He made a movement that suggested shrinking. But he said presently, "I still don't see where I come in. In our business we don't get money that way."
"How do you get it?" she asked.
He stared, stolid and silent, at the floor.
"You told me once that——"
"In some moods I say things I don't altogether mean.... I don't moon about the miseries I can't possibly cure," he went on. "I don't quibble; I act. I don't criticise life; I live. I don't create the world or make the law of the survival of the fittest; I simply accept conditions I could not change. As for this so-called stealing, even the worst of the big men take only what's everybody's property and therefore anybody's."
"It seems to me," said she, "the question always is, 'Does this property belong to me?' and if the answer is 'No,' then to take it is—" She paused before the word.
"To steal," he said bluntly.
She made no comment. Finally he went on: "Let us understand each other. You refuse to marry me unless I abandon my career, and sink down to a position of no influence—become a nobody. For, of course, I can't play the game unless I play it under the rules. At least, I can think of no way."
"I see I didn't express myself well," she replied. "I've not tried to make conditions. I've simply shown you what kind of woman you were asking to marry you—and that you don't want her—that you want only the part of me that for the moment appeals to your senses. If I had married you without telling you what was in my mind and heart would it have been fair to you?"
He did not answer.