“Oh, certainly! Never mind me.”
Margaret returned with a dismayed and crestfallen countenance. “He refuses it!” she exclaimed breathlessly as she sank into a chair. Herbert gave a long low whistle, and elevated his eyebrows in a cynical grimace that was not at all becoming.
“I am ashamed to tell you his reason,” Margaret went on. “It seems so trivial under the circumstances. He says he is fitted for higher work, and, in short, cannot accept such ungenteel employment.”
“Well, that settles the Hon. Edward Carson, Esq.,” said Herbert briskly. “I shall waste no more sympathy on him.”
“But the poor wife,” said Margaret, the tears standing in her eyes. “It was pitiful to see the look she gave him and hear her voice as she urged his acceptance of the place. ‘Anything is better than starving,’ she cried. ‘And perhaps you can work up to a better place; I am sure you can when your employers learn your fidelity and trustworthiness;’ but her entreaties were useless. He was stubborn with that white determination of an iron will. Neither the poor woman’s tears nor prayers had any visible effect upon him.”
“What does the fellow intend to do?”
“Oh, he has some little peddling devices, out of which, I believe, he expects to realize the fortune of a Vanderbilt in a short time. In fact, he informed me that he considered himself fully equal to managing his own affairs.”
“He has proved it. Well, Miss Margaret, this only strengthens my belief in the folly of attempting to help such incapables.”
“But think how the innocent suffer with the guilty! Think of the sick wife and the helpless babies! Because the man is stubborn and ill-natured, must those who are dependent on him be left to starve?”
“It seems a hard doctrine, born of that old pagan idea of brute force; but I sometimes question if it would not be the shortest way of ridding the world of its great army of incapables. Don’t look so horrified, at least until I have finished. Take this unfortunate woman, delicately reared, educated, refined, sensitive; charity is, no doubt, nearly as offensive to her as starvation. Such people are proud of their independence of character, and what can she hope for in a future that sees only the hand of charity between her and the grave? The helping hand in an extremity like this is different from a bounty that must be a continued obligation.”