"
Richard bent his head to show that he accepted the widow.
"In London you're spending your life, talking, writing things, getting
bills through, missing what seems natural. The result of it all is that
she goes to her cupboard and finds a little more tea, a few lumps of
sugar, or a little less tea and a newspaper. Widows all over the country
I admit do this. Still, there's the mind of the widow--the affections;
those you leave untouched. But you waste you own."
"If the widow goes to her cupboard and finds it bare," Richard answered,
"her spiritual outlook we may admit will be affected. If I may pick
holes in your philosophy, Miss Vinrace, which has its merits, I would
point out that a human being is not a set of compartments, but an
organism. Imagination, Miss Vinrace; use your imagination; that's where
you young Liberals fail. Conceive the world as a whole. Now for your
second point; when you assert that in trying to set the house in
order for the benefit of the young generation I am wasting my higher
capabilities, I totally disagree with you. I can conceive no more
exalted aim--to be the citizen of the Empire. Look at it in this way,
Miss Vinrace; conceive the state as a complicated machine; we citizens
are parts of that machine; some fulfil more important duties; others
(perhaps I am one of them) serve only to connect some obscure parts of
the mechanism, concealed from the public eye.
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