‘Mother, mother, you will kill me! You are so uncommonly funny! I wonder your friends haven’t long ago found some way of doing without bodies altogether. Now, I pray you, do not talk nonsense. Surely _that_ is forbidden on the Sabbath, if only the Jewish one.’ ‘Mother is quite right, Alfred,’ remarked Adela, with quiet affimativeness, as soon as her voice could be heard. ‘Your Socialism is earthly; we have to think of other things besides bodily comforts.’ ‘Who said we hadn’t?’ cried her brother. ‘But I take leave to inform you that you won’t get much spiritual excellence out of a man who lives a harder life than the nigger-slaves. If you women could only put aside your theories and look a little at obstinate facts! You’re all of a piece. Which of you was it that talked the other day about getting the vicar to pray for rain? Ho, ho, ho! Just the same kind of thing.’ Alfred’s combativeness had grown markedly since his making acquaintance with Mutimer. He had never excelled in the suaver virtues, and now the whole of the time he spent at home was devoted to vociferous railing at capitalists, priests, and women, his mother and sister serving for illustrations of the vices prevalent in the last-mentioned class. In talking he always paced the room, hands in pockets, and at times fairly stammered in his endeavour to hit upon sufficiently trenchant epithets or comparisons. When reasoning failed with his auditors, he had recourse to volleys of contemptuous laughter. At times he lost his temper, muttered words such as ‘fools!’--‘idiots!’ and flung out into the open air. It looked as if the present evening was to be a stormy one. Adela noted the presage and allowed herself a protest _in limine_. ‘Alfred, I do hope you won’t go on in this way whilst Letty is here. You mayn’t think it, but you pain her very much.’ ‘Pain her! It’s her education. She’s had none yet, no more than you have. It’s time you both began to learn.’ It being close upon the hour for tea, the young lady of whom there was question was heard to ring the door-bell. We have already had a passing glimpse of her, but since then she has been honoured by becoming Alfred’s affianced. Letty Tew fulfilled all the conditions desirable in one called to so trying a destiny. She was a pretty, supple, sweet-mannered girl, and, as is the case with such girls, found it possible to worship a man whom in consistency she must have deemed the most condemnable of heretics. She and Adela were close friends; Adela indeed, had no other friend in the nearer sense. The two were made of very different fibre, but that had not as yet distinctly shown.