"No, I don't ask you to come up to the level of the Belgians," answered Hilda, "or of the London street boys. But what can be asked even of a New York banker is that he shall sell to the side that is in the right. And when he does it, that he shall not make excessive profits."
"Run business by the Golden Rule?"
"No, not that, but just catch a little of the same spirit that is being shown by millions of the common people over there. Human nature isn't half as selfish and cowardly as men like you make out. You'll burn your fingers if you try to put a tag on these peasants and shop-assistants and clerks, over here. They're not afraid to die. The modern man is all right, but you fellows at the top don't give him half a chance. A whole race of peasants can be burned out and mutilated, and it doesn't cause a flutter in the pulse-beat of one of you American traders."
"You're a damn poor American," said the banker bluntly.
"You're the poor American," replied Hilda. "An uncle of mine, with a few 'greats' in front of him, was one of the three to sign the Declaration of Independence for Connecticut. Another of us was in Lincoln's Cabinet. My people have helped to make our country. We were the ones that welcomed Louis Kossuth, and Garibaldi. We are Americans. It's men like you that have weakened the strain—you and your clever tricks and your unbelief. You believe in nothing but success. 'Money is power,' say you. It is you that don't believe in America, not I."
"What does it all come to?" he broke in harshly. "What is it all about? You talk heatedly but what are you saying? I have given money to the Relief Work. I've done something, I've got results. Where would you have been without money?"
"Money!" said Hilda. "A thousandth part of your makings. And these people are giving their life! Why, once or twice a day, they are putting themselves between wounded men and shell fire. You talk about results. There are more results in pulling one Belgian out of the bloody dust than in your lifetime of shaving the market."
The color came into his face with a rush. He was so used to expressing power, sitting silent and a little grim, and moving weaker men to his will, that it was a new experience to be talked to by a person who quite visibly had vital force.
"I used to be afraid of people like you," she went on. "But you don't look half as big to me now as one of these young chauffeurs who take in the wounded under shrapnel. You've come to regard your directive ability as something sacred. You think you can sit in moral judgment on these people over here—these boys that are flinging away their lives for the future. Come with me to Belgium, and find out what they're really fighting about."