son's family, and when I wondered that they had made no
voluntary provision for the man. I was told that they thanked no one
for instructing them in their social duties. When I asked them flatly
to assist Jackson, they as flatly refused. The astounding thing about it
was that they refused in almost identically the same language, and this
in face of the fact that I interviewed them separately and that one did
not know that I had seen or was going to see the other. Their common
reply was that they were glad of the opportunity to make it perfectly
plain that no premium would ever be put on carelessness by them; nor
would they, by paying for accident, tempt the poor to hurt themselves in
the machinery.*

* In the files of the OUTLOOK, a critical weekly of the
period, in the number dated August 18, 1906, is related the
circumstance of a workingman losing his arm, the details of
which are quite similar to those of Jackson's case as
related by Avis Everhard.

And they were sincere, these two women. They were drunk with conviction
of the superiority of their class and of themselves. They had a
sanction, in their own class-ethic, for every act they performed. As I
drove away from Mrs. Pertonwaithe's great house, I looked back at
it, and I remembered Ernest's expression that they were bound to the
machine, but that they were so bound that they sat on top of it.

CHAPTER V

THE PHILOMATHS

Ernest was often at the house. Nor was it my father, merely, nor
the controversial dinners, that drew him there. Even at that time I
flattered myself that I played some part in causing his visits, and it
was not long before I learned the correctness of my surmise. For never
was there such a lover as Ernest Everhard. His gaze and his hand-clasp
grew firmer and steadier, if that were possible; and the question that
had grown from the first in his eyes, grew only the more imperative.

My impression of him, the first time I saw him, had been unfavorable.
Then I had found myself attracted toward him. Next came my repulsion,
when he so savagely attacked my class and me. After that, as I saw that
he had not maligned my class, and that the harsh and bitter things he
said about it were justified, I had drawn closer to him again. He became
my oracle. For me he tore the sham from the face of society and gave
me glimpses of reality that were as unpleasant as they were undeniably
true.

As I have said, there was never