nto approval. In those
days Richard had no dream of wedding above his class, and he understood
very well that Emma Vine was distinguished in many ways from the crowd
of working girls. There was no one else he wished to marry. Emma would
feel herself honoured by his choice, and, what he had not himself
observed, his mother led him to see that yet deeper feelings were
concerned on the girl's side. This flattered him--a form of emotion to
which he was ever susceptible--and the match was speedily arranged.

He had never repented. The more he knew of Emma, the more confirmation
his favourable judgments received. He even knew at times a stirring of
the senses, which is the farthest that many of his kind ever progress in
the direction of love. Of the nobler features in Emma's character, he
of course remained ignorant; they did not enter into his demands upon
woman, and he was unable to discern them even when they were brought
prominently before him. She would keep his house admirably, would never
contradict him, would mother his children to perfection, and even would,
go so far as to take an intelligent interest in the Propaganda. What
more could a man look for?

So there was no strife between old love and new; so far as it concerned
himself, to put Emma aside would not cost a pang. The garrison was
absolutely mere tongue, mere gossip of public-house bars, firesides,
etc.--more serious, of the Socialist lecture-rooms. And what of the
girl's own feeling? Was there no sense of compassion in him? Very
little. And in saying so I mean anything but to convey that Mutimer
was conspicuously hard-hearted. The fatal defect in working people is
absence of imagination, the power which may be solely a gift of nature
and irrespective of circumstances, but which in most of us owes so
much to intellectual training. Half the brutal cruelties perpetrated
by uneducated men and women are directly traceable to lack of the
imaginative spirit, which comes to mean lack of kindly sympathy.
Mutimer, we know, had got for himself only the most profitless of
educations, and in addition nature had scanted him on the emotional
side. He could not enter into the position of Emma deserted and
hopeless. Want of money was intelligible to him, so was bitter
disappointment at the loss of a good position; but the former he would
not allow Emma to suffer, and the latter she would, in the nature of
things, soon get over. Her love for him he judged by his own feeling