“It comes to the same thing, doesn’t it, dear?” she answered. “They are there, anyhow. And that is how He knows those who are willing to serve Him: by their being pitiful.” “I’ve no quarrel with the rich,” he said. “I don’t care how many rich men there are, so long as there are no poor. Who does? I was riding on a bus the other day, and there was a man beside me with a bandaged head. He’d been hurt in that railway smash at Morpeth. He hadn’t claimed damages from the railway company and wasn’t going to. ‘Oh, it’s only a few scratches,’ he said. ‘They’ll be hit hard enough as it is.’ If he’d been a poor devil on eighteen shillings a week it would have been different. He was an engineer earning good wages; so he wasn’t feeling sore and bitter against half the world. Suppose you tried to run an army with your men half starved while your officers had more than they could eat. It’s been tried and what’s been the result? See that your soldiers have their proper rations, and the General can sit down to his six-course dinner, if he will. They are not begrudging it to him.!

“Oh, she! She’s all right,” agreed the girl. “Having the time of her life: someone to look after for twenty-four hours a day that can’t help themselves.” “Don’t you see it for yourself?” he demanded.

She reached for her jacket; and the waiter sprang forward and helped her on with it, prolonging the business needlessly. She wished him “Good evening” in a tone of distant hauteur, and led the way to the door. Outside the street was dim and silent. Joan held out her hand. She told Joan what she remembered herself of 1870. She had turned her country house into a hospital and had seen a good deal of the fighting. “No,” answered Joan. “Surely you’re not one?”