"How?" asked Vesey, with a half-smile. "What else is there to be done in this world except to get rich in order to live comfortably?"
"I know people who are not rich at all, and who never will be rich, yet who live more comfortably than I have ever done," replied Helmsley—"that is, if to 'live comfortably' implies to live peacefully, happily, and contentedly, taking each day as it comes with gladness as a real 'living' time. And by this, I mean 'living,' not with the rush and scramble, fret and jar inseparable from money-making, but living just for the joy of life. Especially when it is possible to believe that a God exists, who designed life, and even death, for the ultimate good of every creature. This is what I believed—once—'out in ole Virginny, a long time ago!'"
He hummed the last words softly under his breath,—then swept one hand across his eyes with a movement of impatience.
"Old men's brains grow addled," he continued. "They become clouded with a fog through which only the memories of the past and the days of their youth shine clear. Sometimes I talk of Virginia as if I were home-sick and wanted to go back to it,—yet I never do. I wouldn't go back to it for the world,—not now. I'm not an American, so I can say, without any loss of the patriotic sense, that I loathe America. It is a country to be used for the making of wealth, but it is not a country to be loved. It might have been the most lovable Father-and-Mother-Land on the globe if nobler men had lived long enough in it to rescue its people from the degrading Dollar-craze. But now, well!—those who make fortunes there leave it as soon as they can, shaking its dust off their feet and striving to forget that they ever experienced its incalculable greed, vice, cunning, and general rascality. There are plenty of decent folk in America, of course, just as there are decent folk everywhere, but they are in the minority. Even in the Southern States the 'old stock' of men is decaying and dying-out, and the taint of commercial vulgarity is creeping over the former simplicity of the Virginian homestead. No,—I would not go back to the scene of my boyhood, for though I had something there once which I have since lost, I am not such a fool as to think I should ever find it again."
Here he looked round at his listener with a smile so sudden and sweet as to render his sunken features almost youthful.
"I believe I am boring you, Vesey!" he said.
"Not the least in the world,—you never bore me," replied Sir Francis, with alacrity. "You are always interesting, even in your most illogical humour."
"You consider me illogical?"
"In a way, yes. For instance, you abuse America. Why? Your misguided wife was American, certainly, but setting that unfortunate fact aside, you made your money in the States. Commercial vulgarity helped you along. Therefore be just to commercial vulgarity."
"I hope I am just to it,—I think I am," answered Helmsley slowly; "but I never was one with it. I never expected to wring a dollar out of ten cents, and never tried. I can at least say that I have made my money honestly, and have trampled no man down on the road to fortune. But then—I am not a citizen of the 'Great Republic.'"