"All these people here--they are weak because they have never had a chance to be otherwise. Give them a fair chance and they will become strong--or most of them. That is what I believe--a fair chance for all to become strong." "And I believe the same. Only I believe that chance exists at present for all who are worthy. If there is good stuff in a man, he rises; if not, he belongs where he is. The struggle is selective, it develops. Make it easier and you lower the quality of your people." "Ah, yes, I know you are an unalterable individualist," she sighed. "When I realise the great part you are going to have during the next twenty or thirty years in shaping the conditions under which we all must live, I wish you could be brought to a broader concept of the human relationship." "If I am to play such a part, my own concept is quite broad enough." "But in ways it is so hopeless! It consigns all these people to outer darkness. It holds no chance for the man whom circumstances are pressing down, no chance for any of those helpless people who are reaching vainly upward, or those who would be reaching upward if their consciousness were roused." They were drawing near to David's house, and the sight of it prompted a specific instance. "No chance for the man who has stolen, who repents, who struggles to reform." "The repentant thief!" He gave a low laugh. "The one that repented on the cross is the eternal type of the thief that repents. If he repents, it's at the last minute--when he can steal no more!" His words half angered her. "I wish you could talk with the one I'm going to see now!" He looked at her in surprise. "That Aldrich fellow you were telling about!" he ejaculated. He felt a further astonishment--that she should be calling upon a man, and evidently in his room. He did not put this into words, but she read it in his face. It angered her more, and she answered his look sharply: "To have him call at my house or to see me at the Mission would be embarrassing to him. I feel that I can be of some service, and since I must choose between an uptown convention and helping save a man, I have decided to sacrifice convention. It seems strange, doesn't it?" He did not reply to her sarcasm, but he still disapproved. There were so many things of which he disapproved that even had he been free to criticise he would have felt the futility of striking at any single fault. He prayed for the eradication of all this part of her life, and her restoration to normal views; first, because he honestly disbelieved in the work that interested her; second, because he reasoned that while she gave so much interest to the poor she was likely to have little interest left to give to his suit.