 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.«
    Adela looked at him for almost the first time. She had heard this story from
her brother, but it came more impressively from Mutimer's own lips. A sort of
heroism was involved in it, the championship of a cause regardless of self. She
remained thoughtful with troublous colours on her face.
    Mrs. Waltham was more obviously uneasy. There are certain things to which in
good society one does not refer, first and foremost humiliating antecedents. The
present circumstances were exceptional to be sure, but it was to be hoped that
Mr. Mutimer would outgrow this habit of advertising his origin. Let him talk of
the working-classes if he liked, but always in the third person. The good lady
began to reflect whether she might not venture shortly to give him friendly
hints on this and similar subjects.
    But it was nearly tea-time. Mrs. Waltham shortly rose and went into the
house, whither Alfred followed her. Mutimer kept his seat, and Adela could not
leave him to himself, though for the moment he seemed unconscious of her
presence. When they had been alone together for a little while, Richard broke
the silence.
    »I hope I didn't speak rudely to you, Miss Waltham. I don't think I need
fear to say what I mean, but I know there are always two ways of saying things,
and perhaps I chose the roughest.«
    Adela was conscious of having said a few hard things mentally, and this
apology, delivered in a very honest voice, appealed to her instinct of justice.
She did not like Mutimer,
