"Very likely she was. She is paid to work, and work is fatiguing. But it was no concern of ours. You see, my dear, we cannot alter things; and if you once commence to pitying people and talking to them, there is an end of all distinctions of class."
"Mr. Dyson used to say that the difficulty of abolishing class distinctions was one of the most lamentable facts in human history. I did not understand then what he meant. But I think I do now. It is a dreadful thing, he meant, that one cannot speak or relieve a poor girl who is ready to drop with fatigue, because she is a shop-girl. How sad you must feel, Mrs. Cassilis, you, who have seen so much of shop-assistants, if they are all like that poor girl!"
Mrs. Cassilis had not felt sad, but Phillis's remark made her feel for the moment uncomfortable. Her complacency was disturbed. But how could she help herself? She was what her surroundings had made her. As riches increase, particularly the riches which are unaccompanied by territorial obligations, men and women separate themselves more and more; the lines of demarcation become deeper and broader; English castes are divided by ditches constantly widening; the circles into which outsiders may enter as guests, but not as members, become more numerous; poor people herd more together; rich people live more apart; the latter become more like gods in their seclusion, and they grow to hate more and more the sight and rumor of suffering. And the first step back to the unpitying cruelty of the old civilizations is the habit of looking on the unwashed as creatures of another world. If the gods of Olympus had known sympathy they might have lived till now.
This expedition occurred on the day of Phillis's first dinner-party, and on their way home a singular thing happened.
Mrs. Cassilis asked Phillis how long she was to stay with Mr. Jagenal.
"Until," said Phillis, "my guardian comes home; and that will be in a fortnight."
"Your guardian, child? But he is dead."
"I had two, you know. The other is Mr. Lawrence Colquhoun—— What is the matter, Mrs. Cassilis?"
For she became suddenly pallid, and stared blankly before her, with no expression in her eyes, unless perhaps, a look of terror. It was the second time that Phillis had noted a change in this cold and passionless face. Before, the face had grown suddenly soft and tender at a recollection; now, it was white and rigid.
"Lawrence Colquhoun!" she turned to Phillis, and hardly seemed to know what she was saying. "Lawrence Colquhoun! He is coming home—and he promised me—no—he would not promise—and what will he say to me."