She paused for a moment, and then stood up and faced him. "It's emigration, Captain Vane, that I and people like me have got to turn to for our boys. For ourselves--it doesn't much matter; we've had our day, and I don't want you to think the sun never shined on us, for it did. . . . Just wonderfully at times. . . ." She gave a quick sigh. "Only now . . . things are different. . . . And up till now, Culman Terrace hasn't considered emigration quite the thing. It's not quite respectable. . . . Only aristocratic ne'er-do-wells and quite impossibly common men emigrate. It's a confession of failure. . . . And so we've continued to swell the ranks of the most pitiful class in the country--the gentleman and his family with the small fixed income. The working man regards him with suspicion because he wears a black coat--or, with contempt because he doesn't strike; the Government completely ignores him because they know he's too much a slave to convention to do anything but vote along so-called gentlemanly lines. What do you suppose would be the result if the enormous body of middle class slaves in this country did, one day, combine and refuse to be bled by every other class? We're bled by the people on top for their own advantage; and then we're bled again for the advantage of the dear workman. . . ." She laughed a little. "Forgive me talking so much; but not for Jack, thank you." Vane bowed. "Mrs. Vernon, I think you're perfectly right--and I wish you and him the very best of luck." He shook hands gravely and a few moments later he was walking back towards the station with Binks trotting sedately at his heels. In all probability he would never see Mrs. Vernon again; war and its aftermath had brought their paths together for a space, and now they were diverging again. But that short space had been enough to make him feel ashamed and proud. Ashamed of himself for his cynicism and irritability; proud of the woman who, with her faith clear and steadfast, could face the future without faltering. Her man's job had been laid upon her; she would never fail him till the time came for her to join him. . . . And by then she would have earned her reward--rest. . . . She will deserve every moment of it. . . . Surely the Lord of True Values will not grudge it to her. . . .