Something in the situation stirred a perverse sort of humour in him. He didn’t quite believe in her, as she revealed her complexities and her simplicities out of her own mouth.
“The love of money is the root of all good,” he remarked.
After a silence: “I wonder,” she said thoughtfully. “One needs it to do good ... perhaps to be good.... Nobody can tell, I suppose, what starvation might do to them.... Money is good.”
“All things are difficult without money,” he said, pursuing his perverse thesis. “The love of it is not the root of all evil. Money is often salvation. Lack of it fetters effort. Want of it retards fulfilment. Without it ambition is crippled. Aspiration remains a dream. Lacking a penny-worth of bread, Hamlet had never been written.... I think I’ll say as much in my next story.”
His was an easy and humorous tongue, facile and creative, too—it being his business to juggle nimbly with ideas and amuse an audience at so much a column.
Eris listened, unaware that he was poking fun at himself. Her shadowy eyes were intent on his in the starlight. The white, sharp contours of her face interested him. He was alert for any word or tone or gesture done for dramatic effect.
“So that’s your story, then,” he said in his gay, agreeable voice. “You are a little pilgrim of Minerva in quest of Wisdom, travelling afoot through the world with an empty wallet and no staff to comfort you.”
“I understand what you mean,” she said. “Minerva was goddess of Wisdom. We had mythology in high-school.”
He thought: “She’s a clever comedienne or an utter baby.” He said: “Is that really all there is to your story?”
“I have no story.”