"I would not." I laughed. "They are generations removed from you in education and culture, in many of the things essential to you, but some of them see more clearly than you. Both need to understand you owe each other something. And how are you going to find out what it is, see from each other's point of view, unless you know each other better? Unless--" "For the love of Heaven, get rid of such nonsense! That particular kind of sentiment has gone to seed. Every sane man recognizes certain obligations to his fellow-man, every normal one tries to pay them, but all this rot about bringing better relations to pass between masters and men through familiarity, through putting people in places they are not fitted to fill, is idle dreaming based on ignorance of human nature. To give a man what he doesn't earn is to do him an injury. Most men win the rewards they are entitled to. You're a visionist. You always have been--" "And am always going to be! Life would hardly be endurable were it not for dreaming, hoping, believing. I could stand any loss better than that of my faith in humankind." I sat upright, my hands locked in my lap. "I'm not here to do things for the people you have so little patience with. I told you I wanted to see what sort of people we are. You're perfectly certain those who live in Scarborough Squares don't make a success of life. Do you think we do?" Again Selwyn stopped, stared at me, but before he could answer a queer, curdling, smothered sound reached us faintly from the street below. A cry low, yet clear and anguished, followed. Then a fall and hurrying footsteps, and then silence. Selwyn sprang to the window and opened it. "My God!" he said. His face was white. "What was that?" CHAPTER V I was out of the door before Selwyn had left the window. Quickly he followed me, however, and on the front porch, where Mrs. Mundy was already standing, we stood for a half-moment, looking up and down the street. The small arc of light made by the corner gaslamp lessened but little the darkness of the seemingly deserted street, and for a while we could distinguish nothing save the shadows cast by the gaunt trees of the Square. Then I saw Selwyn start. "Go inside." He was his steady self again. "It is too cold out here. I think some one has been hurt. Go in." I ran in Mrs. Mundy's room and to her wardrobe. Getting a coat and an old cape, I threw the latter over my shoulders, and, coming back to the porch, went down its steps and across the street to where Mrs. Mundy and Selwyn were bending over a young woman who stirred as they came up. "Put this on." I threw the coat to Mrs. Mundy. "Who is it?" "I don't know." Mrs. Mundy knelt on the ground. "Are you hurt?" she asked. "There--that's better." With skilful movement she helped the girl, who seemed dazed, to steady herself. As the latter sat up she put her hand to her face and brushed back her hair.