Lionel laughed a little nervously.
“Moxon said that, did he? Probably about this very property? Ah! I thought so. Please go on.”
“What applies to our great manufacturing industries, so Mr. Moxon says, applies also to the land question. Manufacturers who refuse to scrap obsolete machinery are scrapped themselves. The inventive genius of this country is marvellous. What made the Germans rich?”
“I’m hanged if I know.”
“Mr. Moxon told me. A process for reducing refractory iron ores which was invented by an Englishman. This estate has been worked upon the same conservative lines for generations. These lines are worked out.”
Her voice died away. Lionel was tremendously impressed. What a clever little woman it was, to be sure! But a jealous pang pierced him. If he could talk, like Moxon——! And how closely she must have listened to the beggar to repeat, as she did, his very words; for he divined that they were not her words. And Moxon was coming back, confound him! He felt absurdly cheap and small, when he compared himself to Moxon. Unable to answer Moxon out of his own pitiful inexperience, he found himself repeating words often in the Squire’s mouth.
“Of course, Joyce, this scrapping process is costly. Intensive culture, on any large scale, means a large output of capital. Reconstruction isn’t quite as easy as Moxon thinks.”
“You had better talk to Mr. Moxon about that.”
“I will. Is—is he coming back soon?”
“I don’t know.”