“We are attacking all those evils,” said Ambrose. “The public conscience is rising against them. I predict the time when it will be regarded as great a disgrace for a city to possess a ‘back of the yards,’ a ghetto or a slum tenement district as it is now to have a district organized for the exploitation of women. It’s coming. You and I shall see it.”
Mary Randall had risen, deeply moved while he spoke. She leaned against the trellis and gazed far across the silver-shot lake at the sun sinking, a great ball of crimson fire among the dark trees.
“God speed the day!” she said.
Beyond the veranda in a darkened drawing-room Mary Randall’s aunt had been resting and had heard this conversation. She rose and went softly away and out to a pergola where she found her husband smoking a cigar.
“Lucius,” she said. “That young newspaper man who has been out here to see Mary is here again. They are talking in the veranda, settling all the problems of Chicago!”
Lucius Randall blew a cloud of smoke. “Well, my dear, that is the only way this old world gets ahead, for each generation to tackle its problems anew.”
“I believe that young man likes Mary.”
“Many young men do.”
“But—I really believe Mary likes him. She talks to him with a sweet note in her voice, even when they are discussing the most impossible subjects.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Lucius Randall with much serenity.