as a baby!
_Now_ perhaps I have earned a few poor, little opinions--but they are a
ragged bundle--and I have never any time to sort them."

"Have you left the Venturists?"

"No!--but I am full of perplexities; and the Cravens, I see, will soon
be for turning me out. You understand--I _know_ some working folk now!"

"So you did last year."

"No!"--she insisted, shaking her head--"that was all different. But now
I am _in_ their world--I live with them--and they talk to me. One
evening in the week I am 'at home' for all the people I know in our
Buildings--men and women. Mrs. Hurd--you know who I mean?"--her brow
contracted a moment--"she comes with her sewing to keep me company; so
does Edith Craven; and sometimes the little room is packed. The men
smoke--when we can have the windows open!--and I believe I shall soon
smoke too--it makes them talk better. We get all sorts--Socialists,
Conservatives, Radicals--"

"--And you don't think much of the Socialists?"

"Well! they are the interesting, dreamy fellows," she said, laughing,
"who don't save, and muddle their lives. And as for argument, the
Socialist workman doesn't care twopence for facts--that don't suit him.
It's superb the way he treats them!"

"I should like to know who does care!" said Wharton, with a shrug. Then
he turned with his back to the parapet, the better to command her. He
had taken off his hat for coolness, and the wind played with the crisp
curls of hair. "But tell me"--he went on--"who has been tampering with
you? Is it Hallin? You told me you saw him often."

"Perhaps. But what if it's everything?--_living?_--saving your presence!
A year ago at any rate the world was all black--_or_ white--to me. Now I
lie awake at night, puzzling my head about the shades between--which
makes the difference. A compulsory Eight Hours' Day for all men in all
trades!" Her note of scorn startled him. "You _know_ you won't get it!
And all the other big exasperating things you talk about--public
organisation of labour, and the rest--you won't get them till all the
world is a New Jerusalem--and when the world is a New Jerusalem nobody
will want them!"

Wharton made her an ironical bow.

"Nicely said!--though we have heard it before. Upon my word, you have
marched!--or Edward Hallin has carried you. So now you think the poor
are as well off as possible, in the best of all possible worlds--is that
the result of your nursing? You agree with Denny, in fact? the man wh