"I don't care about that," he said. "All Socialists are inconsistent: that is the first thing to get into your head in any dealings with us. But we are not more inconsistent than Christians--that is, if Christ was a Christian, which one often doubts. My special line is clear thinking and persuasiveness, and one must do what one can do best." "And meanwhile what of the great boon of life?" I said. "Is it not in danger, like unpopular bills, of being 'talked out'?" He was silent. "Oh, well," he said at last, "perhaps I like talking best. I wonder. But it's constructive talk. You can't deny that." CHAPTER X IN WHICH WE FIND OURSELVES IN THE BOSOM OF AN ENGLISH FAMILY AND WATCH A UTOPIAN IN LOVE For some obscure reason Spanton has taken a fancy to me, and I must admit in return that I find something rather likeable in the scientific coolness of his mind and his dominating desire to see straight. Having taken a fancy to me, it follows that he wanted me to meet his betrothed, for although it naturally goes against his grain to do anything so conventional and banal as to be engaged, with the prospect of a legalized union in the future, human nature has been too much for him, and rather than lose his Nancy he has agreed to her father's very moderate wishes as regards an engagement and a registrar. But I need hardly say that he has given her no ring. In fact, his only presents to her so far, I understand, are a typewrriter and a pair of sandals. Nancy is a Miss Freeland, one of a family of girls who live a few miles out of London in a roomy Georgian house, with a large untidy garden, near Richmond. The first words that I heard on entering the Freelands' hall told me instantly that I was among a twentieth-century household: "Oh, father, don't be such an ass!" The speaker--Jocelyn, a pretty girl in a soft Liberty dress--at once broke away to welcome her prospective brother-in-law, who was there humanized to Bob, and his friend; and Mr. Freeland laid his hard case before us. "Tell me," he said, "is a man and a father an ass because he thinks that one visit to the theatre a week is enough for a growing girl of fifteen?" I was hesitating in my reply when another of the daughters came to the rescue. "I know what Mr. Falconer will say," she said: "he will say that he has always made it a point never to interfere in disputes between relations. But Bob's not like that. Bob's never so happy as when he can set relatives disputing; aren't you, Bob?" Nancy here entered the room, bringing the number of the unmarried sisters to seven. She is the only one who is engaged, and is twenty-two. Jocelyn is older; the rest younger. Nancy is pretty too, but less pretty than Jocelyn. The married daughter is a Mrs. Gosling, of whom Jocelyn wickedly says that her husband is the only one of her suitors who has not married well.