She was silent, surprised.
"It's a money transaction in either case, isn't it?"
"What a terrible view of life you have!" she said, appalled. She had been prepared for danger of an overt character, not for the insidious subtle poisoning which he was distilling in her ears. She drew back, breathing quickly, fiercely resisting his ideas. "Money, money—that's all you see, because that's all you understand!"
"I only wish to make you see!" he said, shrugging his shoulders, "that there is no difference in being what I offer you and in being—"
"Mrs. Sassoon!" she said curtly.
He did not like the reference, man-like, though he frowned and admitted the allusion with a wave of his fingers.
"As you wish!" Then he continued, with an unwonted energy for his tired attitude: "No, I don't say everything can be controlled by money, but that our world is. There are two sorts of human beings: those who work, and those who live for pleasure. It's the last we're talking about. What are you? You're a nervous, pretty little animal that has learned to love luxury. You may know it, or you may not. You may have had the taste of it before you came here, but you've steeped yourself in it since. You couldn't help yourself! It's all about you; it's the corruption in every street; it's New York! Don't you think I know you? What were you thinking as you stood before that window to-night?"
"Yes, I love luxury!" she said abruptly, admitting it to shut him off.
"If you had never known New York, you might be different," he continued triumphantly. "You might marry and be satisfied with a commonplace routine existence. But, little girl, you're what you are! You covet everything: jewels—oh, I saw your eyes when you refused that necklace; clothes—you know your own worth and you've dreamed, you must have dreamed, of what you'd be if you could wear what other women wear; you want to go where others go, pay what others pay; you want to be watched, courted, admired. Do you think you'll ever love any man as you love yourself?"
"It isn't true!" she said furiously; yet his exposition had left her weakly terrified.