"I am very stupid when my day's work is done," said May.
"Stupid!" Boreham laughed harshly. "But your work is too hard and most unsuitable. Any woman can attend to babies."
"I flatter myself," said May, "that I can wash a baby without forgetting to dry it."
"Why do you hide yourself?" he exclaimed. "Why do you throw yourself away?" He felt that, with her beside him, he could dictate to the world like a god. "Why don't you organise?"
"Do you mean run about and talk," asked May, "and leave the work to other people? Don't you think that we are beginning to hate people who run about and talk?"
"Because the wrong people do it," said Boreham.
"The people who do it are usually the wrong people," corrected May; "the right people are generally occupied with skilled work—technical or intellectual. That clears the way for the unskilled to run about and talk, and so the world goes round, infinite labour and talent quietly building up the Empire, and idleness talking about it and interrupting it."
Boreham stared at her with petulant admiration. "You could do anything," he said bluntly.
"I shall put an advertisement into the Times," said May. "'A gentlewoman of independent means, unable to do any work properly, but anxious to organise.'"
They had now turned into a narrow lane and were almost at the gates of the Lodgings. May did not want Boreham to come into the Court with her, she wanted to dismiss him now. She had a queer feeling of dislike that he should tread upon the gravel of the Court, and perhaps come actually to the front door of the Lodgings. She stopped and held out her hand.