When he had finished she sat quite still, musing over what he had told her, her eyes alight.
“Yes, it is wonderful,” she said at length, in a low voice. “Oh, I can believe in that, making the world a better place to live in, making people happier. Of course every one cannot be like Mr. Bentley, but all may do their share in their own way. If only we could get rid of this senseless system of government that puts a premium on the acquisition of property! As it is, we have to depend on individual initiative. Even the good Mr. Bentley does is a drop in the ocean compared to what might be done if all this machinery—which has been invented, if all these discoveries of science, by which the forces of an indifferent nature have been harnessed, could be turned to the service of all mankind. Think of how many Mrs. Garvins, of how many Dalton Streets there are in the world, how many stunted children working in factories or growing up into criminals in the slums! I was reading a book just the other day on the effect of the lack of nutrition on character. We are breeding a million degenerate citizens by starving them, to say nothing of the effect of disease and bad air, of the constant fear of poverty that haunts the great majority of homes. There is no reason why that fear should not be removed, why the latest discoveries in medicine and science should not be at the disposal of all.”
The genuineness of her passion was unmistakable. His whole being responded to it.
“Have you always felt like this?” he asked.
“Like what?”
“Indignant—that so many people were suffering.”
His question threw her into reflection.
“Why, no,” she answered, at length, “I never thought——I see what you mean. Four or five years ago, when I was going to socialist lectures, my sense of all this—inequality, injustice was intellectual. I didn't get indignant over it, as I do now when I think of it.”
“And why do you get indignant now?”
“You mean,” she asked, “that I have no right to be indignant, since I do nothing to attempt to better conditions?—”