"No—poor souls!" said Wharton, with a peculiar vibrating emphasis. "'By their stripes we are healed, by their death we have lived.' Do you remember your Carlyle?"
They had entered one of the bays formed by the bookcases which on either side of the room projected from the wall at regular intervals, and were standing by one of the windows which looked out on the great avenue. Beside the window on either side hung a small portrait—in the one case of an elderly man in a wig, in the other of a young, dark-haired woman.
"Plenty in general, but nothing in particular," said Marcella, laughing.
"Quote."
He was leaning against the angle formed by the wall and the bookcase. The half-serious, half-provocative intensity of his blue eyes under the brow which drooped forward contrasted with the careless, well-appointed ease of his general attitude and dress.
"'Two men I honour, and no third,'" he said, quoting in a slightly dragging, vibrating voice: "'First, the toil-worn craftsman that with earth-made implement laboriously conquers the earth and makes her man's.—Hardly-entreated Brother! For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed; thou wert our conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so marred.' Heavens! how the words swing! But it is great nonsense, you know, for you and me—Venturists—to be maundering like this. Charity—benevolence—that is all Carlyle is leading up to. He merely wants the cash nexus supplemented by a few good offices. But we want something much more unpleasant! 'Keep your subscriptions—hand over your dividends—turn out of your land—and go to work!' Nowadays society is trying to get out of doing what we want, by doing what Carlyle wanted."
"Do you want it?" said Marcella.
"I don't know," he said, laughing. "It won't come in our time."
Her lip showed her scorn.
"That's what we all think. Meanwhile you will perhaps admit that a little charity greases the wheels."
"You must, because you are a woman; and women are made for charity—and aristocracy."