“Then, marry a rich man,” I suggested.
She shook her head. “I don’t know a single rich man—except possibly my brother—who isn’t obsessed about money. The rich have a craving to be richer that’s worse than the desire of the poor to be rich.... I don’t know what to do. I couldn’t bring up children in the atmosphere of wealth and caste and show—the sort of atmosphere a man or woman crazy about money insists on creating. My father was right. He was a really wise man. I owe to him every good instinct and good idea I have.”
“But you must have seen some man who promised well. I think you can trust to your judgment. You mustn’t defeat your one chance for happiness by overcaution.”
Again she was silent for several minutes. Then she said, with a queer laugh and an embarrassed movement: “I have seen such a man—lately. I like him. I think I could like him more than a little. I’ve an idea he might care for me if I’d let him. But—I don’t know.”
I saw that she longed to confide, but wished to be questioned. “Here on the yacht?” said I.
She nodded.
“Beechman?”
She laughed shyly yet with amusement.
“That was an easy guess,” said I. “He’s the only man of us free to marry.”
“What do you think of him?”