“Occasionally,” Montague replied.
“Of course,” said she, “it makes work for people; and I suppose they can’t be better employed than in making beautiful things. But sometimes, when I think of all the poverty there is, I get unhappy. We have a winter place down South—one of those huge country-houses that look like exposition buildings, and have rooms for a hundred guests; and sometimes I go driving by myself, down to the mill towns, and go through them and talk to the children. I came to know some of them quite well—poor little wretches.”
They stepped out of the elevator, and moved toward the art-gallery. “It used to make me so unhappy,” she went on. “I tried to talk to my husband about it, but he wouldn’t have it. ‘I don’t see why you can’t be like other people,’ he said—he’s always repeating that to me. And what could I say?”
“Why not suggest that other people might be like you?” said the man, laughing.
“I wasn’t clever enough,” said she, regretfully.—“It’s very hard for a woman, you know—with no one to understand. Once I went down to a settlement, to see what that was like. Do you know anything about settlements?”
“Nothing at all,” said Montague.
“Well, they are people who go to live among the poor, and try to reform them. It takes a terrible lot of courage, I think. I give them money now and then, but I am never sure if it does any good. The trouble with poor people, it seems to me, is that there are so many of them.”
“There are, indeed,” said Montague, thinking of the vision he had seen from Oliver’s racing-car.
Mrs. Winnie had seated herself upon a cushioned seat near the entrance to the darkened gallery. “I haven’t been there for some time,” she continued. “I’ve discovered something that I think appeals more to my temperament. I have rather a leaning toward the occult and the mystical, I’m afraid. Did you ever hear of the Babists?”
“No,” said Montague.