"You don't know all this has meant to me," he said feelingly as she gave him her hand.
"Good night!" And though the gray eyes were hidden from his, there was the look in them of one who knows more than she is thought to know.
As Ewing went out the man was admitting the younger Teevan, who asked for Mrs. Laithe. Ewing wished it had been the father. He had much of good to tell the little man now.
Neither Mrs. Laithe nor Teevan spoke of Ewing after their greeting, though each was so busy in thought of him that their talk was scant and aimless for the first five minutes. Alden Teevan was brought back to her at length by noticing the drawn, tired look of her face, for the sparkle that Ewing had left there was gone.
"Nell, you look done up. I'm no alarmist, but you really need to be frightened. What is it you're doing to take you down so—the same old round? Is it a visiting guild now, or the Comforters of the Worthy Poor, or just amateur nursing of sin, sickness, and death?"
She smiled wanly.
"The same old round, Alden. I can't keep away from it when I am here. I know it so well. No one could keep away who knew it well."
"Futile, futile, futile! Are you equal to a revolution?"
"More's the pity, no. And I've no time for one. I've a whole family of consumptives on my hands at this moment, father, mother, two girls and a boy."
"And you wear yourself out over a few minor effects like that, instead of going at the cause. You may save one or two of those people—none of them of any value, individually; while the same energy put to the root of the evil might save thousands—and they are of value in the mass. Think me calloused if you like, but that's mere common sense economy of effort. You and I—our class—make them live as they do, and we grow maudlin over it and take them a little soup and many tracts. But we won't remit our tithes. We keep them down to breed more misery for the exercise of our little philanthropic fads. I'm radical, you see."