MONTAGUE. Yes; directly.

LAURA. Then my father is a bad man? MONTAGUE. [After a pause.] Your
father finds himself in the midst of an evil system. He is the victim
of conditions which he did not create.

LAURA. Ah, now you are trying to spare me!

MONTAGUE. No. I should say that to any one. I am at war with the
system . . . not with individuals. It is the old story of hating the
sin and loving the sinner. Your father's rivals are just as reckless
as he take Murdock, for instance, the man who is behind this Grand
Avenue Railroad matter. It is hard for a woman to understand that
situation.

LAURA. I can understand some things very clearly. I go down into the
slums and I see all that welter of misery. I see the forces of evil
that exist there, defiant and hateful . . . the saloons and the
gambling-houses, and that ghastly white-slave traffic, of which Annie
Rogers is the victim. And there is the political organization, taking
its toll from all these, and using it to keep itself in power. And
there is Boss Grimes, who is at the head of all . . . and he is one of
my father's intimate associates. I ask about it, and I am told that it
is a matter of "business." But why should my father do business with a
man whose chief source of income is vice?

MONTAGUE. That is not quite the case, Miss Hegan.

LAURA. Doesn't the vice tribute go to him?