“That's conclusive.”
“Yes, it is.”
Martin did not reply, looking sideways at Thyme with his queer, protective smile. They were passing through a street superior to Hound Street in its pretensions to be called a slum.
“Look here!” he said suddenly; “a man like Hilary's interest in all this sort of thing is simply sentimental. It's on his nerves. He takes philanthropy just as he'd take sulphonal for sleeplessness.”
Thyme looked shrewdly up at him.
“Well,” she said, “it's just as much on your nerves. You see it from the point of view of health; he sees it from the point of view of sentiment, that's all.”
“Oh! you think so?”
“You just treat all these people as if they were in hospital.”
The young man's nostrils quivered. “Well, and how should they be treated?”
“How would you like to be looked at as a 'case'?” muttered Thyme.