'It's not the fault of the system, but of my father's will and my brother's mad temper; but anyhow it is not my fault.'
'Well, your father's will is distinctly part of the system; but, as you say, you are not to blame. No, Ferrier; you are certainly the most hardly done by. As to these "hands," as you call them, qu'importe? It is you who are to be pitied. It is so much harder to be blamed than to starve.'
'What a cool fellow you are, Litvinoff!' Roland laughed, but was yet a little nettled too, for, like all Englishmen, he hated irony. 'You're always mocking at something or somebody. But perhaps you forget that I shall have hardly anything to live on either—a wretched hundred a year or so.'
'A hundred a year,' said the Count, in the tone of one who is dealing with a difficult arithmetical problem, 'is just about two pounds a week. Now the other day you said that two pounds a week was "not so bad" for a man with a family; and, with all your misfortunes, you are not what you English people call "a family man."'
'But then you must remember how differently those sort of people are brought up.'
'I do remember it.'
'They don't have the same needs as we do.'
'Don't they?'
'No. What do they care about music or art or poetry or travelling? Fortunately for them they haven't the tastes that run away with money.'
'They have a taste for food and for warmth, I suppose,' the Count was beginning, when Roland interrupted him.