‘I do,’ was the decisive reply. ‘Of course when one sees helpless creatures being tortured, to use your flowery language, one must do something. I should do something myself. But that is just the point. Why see them? Why be anywhere near them? You have plenty of friends of your own standing, your own kind, and your own position. You have relations and connections. Why must you cast them all off, and go and busy yourself in the concerns of a disreputable Italian woman and her threadbare old simpleton of a former lover, and their child and the vulgar little upstart who wants to marry the child. “A passion in tatters” on the part of the two elderly persons--a stupid vulgar love-story on that of the younger ones. Do look at it in the proper light. What have you to do with such things--what do you want _dans cette galère_? You can’t do anything, as you say. Go away and leave them, and return to your natural place amongst your friends and in society. That is the only course for you to take.’ Minna shook her head. ‘I’m interested in it,’ she replied. Mrs. Charrington began to look vexed. ‘I don’t think you understand what a mistake you are making.’ ‘And I am very fond of the child,’ pursued Minna. ‘The more I see of her the more I love her. Poor thing! I can’t understand how any woman with a heart in her breast, seeing what is going on, could stand aside and leave her to her fate, without even a word of sympathy.’ ‘Oh, when it comes to “a woman with a heart in her breast,” that is just the same as when philanthropists and charitable or religious maniacs tell you they “feel” something very strongly. They “feel” that Mrs. Brown or Mrs. Jones, and her crew of begging children, must not be allowed to go to the workhouse or prison, and----’ ‘Really, Mary, your similes are flattering!’ ‘There is too much truth in them. The plain fact of the matter is that you have got into a set of anything but respectable people, whose youthful follies and sins are coming home to roost, and bringing their children in their hands with them. You ought to have nothing whatever to do with them. You are letting yourself be carried away by your “feelings.” Oh, I could say many rude and true things on that subject. Some day or other you will bitterly repent it. When that day comes don’t say that I did not warn you.’ ‘It may come, then,’ said Minna, with a heightened colour. ‘I am satisfied with what I am doing. I wish it were more; I should embrace it with eagerness. If I could get Fulvia Dietrich out of this horrible situation, at almost any cost to myself I would do it. I was not quite sure what I felt about it before, but your plain-spoken remarks have made my own mind quite clear to me. So don’t you think we have said enough about it?’