“I am doubtful of you.”
“I can tell the quarter whence that doubt was blown!”
“It would be of greater consequence to blow it away! George Crawford, do you believe yourself an honest man?”
“As men go, yes.”
“But not as men go, George? As you would like to appear to the world when hearts are as open as faces?”
He was silent.
“Would the way you have made your money stand the scrutiny of—”
She had Andrew in her mind, and was on the point of saying “Jesus Christ,” but felt she had no right, and hesitated.
“—Of our friend Andrew?” supplemented George, with a spiteful laugh. “The only honest mode of making money he knows is the strain of his muscles—the farmer-way! He wouldn't keep up his corn for a better market—not he!”
“It so happens that I know he would not; for he and my father had a dispute on that very point, and I heard them. He said poor people were not to go hungry that he might get rich. He was not sent into the world to make money, he said, but to grow corn. The corn was grown, and he could get enough for it now to live by, and had no right, and no desire to get more—and would not keep it up! The land was God's, not his, and the poor were God's children, and had their rights from him! He was sent to grow corn for them!”