Luke’s countenance momentarily brightened; but the cloud soon settled on it again.
“We couldn’t get enough,” he said with a sigh. “Unless,” he added, with a glimmer of humour, “you or some other noble person have more cash to dispose of than I fancy is at all likely! To persuade Quincunx into any bold activity we should have to guarantee him a comfortable annuity for the rest of his life, and an assurance of his absolute security from Romer’s vengeance. It would have to be enough for Lacrima, too, you understand!”
The theologian shook the dew-drops from a large crimson rose which hung within his reach.
“What precise sum would you suggest,” he asked, “as likely to be a sufficient inducement?”
The stone-carver meditated. “Those two could live quite happily,” he remarked at last, “on two hundred a year.”
“It is a large amount to raise,” said Mr. Taxater. “I fear it is quite beyond my power and the power of the Seldoms, even if we combined our efforts. How right Napoleon was, when he said that in any campaign, the first, second, and third requisite was money!
“It only shows how foolish those critics of the Catholic Church are, who blame her for laying stress upon the temporal side of our great struggle against evil. In this world, as things go, one always strikes sooner or later against the barrier of money. The money-question lies at the bottom of every subterranean abuse and every hidden iniquity that we unmask. It’s a wretched thing that it should be so, but we have to accept it; until one of Vennie’s angels”—he added in an undertone—“descends to help us! Your poor brother began talking just now about the power of stone. I referred him to the Cross of our Lord—which is made of another material!
“But unfortunately in the stress of this actual struggle, you and I, my dear Andersen, find ourselves, as you see, compelled to call in the help, not of wood, but of gold. Gold, and gold alone, can furnish us with the means of undermining these evil powers!”
The texture of Mr. Taxater’s mind was so nicely inter-threaded with the opposite strands of metaphysical and Machiavellian wisdom, that this discourse, fantastic as it may sound to us, fell from him as naturally as rain from a heavy cloud. Luke Andersen’s face settled into an expression of hopeless gloom.
“The thing is beyond us, then,” he said. “I certainly can’t provide an enormous sum like that. James’ and my savings together only amount to a few hundreds. And if no quixotic person can be discovered to help us, we are bound hand and foot.