Charity is the most illogical and pernicious
of all weaknesses."

"Now you are laughing at me," she declared. "I mean men like that
Mr. Wingrave, the American who has come to England to spend all his
millions. I have just been reading about him," she added, pointing to an
illustrated paper on the table. "They say that his income is too vast
to be put into figures which would sound reasonable; that he has estates
and shooting properties, and a yacht which he has never yet even
seen. And yet he will not give one penny away. He gives nothing to the
hospitals, nothing to the poor. He spends his money on himself, and
himself alone!"

Wingrave smiled grimly.

"I am not prepared to defend my namesake," he said; "but every man has a
right to do what he likes with his own, hasn't he? And as for hospitals,
Mr. Wingrave probably thinks, like a good many more, that they should be
state endowed. People could make use of them, then, without loss of self
respect."

She shook her head a little doubtfully.

"I can't argue about it yet," she said, "because I haven't thought
about it long enough. But I know if I had all the money this man has,
I couldn't be happy to spend thousands and thousands upon myself while
there were people almost starving in the same city."

"You are a sentimentalist, you see," he remarked, "and you have not
studied the laws on which society is based. Tell me, how does Mrs.
Tresfarwin like London?"

Juliet laughed merrily.

"Isn't it amusing?" she declared. "She loves it! She grumbles at the
milk, and we have the butter from Tredowen. Everything else she finds
perfection. She doesn't even mind the five flights of stone steps."

"Social problems," Wingrave remarked, "do not trouble her."

"Not in the least," Juliet declared. "She spends all her pennies on
beggars and omnibus rides, and she is perfectly happy."

Wingrave rose to go in a few minutes. Juliet walked with him to the
door.

"I am going to be really hospitable," she declared. "I am going to walk
with you to the street."

"All down those five flights?" he exclaimed.

"Every one of them!"

They commenced the descent.

"There is something about a flat," she declared, "which makes one
horribly curious about one's neighbors--especially if one has never had
any. All these closed doors may hide no end of interesting people, and
I have never seen a soul go in or out. How did you like all this
climbing?"