“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 who got up after me?”

His tone annoyed her.  Then suddenly the name suggested to her a recollection that brought a frown.

“That was the man, then, you attacked in the Clarion this morning!”

“Ah! you read me!” said Wharton, with sudden pleasure.  “Yes—­that opened the campaign.  As you know, of course, Craven has gone down, and the strike begins next week.  Soon we shall bring two batteries to bear, he letting fly as correspondent, and I from the office.  I enjoyed writing that article.”

“So I should think,” she said drily; “all I know is, it made one reader passionately certain that there was another side to the matter!  There may not be.  I dare say there isn’t; but on me at least that was the effect.  Why is it”—­she broke out with vehemence—­“that not a single Labour paper is ever capable of the simplest justice to an opponent?”

“You think any other sort of paper is any better?” he asked her scornfully.

“I dare say not.  But that doesn’t matter to me! it is we who talk of justice, of respect, and sympathy from man to man, and then we go and blacken the men who don’t agree with us—­whole classes, that is to say, of our fellow-countrymen, not in the old honest slashing style, Tartuffes that we are!—­but with all the delicate methods of a new art of slander, pursued almost for its own sake.  We know so much better—­always—­than our opponents, we hardly condescend even to be angry.  One is only ’sorry’—­’obliged to punish’—­like the priggish governess of one’s childhood!”

In spite of himself, Wharton flushed.

“My best thanks!” he said.  “Anything more?  I prefer to take my drubbing all at once.”

She looked at him steadily.

“Why did you write, or allow that article on the West Brookshire landlords two days ago?”

Wharton started.

“Well! wasn’t it true?”

“No!” she said with a curling lip; “and I think you know it wasn’t true.”

“What! as to the Raeburns?  Upon my word, I should have imagined,” he said slowly, “that it represented your views at one time with tolerable accuracy.”