rther."

"I beg your pardon--"

The words had come from Derek. Lady Malloring paused in her walk toward
the bell. With his peculiar thin-lipped smile the boy went on:

"We imagined you would say no; we really came because we thought it fair
to warn you that there may be trouble."

Lady Malloring smiled.

"This is a private matter between us and our tenants, and we should be so
glad if you could manage not to interfere."

Derek bowed, and put his hand within his sister's arm. But Sheila did
not move; she was trembling with anger.

"Who are you," she suddenly burst out, "to dispose of the poor, body and
soul? Who are you, to dictate their private lives? If they pay their
rent, that should be enough for you."

Lady Malloring moved swiftly again toward the bell. She paused with her
hand on it, and said:

"I am sorry for you two; you have been miserably brought up!"

There was a silence; then Derek said quietly:

"Thank you; we shall remember that insult to our people. Don't ring,
please; we're going."

In a silence if anything more profound than that of their approach, the
two young people retired down the drive. They had not yet learned--most
difficult of lessons--how to believe that people could in their bones
differ from them. It had always seemed to them that if only they had a
chance of putting directly what they thought, the other side must at
heart agree, and only go on saying they didn't out of mere self-interest.
They came away, therefore, from this encounter with the enemy a little
dazed by the discovery that Lady Malloring in her bones believed that she
was right. It confused them, and heated the fires of their anger.

They had shaken off all private dust before Sheila spoke.

"They're all like that--can't see or feel--simply certain they're
superior! It makes--it makes me hate them! It's terrible, ghastly."
And while she stammered out those little stabs of speech, tears of rage
rolled down her cheeks.

Derek put his arm round her waist.

"All right! No good groaning; let's think seriously what to do."

There was comfort to the girl in that curiously sudden reversal of their
usual attitudes.

"Whatever's done," he went on, "has got to be startling. It's no good
pottering and protesting, any more." And between his teeth he muttered:
"'Men of England, wherefore plough?' . . ."

In the room where the encounter had taken place Mildred Malloring was
taking her time to recover. F