"Yes, or to shape the question perhaps more to a woman's liking, how young are you? Have you yet many years before you in which to enjoy the fruits of our labours? Have you the iron frame which will enable you to say—'I shall revel for years in the soft enjoyments of luxury stolen from a world I hate?' Tell me."
Mrs. Lovett fell into a musing attitude, and Todd thought she was reflecting upon her age; but at length she said—
"I sometimes think I would give half of what is mine if I could forget how I became possessed of the whole."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, Todd. Has no such feeling ever crossed you?"
"Never! I am implacable. Fate made me a barber, but nature made me something else. In the formation of man there is a something that gives weakness to his resolves, and makes him pause upon the verge of enterprise with a shrinking horror. That is what the world calls conscience. It has no hold of me. I have but one feeling towards the human race, and that is hatred. I saw that while they pretended to bow down to God, they had in reality set up another idol in their heart of hearts. Gold! gold! Tell me—how many men there are in this great city who do not worship gold far more sincerely and heartily than they worship Heaven?"
"Few—few."
"Few? None, I say, none. No. The future is a dream—an ignis fatuus—a vapour. The present we can grasp—ha!"
"What is our wealth, Todd?"
"Hundreds of thousands."