Thyme murmured:  “I don’t see a bit why Uncle Hilary should bother.  If they will be so horrid—­I didn’t think the poor were like that.  I didn’t think they had it in them.  I’m sure the girl isn’t worth it, or the woman either!”

“I didn’t say they were,” growled Martin.  “It’s a question of what’s healthy.”

Hilary looked from one of his young companions to the other.

“I see,” he said.  “I thought perhaps the matter was more delicate.”

Martin’s lip curled.’

“Ah, your precious delicacy!  What’s the good of that?  What did it ever do?  It’s the curse that you’re all suffering from.  Why don’t you act?  You could think about it afterwards.”

A flush came into Hilary’s sallow cheeks.

“Do you never think before you act, Martin?”

Martin got up and stood looking down on Hilary.

“Look here!” he said; “I don’t go in for your subtleties.  I use my eyes and nose.  I can see that the woman will never be able to go on feeding the baby in the neurotic state she’s in.  It’s a matter of health for both of them.”

“Is everything a matter of health with you?”

“It is.  Take any subject that you like.  Take the poor themselves —­what’s wanted?  Health.  Nothing on earth but health!  The discoveries and inventions of the last century have knocked the floor out of the old order; we’ve got to put a new one in, and we’re going to put it in, too—­the floor of health.  The crowd doesn’t yet see what it wants, but they’re looking for it, and when we show it them they’ll catch on fast enough.”

“But who are ’you’?” murmured Hilary.

“Who are we?  I’ll tell you one thing.  While all the reformers are pecking at each other we shall quietly come along and swallow up the lot.  We’ve simply grasped this elementary fact, that theories are no basis for reform.  We go on the evidence of our eyes and noses; what we see and smell is wrong we correct by practical and scientific means.”

“Will you apply that to human nature?”

“It’s human nature to want health.”

“I wonder!  It doesn’t look much like it at present.”

“Take the case of this woman.”

“Yes,” said Hilary, “take her case.  You can’t make this too clear to me, Martin.”

“She’s no use—­poor sort altogether.  The man’s no use.  A man who’s been wounded in the head, and isn’t a teetotaller, is done for.  The girl’s no use—­regular pleasure-loving type!”

Thyme flushed crimson, and, seeing that flood of colour in his niece’s face, Hilary bit his lips.

“The only things worth considering are the children.  There’s this baby-well, as I said, the important thing is that the mother should be able to look after it properly.  Get hold of that, and let the other facts go hang.”

“Forgive me, but my difficulty is to isolate this question of the baby’s health from all the other circumstances of the case.”