there is something alive; is that what you mean? In things like
dust-carts, and men mending roads? You feel that all the time when you
walk about London, and when you turn on a tap and the water comes?"

"Certainly," said Richard. "I understand you to mean that the whole of
modern society is based upon cooperative effort. If only more people
would realise that, Miss Vinrace, there would be fewer of your old
widows in solitary lodgings!"

Rachel considered.

"Are you a Liberal or are you a Conservative?" she asked.

"I call myself a Conservative for convenience sake," said Richard,
smiling. "But there is more in common between the two parties than
people generally allow."

There was a pause, which did not come on Rachel's side from any lack of
things to say; as usual she could not say them, and was further confused
by the fact that the time for talking probably ran short. She was
haunted by absurd jumbled ideas--how, if one went back far enough,
everything perhaps was intelligible; everything was in common; for the
mammoths who pastured in the fields of Richmond High Street had turned
into paving stones and boxes full of ribbon, and her aunts.

"Did you say you lived in the country when you were a child?" she asked.

Crude as her manners seemed to him, Richard was flattered. There could
be no doubt that her interest was genuine.