"I don't want you to have an unnecessarily low opinion of me, my dear.
I'm not one of those people who tell you that everything's all right
because the rich have their troubles as well as the poor. A certain
modicum of decency and comfort is obviously necessary to man before
we can begin to do anything but pity him; but that doesn't make it any
easier to know how you're going to insure him that modicum of decency
and comfort, does it?"
"We've got to do it," said Thyme; "it won't wait any longer."
"My dear," said Hilary, "think of Mr. Purcey! What proportion of the
upper classes do you imagine is even conscious of that necessity? We,
who have got what I call the social conscience, rise from the platform
of Mr. Purcey; we're just a gang of a few thousands to Mr. Purcey's tens
of thousands, and how many even of us are prepared, or, for the
matter of that, fitted, to act on our consciousness? In spite of your
grandfather's ideas, I'm afraid we're all too much divided into classes;
man acts, and always has acted, in classes."
"Oh--classes!" answered Thyme--"that's the old superstition, uncle."
"Is it? I thought one's class, perhaps, was only oneself
exaggerated--not to be shaken off. For instance, what are you and I,
with our particular prejudices, going to do?"
Thyme gave him the cruel look of youth, which seemed to say: 'You are my
very good uncle, and a dear; but you are more than twice my age.
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