“And the women are the same,” resumed he: “some scheming to get their husbands high office, some intriguing for honors or Court favor; all of them ready to do a sharp thing,—to make a hit on the Stock Exchange.”
“And are there none above these mean and petty subterfuges?” cried she, indignantly.
“Yes; the few I have told you,—they who come into the world to claim the stakes. They can afford to be high-minded, and generous, and noble-hearted, as much as they please. They are booked 'all right,' and need never trouble their heads about the race; and that is the real reason, girl, why these men have an ascendancy over all others. They are not driven to scramble for a place; they have no struggles to encounter; the crowd makes way for them as they want to pass; and if they have anything good, ay, or even good-looking, about them, what credit don't they get for it!”
“But surely there must be many a lowly walk where a man with contentment can maintain himself honorably and even proudly?”
“I don't know of them, if there be,” said Davis, sulkily. “Lawyers, parsons, merchants, are all, I fancy, pretty much alike,—all on 'the dodge.'”
“And Beecher,—poor Beecher?” broke in Lizzy. And there was a blended pity and tenderness in the tone that made it very difficult to say what her question really implied.
“Why do you call him poor Beecher?” asked he, quickly. “He ain't so poor in one sense of the word.”
“It was in no allusion to his fortune I spoke. I was thinking of him solely with reference to his character.”
“And he is poor Beecher, is he, then?” asked Davis, half sternly.
If she did not reply, it was rather in the fear of offending her father, whose manner, so suddenly changing, apprised her of an interest in the subject she had never suspected.