"What does your brother mean by slumming, Miss Carr?" Humphrey asked as they sat at dinner.
"He calls it slumming," Elizabeth Carr laughed, "but it isn't exactly that. I'm rather fond of the people who have no chance in life. I want to make a chance for them." She spoke banteringly, but her eyes had a curious way of growing large and earnest as if they were anxious to counteract the lack of seriousness in her voice. "I'm trying to make a thoroughfare through the Blind Alley," she said. "Isn't it dramatic? Can't you imagine me with pick and shovel, Mr Quain."
"What do you mean by the Blind Alley?" he asked.
She suddenly became grave. "Of course, you've never thought of that—have you? It's just a phrase.... Some day I'll explain to you fully. It's where the people who have no chance live."
"How do you help them?"
"We don't help them much, at present—we're only beginning. It's a life's work," she said, earnestly, "and it's a work for which a life would be gladly given. You've asked me the question I'm always asking myself—How is it to be done?"
"Does your brother help?"
"Kenneth—oh, as best he can. It's the apathy that we want to overcome. That's what makes the Blind Alley." She laughed. "We'll do it some day—I don't know how—but we'll do it."
Kenneth Carr's voice drawled across the table. "Look out, Mr Quain, or Elizabeth will have you in her toils. I'll bet she's talking slumming to you. You can't be a social reformer and a reporter, you know, nowadays. The two don't hang together."