Adela’s cheeks were warm.  It was a novel sensation to be rebuked in this unconventional way.  She was feeling a touch of shame as well as the slight resentment which was partly her class-instinct, partly of her sex.

‘I feel that I have no right to give any opinion,’ she said in an undertone.

‘Meaning, Adela,’ commented her brother, ’that you have a very strong opinion and stick to it.’

‘One thing I dare say you are thinking, Miss Waltham,’ Richard pursued, ’if you’ll allow me to say it.  You think that I myself don’t exactly prove what I’ve been saying—­I mean to say, that I at all events have had free time, not only to read and reflect, but to give lectures and so on.  Yes, and I’ll explain that.  It was my good fortune to have a father and mother who were very careful and hard-working and thoughtful people; I and my sister and brother were brought up in an orderly home, and taught from the first that ceaseless labour and strict economy were the things always to be kept in mind.  All that was just fortunate chance; I’m not praising myself in saying I’ve been able to get more into my time than most other working men; it’s my father and mother I have to thank for it.  Suppose they’d been as ignorant and careless as most of their class are made by the hard lot they have to endure; why, I should have followed them, that’s all.  We’ve never had to go without a meal, and why?  Just because we’ve all of us worked like slaves and never allowed ourselves to think of rest or enjoyment.  When my father died, of course we had to be more careful than ever; but there were three of us to earn money, fortunately, and we kept up the home.  We put our money by for the club every week, what’s more.’

‘The club?’ queried Miss Waltham, to whom the word suggested Pall Mall and vague glories which dwelt in her imagination.

’That’s to make provision for times when we’re ill or can’t get work,’ Mutimer explained.  ’If a wage-earner falls ill, what has he to look to?  The capitalist won’t trouble himself to keep him alive; there’s plenty to take his place.  Well, that’s my position, or was a few months ago.  I don’t suppose any workman has had more advantages.  Take it as an example of the most we can hope for, and pray say what it amounts to!  Just on the right side, just keeping afloat, just screwing out an hour here and there to work your brain when you ought to be taking wholesome recreation!  That’s nothing very grand, it seems to me.  Yet people will point to it and ask what there is to grumble at!’

Adela sat uneasily under Mutimer’s gaze; she kept her eyes down.

‘And I’m not sure that I should always have got on as easily,’ the speaker continued.  ’Only a day or two before I heard of my relative’s death, I’d just been dismissed from my employment; that was because they didn’t like my opinions.  Well, I don’t say they hadn’t a right to dismiss me, just as I suppose you’ve a right to kill as many of the enemy as you can in time of war.  But suppose I couldn’t have got work anywhere.  I had nothing but my hands to depend upon; if I couldn’t sell my muscles I must starve, that’s all.’