‘Yes, a good many millions, the majority of them poor, an enormous percentage--suffering. Gaston and you, and I, are surfeited with good things. We are certain every day we live that we shall dine--think of that, Mrs. Arbuthnot, _dine_, with the accompaniment of as many strawberries and roses as we choose to buy.’ The blood mantled hot over Dinah Arbuthnot’s weary face. ‘You mean to remind me that I am selfish?’ she said, very low. ‘I know it, Geoffrey. I know that I am sinking fast into everything that is bad.’ ‘In the common meaning of the words, you are the least selfish woman living. But you are self-absorbed--no, even that is saying too much--you are Gaston-absorbed. If you could see how some half-starved people manage to get along--yes, and to be cheerful over their crust--you might think less of strawberries and roses for Gaston’s breakfast-table.’ The admonition looks rougher, set down in black and white, than it sounded. Dinah’s face grew animated. ‘I know that to be useful in any way would do me good. Long ago I should have liked district-visiting in England, only you see’--hesitating--‘we never stop long enough to explain ... I mean, for the clergyman of the place quite to know about one.’ Her tone was tentative. She had an uneasy dread that young women who marry men above them in rank are likely, if ‘unexplained,’ to be suspect in orthodox eyes. In their early married days she recollected a visit paid to them by a seaside curate with a subscription-list, recollected the seaside curate’s glance when Gaston introduced her, with her country speech and manners, as ‘my wife.’ And Dinah’s being the order of mind that generalises, for ever after, from one experience, that glance haunted her still, an uncomfortable reminder as to the likely sentiments of the clergy at large regarding herself. ‘Not long enough to explain! I don’t catch your meaning. What on earth has any clergyman in England to do with you, Dinah Arbuthnot? Could you not feel for miserable people, work for them, serve them heartily, although you travelled round the country, a heathen, in a caravan, although you had never spoken to a clergyman in your life!’ ‘I want some one to show me the way,--that is another weakness of my character,--I want some one to show me the way in everything good, Geff.’ ‘Let me show you the way, to-day. You remember the sailor lad who got his ankle hurt as we were coming back from France?’ That wretched passage in the fog? Yes, Dinah remembered every incident of it, too well. ‘There was worse mischief done than the surgeons feared, at first. Poor Jack is at present Number 28 in the accident ward of the hospital. He will have to remain there for a good many more weeks than he thinks. Well, one may safely assert, Mrs. Arbuthnot, that though you and I and Gaston have roses and strawberries to spare, Jack has none.’ ‘Take them to him, of course,’ Dinah exclaimed. ‘Surely, Geff, you might have done that, without asking.’