"Money is the lever which moves the world," she said; "and it is only because you have never known the real want of it that you hold it so lightly."
"I have sometimes thought that myself," he replied. "It is true that only a starving man properly appreciates bread. I have never starved, and it may be that I am not properly grateful for mine; but, at least, I try neither to undervalue nor overvalue it."
"Some day," she said, "you may find an object which money would have helped you to gain, and then you will regret the folly—forgive me if I speak plainly—which threw away such a great power."
"I should have to change very much," he replied, "before I could care for any object which money would help me to gain."
"There is nothing more likely than that you will change on that point. If there is anything that life teaches, it is that there is scarcely a single object which money will not help us to gain."
He looked at her with a curious surprise, which he did not attempt to conceal. "Forgive me," he said, "if I speak too plainly; but there is a remarkable want of harmony between your appearance and your utterances. If one listened with closed eyes, one might fancy that a man of fifty spoke in behalf of the god to whom he had devoted his life. But when one looks at you—"
"You are surprised that such sentiments should come from one who ought to be ignorant of every reality of life," she observed, coolly, as he paused. "But I learned something about those realities at a very early age. I know how the want of money has embittered my life; I know how it lays on me now fetters under which I chafe; and therefore, by right of the experience which you lack, I tell you that you will live to regret the loss of the fortune you are throwing away."
"No man can speak with absolute certainty of the future; but, if I know myself at all, I do not think I shall ever regret it."
She shrugged her shoulders slightly. "In that case you will be an extraordinary man," she said. "But I feel as if I should beg your pardon for having fallen into such a personal vein of discussion."
"I do not think that the responsibility rests with you," he answered. "But if you consider that you owe me an apology, I can point out an immediate way to make amends. Ever since you have been standing there, I have been longing to make a sketch of you. Will you allow me to do so?"