Page:Later Life (1919).djvu/133

Rh "No, dear, don't do it: don't talk like that . . ."

"Am I always saying tactless things?"

"No, no, but . . . if you keep on, you'll really make Brauws refuse to come to the houses of people like ourselves . . ."

"Who eat pâté!"

"Hush, Marianne!"

"Uncle!" said Marianne to Van der Welcke.

"Yes?"

"Don't you think it silly? To become a workman and then leave off? Why? That's what I want to know. If you want to become one, you should remain one! Are you in sympathy with those ideas which lead to nothing?"

"I'm very fond of Brauws, Marianne."

"But not of his ideas?"

"No, he's a monomaniac. He's mad on that point, or was."

"Just so: was."

"Marianne, are you always so implacable?"

The bells:

"No, I'm not implacable. Paul is really right: I mustn't talk like that. I blurt out the first thing that comes into my head. Is Brauws angry, do you think?"

"With you? No."

"I say, Uncle, do you think it's the least use, always thinking about that improvement of social conditions? Why not, all of us, do good where we can