He talked a little, a very little, about himself and his work in England, and a great deal about what had interested him here on his second visit, the social drift, the politics, the organized charities; and as he talked, Margaret was conscious how little the world in which she lived seemed to interest him; how little importance he attached to it.  And she saw, as in a momentary vision of herself, that the things that once absorbed her and stirred her sympathies were now measurably indifferent to her.  Book after book which he casually mentioned, as showing the drift of the age, and profoundly affecting modern thought, she knew only by name.  “I guess,” said Carmen, afterwards, when Margaret spoke of the earl’s conversation, “that he is one of those who are trying to live in the spirit—­what do they call it?—­care for things of the mind.”

“You are doing a noble work,” he said, “in your Palace of Industry.”

“Yes, it is very well managed,” Margaret replied; “but it is uphill work, the poor are so ungrateful for charity.”

“Perhaps nobody, Mrs. Henderson, likes to be treated as an object of charity.”

“Well, work isn’t what they want when we give it, and they’d rather live in the dirt than in clean apartments.”

“Many of them don’t know any better, and a good many of our poor resent condescension.”

“Yes,” said Margaret, with warmth; “they are getting to demand things as their right, and they are insolent.  The last time I drove down in that quarter I was insulted by their manner.  What are you going to do with such people?  One big fellow who was leaning against a lamp-post growled, ’You’d better stay in your own palace, miss, and not come prying round here.’  And a brazen girl cried out:  ’Shut yer mouth, Dick; the lady’s got to have some pleasure.  Don’t yer see, she’s a-slummin’?’”

“It’s very hard, I know,” said the earl; “perhaps we are all on the wrong track.”

“Maybe.  Mr. Henderson says that the world would get on better if everybody minded his own business.”

“I wish it were possible,” the earl remarked, with an air of finishing the topic.  “I have just been up to Brandon, Mrs. Henderson.  I fear that I have seen the dear place for the last time.”

“You don’t mean that you are tired of America?”

“Not that.  I shall never, even in thought, tire of Brandon.”

“Yes, they are dear, good people.”

“I thought Miss Forsythe—­what a sweet, brave woman she is!—­was looking sad and weary.”

“Oh, aunt won’t do anything, or take an interest in anything.  She just stays there.  I’ve tried in vain to get her here.  Do you know”—­and she turned upon the earl a look of the old playfulness—­“she doesn’t quite approve of me.”

“Oh,” he replied, hesitating a little—­“I think, Mrs. Henderson, that her heart is bound up in you.  It isn’t for me to say that you haven’t a truer friend in the world.”