make a fool of you, and you want to break your heart over it. Strikes
me you need something to break your heart over."

He laughed silently.

"Nay," he said. "I s'll never break my heart."

"You'll go nearer to it over that, than over anything else: just
because a lot of ignorant monkeys want a monkey of their own sort to
do the Union work, and jabber to them, they want to get rid of you,
and you eat your heart out about it. More fool you, that's all I
say--more fool you. If you cared for your wife and children half
what you care about your Union, you'd be a lot better pleased in the
end. But you care about nothing but a lot of ignorant colliers, who
don't know what they want except it's more money just for themselves.
Self, self, self--that's all it is with them--and ignorance."

"You'd rather have self without ignorance?" he said, smiling finely.

"I would, if I've got to have it. But what I should like to see is
a man that has thought for others, and isn't all self and politics."

Her color had risen, her hand trembled with anger as she sewed. A
blank look had come over the man's face, as if he did not hear or heed
any more. He drank his tea in a long draught, wiped his moustache with
two fingers, and sat looking abstractedly at the children.

They had laid all the little packets on the floor, and Millicent was
saying: