"Oh," she said at last, "how vain is all we do! How vain, how hopeless! We are just like ants crawling about the earth and trying to set ourselves up for gods. We talk of peace and war, of good and evil, of what we shall accomplish and what we have done, and then down comes the great flat foot of circumstance and out we go. I lose the power even to hope sometimes. Why should we not let things drift? Who is the better for our work?"
Her father would not agree to that.
"Every stone cast into the lake of the world's ills is an asset in humanity's balance sheet," he said. "You have cast many, Gabrielle, and will add to the number. Look out there at those poor people. Is it all vain when you remember how many of their kind you have succoured? This American hardness is no good influence; I wish we could shake it off forever. Indeed, it were better so."
"We shall do that," she said quietly. "Mr. Faber will not be many days in England when the frost will let him get away."
He remained silent. They had passed Charing Cross, and now their way was blocked by a vast torchlight procession of women, debouching upon the Strand from the neighbourhood of the Old Kent Road. It was a sorry spectacle, for here were young and old, white-haired women with their backs bent toward the earth which soon would receive them; drabs in rags who flaunted their tattered beauty in the face of every male; quiet workers whose children were starving in garrets; women from mean streets who had never begged in all their lives; children who wondered if the end of the world had come. Headed by a lank harridan who wore a crimson shawl and carried an immense torch, these miserables tramped stolidly toward the West End, seeking God knows what relief from the shuttered houses. And after them went a dozen mounted policemen, good-humoured, chubby-cheeked fellows, who had never wanted bread and were never out of patience with others less fortunate.
A thousand expressions were to be read upon the faces of this haggard crew, and not a little fine determination. Here would be a woman reeling in drink; yonder a young mother hardly strong enough to walk the streets. There were sluts and shapely girls, creatures of a shabby finery, and hopeless woebegone figures of an unchanging poverty. From time to time wistful glances would be cast up at the lighted windows of the houses as though succour might be cast down thence. All moved with rapid, shuffling steps, an orderly concourse which concealed the forces of disorder. By here and there, some of the younger members broke into a mournful song, which was checked at intervals to permit of the exchange of coarse wit with the passers-by on the pavements. The whole throng seemed driven relentlessly on toward a nameless goal which must break their hope when at last they reached it.
"Isn't it dreadful to see them?" said Gabrielle when the last of the procession had passed by and traffic in the Strand was resumed once more. "This sort of thing affects me terribly; it makes me feel sorry that there are women in the world at all. Think of the children of such creatures! What can we hope for them?"
"It is the children for whom we must work," rejoined the father. "I should think of England with despair if it were not for the children."
Worthy man! Despair had always been among the wares in his basket; and yet, how often had this unhappy British people gone laughing by with never a thought for him or his melancholy gospel?
II