“I think the reason is not difficult to find,” he said, with assurance.
“Do you mean that the poor are unworthy?”
“No; I should not give that as the first cause; it is a result. This sentimental nonsense called the New Democracy has turned working people’s heads. It gives them puffed-up notions of their value, and they will not work for the wages that the masters offer—the wages that it is possible for them to pay. They spend too much time talking about the dignity of labour. If only they would work for what they can get and not squander their wages in the wine-shops they would be well enough off. They want too much; more than they will ever get. Their warfare against capital only hurts themselves.”
“Do they want more than they need?” she asked.
“I am not familiar with their needs,” he answered, with a note of petulance. “I do know, however, that they often demand more than it is possible to pay. I am not a theorist. I happen to have gained my knowledge in the school of practice, as you may be aware.”
“Still, suffering exists among them,” she reasoned, “and, while the fault may be as you say, the families of these men—misguided though they may be—are the victims rather than the culprits. I suppose it would be only common humanity to give them help.”
“Oh, yes; that is true,” he acknowledged. “The women and children have to play martyr while the men indulge in what our new economists delight to call divine discontent. By the way,” he went on, “I am paying some charitable concern five thousand liras a year.”
His manner told her that it was a benefice ungraced by a sense of moral obligation; that he merely had followed the example of modern rich men by returning a part of his tremendous revenue in benefactions to the public.
“It is good to give heart to the disheartened, relief to the suffering,” she said, holding up a journal they had obtained at Turin. “Have you seen this account of disorders in the Porta Ticinese quarter? I fear there is a hungry mouth in Milan that will show its teeth some day.”
Tarsis could hear the voice of Mario Forza. He betrayed a twitching of the lips, but tried to carry it off with a careless smile, as he said: