“I spent a week at Grimsby, some years ago, organizing a fisherman’s union. They used to throw the fish back into the sea, tons upon tons of it, that men had risked their lives to catch, that would have fed half London’s poor. There was a ‘glut’ of it, they said. The ‘market’ didn’t want it. Funny, isn’t it, a ‘glut’ of food: and the kiddies can’t learn their lessons for want of it. I was talking with a farmer down in Kent. The plums were rotting on his trees. There were too many of them: that was the trouble. The railway carriage alone would cost him more than he could get for them. They were too cheap. So nobody could have them. It’s the muddle of the thing that makes me mad—the ghastly muddle-headed way the chief business of the world is managed. There’s enough food could be grown in this country to feed all the people and then of the fragments each man might gather his ten basketsful. There’s no miracle needed. I went into the matter once with Dalroy of the Board of Agriculture. He’s the best man they’ve got, if they’d only listen to him. It’s never been organized: that’s all. It isn’t the fault of the individual. It ought not to be left to the individual. The man who makes a corner in wheat in Chicago and condemns millions to privation—likely enough, he’s a decent sort of fellow in himself: a kind husband and father—would be upset for the day if he saw a child crying for bread. My dog’s a decent enough little chap, as dogs go, but I don’t let him run my larder. “Thank you,” she said, “for being so kind—and wise. I shall always love and honour her.”!

“But perhaps you’ve changed your mind,” he said. “It isn’t quite as pretty as it’s painted.” The suggestion that was forcing itself into her brain was monstrous—unthinkable. That, never possessed of any surplus vitality, and suffering from the added lassitude of illness, the woman should have become indifferent—willing to let a life that to her was full of fears and difficulties slip peacefully away from her, that was possible. But that she should exercise thought and ingenuity—that she should have reasoned the thing out and deliberately laid her plans, calculating at every point on their success; it was inconceivable.

“But perhaps you’ve changed your mind,” he said. “It isn’t quite as pretty as it’s painted.” “Why couldn’t you have married?” asked Joan. CHAPTER XIV