The thing that Bonbright asked himself many, many times was a different sort of question.  “Is this the sort of thing she meant?  Would she approve of doing this?”

He was not embarked on the project for Ruth’s sake.  It was not Ruth who had driven him to it, but himself, and the events of his life.  But her presence was there. ...  He was doing his best.  He was doing the thing he thought would bring about the condition he desired, and he hoped she would approve if she knew. ...  But whether she approved or not, he would have persisted along his own way. ...  If he had never known her, never married her, he would have done the same thing.  Some day she would know this, and understand it.  It would be another irony for her to bear.  The man she had married that she might influence him to ameliorate the conditions of his workingmen was doing far more than she had dreamed of accomplishing herself—­and would have done it if she had never been born. ...

Neither she nor Bonbright realized, perhaps would never realize, that it is not the individual who brings about changes in the social fabric.  It is not fanatics, not reformers, not inspired leaders.  It is the labored working of the mass, and the working of the mass brings forth and casts up fanatics, reformers, leaders, when it has gestated them and prepared the way for their birth.  The individual is futile; his aims and plans are futile save as they are the outcome of the trend of the mass. ...

Ruth was not so fortunate as Bonbright.  Her work did not fill her time nor draw her interest.  It was merely the thing she did to earn the necessities of life.  She was living now in a boarding house on the lower side of the city, where a room might be had for a sum within her means.  It was not a comfortable room.  It was not a room that could be made comfortable by any arrangement of its occupant.  But it was in a clean house, presided over by a woman of years and respectable garrulity.

Six days of the week Ruth worked, and the work became daily more exhausting, demanding more of her nervous organism as her physical organism had less to give.  She was not taking care of herself.  It is only those who cling to life, who are interested in life and in themselves, who take care of their bodies as they should be taken care of.  She had been slight; now she was thin.  No one now would have dreamed of calling her the Girl with the Grin.  She looked older, lifeless, almost haggard at times.  Her condition was not wholly the result of unhappiness.  It was due to lack of fresh air and exercise, for she went seldom abroad.  It was fear of meeting acquaintances that shut her in her room—­fear of meeting Bonbright, fear of encountering Dulac.  It was loneliness, too.  She made no new acquaintances, and went her way in solitude.  She had not so much as a nodding acquaintance with most of her fellow lodgers.  Not one of them could boast of conversation with her beyond the briefest passing of the day. ...