"They don't take their boss-ship seriously enough," she said.
"They take it far more seriously than you take your ladyship," he said.
"That's thrust upon me. I don't really want it," she blurted out. He stopped the chair and looked at her.
"Who's shirking their responsibility now!" he said. "Who is trying to get away now from the responsibility of their own boss-ship, as you call it?"
"But I don't want any boss-ship," she protested.
"Ah! But that is funk. You've got it: fated to it. And you should live up to it. Who has given the colliers all they have that's worth having: all their political liberty, and their education, such as it is, their sanitation, their health conditions, their books, their music, everything. Who has given it them? Have colliers given it to colliers? No! All the Wragbys and Shipleys in England have given their part, and must go on giving. There's your responsibility."
Connie listened, and flushed very red.
"I'd like to give something," she said. "But I'm not allowed. Everything is to be sold and paid for now; and all the things you mention now, Wragby and Shipley sells them to the people, at a good profit. Everything is sold. You don't give one heartbeat of real sympathy. And besides, who has taken away from the people their natural life and manhood, and given them this industrial horror? Who has done that?"
"And what must I do?" he asked, green. "Ask them to come and pillage me?"
"Why is Tevershall so ugly, so hideous? Why are their lives so hopeless?"