‘I’ve thought about all this, Dan,’ he said at length, with an air of extreme frankness.  ’In fact, I meant to have a talk with you.  Of course I can’t speak for my sister, and I don’t know that I can even speak to her about it, but one thing I can say, and that is that she’ll never be encouraged by me to think herself better than her old friends.’  He gave a laugh.  ’Why, that ’ud be a good joke for a man in my position!  What am I working for, if not to do away with distinctions between capital and labour?  You’ll never have my advice to keep away, Do you suppose I shall cry off with Emma Vine just because I’ve and that you know.  Why, who am I going to marry myself? got more money than I used to have?’

Daniel’s eye was upon him as he said these words, an eye at once reflective and scrutinising.  Richard felt it, and laughed yet more scornfully.

‘I think we know you better than that,’ responded Dabbs.  ’But it ain’t quite the same thing, you see.  There’s many a man high up has married a poor girl.  I don’t know how it is; perhaps because women is softer than men, and takes the polish easier.  And then we know very well how it looks when a man as has no money goes after a girl as has a lot.  No, no; it won’t do, Dick.’

It was said with the voice of a man who emphasises a negative in the hope of eliciting a stronger argument on the other side.  But Richard allowed the negative finality in fact, if not in appearance.

’Well, it’s for your own deciding, Dan.  All I have to say is that you don’t stay away with my approval.  Understand that.’

He left Daniel idly stirring the dregs of his liquor, and went off to pay another visit.  This was to the familiar house in Wilton Square.  There was a notice in the window that dress-making and millinery were carried on within.

Mrs. Clay (Emma’s sister Kate) opened to him.  She was better dressed than in former days, but still untidy.  Emma was out making purchases, but could not be many minutes.  In the kitchen the third sister, Jane, was busy with her needle; at Richard’s entrance she rose from her chair with evident feebleness:  her illness of the spring had lasted long, and its effects were grave.  The poor girl—­she closely resembled Emma in gentleness of face, but the lines of her countenance were weaker—­now suffered from pronounced heart disease, and the complicated maladies which rheumatic fever so frequently leaves behind it in women.  She brightened at sight of the visitor, and her eyes continued to rest on his face with quiet satisfaction.

One of Kate’s children was playing on the floor.  The mother caught it up irritably, and began lamenting the necessity of washing its dirty little hands and face before packing it off to bed.  In a minute or two she went up stairs to discharge these duties.  Between her and Richard there was never much exchange of words.

‘How are you feeling, Jane?’ Mutimer inquired, taking a seat opposite her.