f asleep? Why, that's the whole
principle of the capitalist system of employment; it's calculated
exactly how long a man can be made to work in a day without making
him incapable of beginning again on the day following--just as it's
calculated exactly how little a man can live upon, in the regulation of
wages. If the workman returned home with strength to spare,
employers would soon find it out, and workshop legislation would be
revised--because of course it's the capitalists that make the laws. The
principle is that a man shall have no strength left for himself; it's
all paid for, every scrap of it, bought with the wages at each week end.
What religion can such men have? Religion, I suppose, means thankfulness
for life and its pleasures--at all events, that's a great part of
it--and what has a wage-earner to be thankful for?'

'It sounds very shocking,' observed Mrs. Waltham, somewhat disturbed
by the speaker's growing earnestness. Richard paid no attention and
continued to address Adela.

'I dare say you've heard of the early trains--workmen's trains--that
they run on the London railways. If only you could travel once by one of
those! Between station and station there's scarcely a man or boy in the
carriage who can keep awake; there they sit, leaning over against each
other, their heads dropping forward, their eyelids that heavy they can't
hold them up. I tell you it's one of the most miserable sights to be
seen in this world. If you saw it, Miss Waltham, you'd pity them, I'm
very sure of that! You only need to know what their life means. People
who have never known hardship often speak more cruelly than they think,
and of course it always will be so as long as the rich and the poor
are two different races, as much apart as if there was an ocean between
them.'

Adela's cheeks were warm. It was a novel sensation to be rebuked in
this unconventional way. She was feeling a touch of shame as well as
the slight resentment which was partly her class-instinct, partly of her
sex.

'I feel that I have no right to give any opinion,' she said in an
undertone.

'Meaning, Adela,' commented her brother, 'that you have a very strong
opinion and stick to it.'

'One thing I dare say you are thinking, Miss Waltham,' Richard pursued,
'if you'll allow me to say it. You think that I myself don't exactly
prove what I've been saying--I mean to say, that I at all events have
had free time, not only to read and reflect, but to give le