I'm awfully sorry for Harry--but I take off my hat
to the girl."
Victoria's expression became sarcastic.
"Who will ultimately marry," she said, "according to _my_ interpretation
of the business, a first-class adventurer--possessed of a million of
money--stolen from its proper owners."
"I don't believe it. I've seen her! But, upon my word, what a queer
parable it all is! Shall I tell you how it shapes itself to me?" He
looked, tongs in hand, at Victoria, his greenish eyes all alive. "I see
you all--you, Harry, Faversham, and Melrose, Miss Lydia--grouped round a
central point. The point is wealth. You are all in different relations to
wealth. You and Harry are indifferent to wealth, because you have always
had it. It has come to you without toiling and spinning--can you imagine
being without it?--but it has not spoilt you. You sit loose to it;
because you have never _struggled_ for it. But I doubt whether the
Recording Angel, when it comes to reckoning up, will give you very high
marks for your indifference! Dear friend!"--he put out a sudden hand
and touched Victoria's--"bear with me! There's one thing you'll hear, if
any one does, at the last day--'I was a stranger and ye took me in.'" His
eyes shone upon her.
After which, he resumed in his former tone: "Then take Melrose. He too is
determined by his relation to wealth. Wealth has just ruined him--burnt
him up--made out of him so much refuse for the nether fires. Faversham
again! Wealth, the crucial, deciding factor! The testing with him is
still going on.
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