to be consumed in wranglings about a work-girl.
What if here and there someone believed the calumny? Would it do Emma any harm?
That was most unlikely. On the whole, the misunderstanding was useful; let it
take its course. Men with large aims cannot afford to be scrupulous in small
details. Was not New Wanley a sufficient balance against a piece of injustice,
which, after all, was only one of words?
    He wrote:
 
        »Dear Sir, - I have received your letter, but it is impossible for me to
        spend time in refuting idle stories. What's more, I cannot see that my
        private concerns are a fit subject for discussion at a public meeting,
        as I understand they have been made. You are at liberty to read this
        note when and where you please, and in that intention let me add that
        the cause of Socialism will not be advanced by attacks on the character
        of those most earnestly devoted to it. I remain, yours truly,
                                                               RICHARD MUTIMER.«
 
It seemed to Richard that this was the very thing, alike in tone and phrasing. A
week or two previously a certain statesman had written to the same effect in
reply to calumnious statements; and Richard consciously made that letter his
model. The statesman had probably been sounder in his syntax, but his imitator
had, no doubt, the advantage in other points. Richard perused his composition
several times, and sent it to the post.
    At eleven o'clock Mrs. Mutimer descended to the hall, ready for her journey.
She would not enter any room. Her eldest son came out to meet her, and got rid
of the servant who had fetched a cab.
    »Good-bye for the present, mother,« he said, giving his hand. »I hope you'll
find everything just as you wish it.«
    »If I don't, I shan't complain,« was the cold reply.
    The old woman had clad herself, since her retreat, in the garments of former
days; and the truth must be told that they did not add to the dignity of her
appearance. Probably no costume devisable could surpass in ignoble ugliness the
attire of an English working-class widow when she appears in the streets. The
proximity of Alice, always becomingly clad, drew attention to the poor mother's
plebeian guise. Richard, watching her enter the cab, felt for the first time a
distinct shame. His feelings might have done him more credit but for the repulse
he had suffered.
    'Arry contented himself with standing at