“About whether twenty thousand pounds were necessary to make us happy.”
“Oh, was that it? Then we can take our time; for, as we have got the money—at least, since you’ve got it—we can settle the problem in the most satisfactory of all ways—by practical experiment! And that will take us a lifetime, at least.”
“Then what if we found we had tried the wrong experiment, after all?”
“Well, I suppose all discoverers run that risk. Meanwhile, seems to me, ‘tis better to have the money to lose than to win.”
“I’m not sure about that,” said Marion. “Money gives us power in the world, but ’tis only the money we earn that gives us a right to the power. Inheriting money is a sort of robbery. The power we have is not our own—we have usurped it. It brings a host of things crowding about us—things to be done, business to be attended to, claims to be considered: things that we do not care about, and that do us no good; that prevent us from feeling and thinking what we really care about. If one is born rich, it may be different; but to become suddenly rich without any help of one’s own cannot be good, Philip. It must take away more than it gives; and what it takes away must be better than what it gives.”
“But some people must be rich,” said Philip. “Providence has so decreed. And why should it not be just as much the will of Providence that you should inherit riches as that you should be born to them or earn them? At all events, you have got it, and must make the best of it. Besides, there have been bigger fortunes in the world than twenty thousand pounds, as well as people who needed it more.”
“Do you love me any better than you did before you knew of this?”
“Knowing it has not made me love you more—if that’s what you mean; but the longer I know you the more I love you, so I love you now more than I did an hour ago.”
“Should you love me any less if this money turned out to belong to some one else?”
“No, foolish Marion; by this kiss, it wouldn’t make an atom of difference.”