“Yes, and sometimes, I think, just like any other.”
“I am.”
“Once I tried to define my motives—can you define yours?”
“I want a place in the sun—want it tremendously. I want to be able to think and feel and move among lovely things and people. I have given away twenty years to sordidness, and all I have earned is appreciation of the beautiful. I want to live the beautiful now, and rise above the trivial bother of a washpail and a gas-ring.”
“Mammon, Mammon,” cried Wynne, for want of a better thought.
“Oh no. Don’t think I crave for money, for it isn’t so; but one must have money if one is never to think of it.”
“Why?”
“Isn’t half the sorrow in the world traceable to such little causes as an extra halfpenny on a quartern of bread?”
“Not untrue,” Wynne nodded. His eyes fell on the dirty gas-ring of the grate, and he frowned. “Why do you come here, then?”
“Don’t you know?” she replied.