“Oh, the Marquis! You know that this is far better. This man means a lot.”
“He swarms with millions too,” said Camelia. “Come, Frances, preach me a nice little worldly sermon on the supreme utility of riches—without the gloves now.”
“I usually remove them when I approach the subject,” Mrs. Fox-Darriel sighed with much sincerity. “My poor Charlie! How we keep our heads above water I really don’t know, and, as it is, the sharks are nibbling at our toes! Supreme! Money, my dear, is the only thing! Once you’ve that foundation you may begin to erect your sentiments, your moralities.”
“And how few people are honest enough to say so. You and I are honest, Frances; it buys everything, of course.”
“Well, almost everything. One must thank Nature for beauty and cleverness.”
“Beauty and cleverness in rags have a sorry time of it in this world. But money, of course, especially if not too new, buys friends, power, good taste, morality. Poverty makes people base and cringing—makes criminals. One is jumped on in this world, scrunched into the earth, into the dirt, if one hasn’t money, and yet the hypocrites talk of compensation! Of all the sloppy, canting optimism with which people try to make themselves comfortable that is the sorriest! And while they talk they go on scrambling and scrunching for all they are worth; nasty beasts! They kick a man on the head, and say ‘the stupor compensates for the pain.’ That is the current theory about the lower classes.”
“Yet you enjoy the world, Camelia.”
“I am not jumped on.”
“You jump on other people, then?”
“Not in a sordid manner; I don’t have to soil my feet. Why shouldn’t I enjoy it?”