"Entering into all the lives of people who are down in their luck. I'll confess I did several times think I'd give it all in a big lump and have done with it, but that was downright cowardice. A people's palace sounds first-rate, but when you come to look into it it's very little use. You know money is nothing without labour."
"Labour is nothing without money, I should say," said Mr. Russell with a sarcastic smile; "but as your house is not built, what can you do with these people?" He opened the envelopes at random. "Yes, I see it's the usual thing. A broken-down clergyman—has a large family, struggled many years against bad luck—I dare say a drone. Here's another, a doctor who has lost his health in the discharge of his duties, and——"
"Of course, he must be inquired about. My father was a doctor and—I see now, he died of over-work for other people." Toney clasped her hands, and her eyes looked soft through a thin veil of unshed tears. "I shall never resist a doctor's claim unless you help me! I know you will like the work. You are sort of a countryman of mine, and it's an honour for us, isn't it, that we can pull together."
Mr. Plantagenet Russell looked at his despised heiress a moment to see if she was in earnest. Yes, she certainly was in deadly earnest! He had meant to have an easy time, and on the threshold he was confronted with stupendous work, and then told it was "a great honour." It was the first glimmer of something above mere "do-your-duty-and-have-done-with-it" that had ever entered his head.
"I will think it over if I may," was his cautious answer. "In any case I had better begin at once or I shall not finish booking up before nightfall. As to answering them it is impossible to-day.
"Of course you must keep office hours, I don't want to overwork you, please. Do take care I don't, for I'm awfully strong and love work. I'm going to finish my driving lessons this morning, because we shall soon want to go and hunt up these people, and I don't want to kill anyone nor dogs. Oh, there's Trick creeping in, he's not partial to you," and off she flew and shut the door just in time to prevent a recurrence of yesterday's scene. Left to himself, Plantagenet Russell slowly paced the pleasant room where he had meant to have a good time! His other offers of work would have been child's play to what was now expected of him, and then to be told that the work was "noble." Plantagenet had a dislike to penniless people, because he had known what it was to be penniless himself, and he wanted to think that all poverty was the fault of the people who were poor; that is in the class which Miss Whitburn wished to help. But even Plantagenet Russell was dimly conscious of having been suddenly roused to look out of another window. Was there really something beyond material comfort and an easy-going life? Was there something noble in poverty, something noble in getting rid of your money when you had it—for the sake of others? It was too new an idea to accept at once, indeed this morning he kicked against the pricks, but suddenly he threw away a cigar he had been fingering, and sat down to tackle his heap of letters.
As for Toney, having got through her difficult task of trying to influence her unwilling secretary, she went off to her motor-car lesson, feeling this was a first requisite for her work.
"I don't want the people to have his Royal Highness patronising them, but I expect when he sees how interesting the work is, he'll be just about nice. There's so much to do, and then the building will want a lot of thought. Brother Giles lived by the labours of his hands, but I'm thinking it's much more difficult to get rid of money properly, than to beg for money you haven't got. Ouf!"
CHAPTER XIV.
THE FIRST-FRUITS.