“Oh, I have done slumming in my time, under Mrs. Meades’ wing. I like new experiences, you know. We saw a great many frightful things while the craze lasted, but the worst of all was a cobbler’s _ménage_. He had a wife and seven children, and they lived in two rooms, he never went out, that man, neither did his wife; she squatted on the floor all day and cleaned things with a patent soap which smelt worse than they did, and he saw all she did and thought and felt; the awful hunted look of that woman was a thing to dream of. “While Mrs. Meades talked—‘religion’ she called it—the cobbler sewed leather, and glanced now and again at his wife in a way to make your blood freeze, and then he would hold up his awl in a ghastly fashion, and grin at her over it; it was no bit of steel he was gloating over, it was his wife’s soul held up on that awl. “But putting husbands and wives out of the question,” she went on, “this appalling nearness of living is most horrible. One must feel for ever on a dissecting table, having one’s most hidden nerves pulled out one by one.” “They have no nerves, and they don’t experiment on one another, those people; they don’t live enough for that, they exist in a smoky thick atmosphere of indifference.” “That man did experiment, and his wife was not indifferent; she was nerves and nothing else.” “These were exceptions.” “The worst tragedies are made out of exceptions.” “Probably, exceptions are mostly unnatural.” “It is not unnatural to object to have one’s sensations flayed alive!” “Such sensitiveness is unnatural to a low under-fed semi-sentient state of life, such people have enough to do to keep body and soul together, without considering them apart.” “But I contend they do consider them apart, they do make investigations.” “Yes, into the vices of their betters, which have a perennial interest for them as being beyond their reach. You won’t catch them as a rule classifying one another and flaying souls. These are the distractions of the leisure classes.” “Then,” said Gwen, “I wish I had been born in the other class.” “To what purpose?” said her husband, “you would have been an exception.” “Oh, then,” she said impatiently, “I shall in future reserve all my pity for the exceptions, and retain my normal hardness of heart for the other crowd. I never could get universal philanthropy to appeal to me, and it’s comfortable to put one’s want of humanity on a reasonable basis. But those generations of square pegs in round holes, they worry one! And yet people speak of a just God!” “Poor God! What should we do without that universal scape-grace? As if He had anything to do with the matter! The fathers have trusted to chance, and the children suffer.