Joan was about to reply when the maid’s announcement of “Mrs. Denton” postponed the discussion. “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.!

There was a distinct challenge in Flossie’s eye as she asked the question. Joan felt herself flush, and thought a moment. “You and your class,” said Mr. Simson, “are friends enough to the People, so long as they remember that they are the People, and keep their proper place—at the bottom. I am for putting the People at the top.”

“Oh, just a Christian gentleman,” she answered. “You will love him when you know him.” “Do let me come with you,” he said. “I kept myself free this evening, hoping. And I’m feeling so lonesome.” “No,” Joan answered. “I was too late. She had died the night before. I hardly recognized her when I saw her. She looked so sweet and young.”