Burgeman senior was contemplating her with genuine amazement. “I do not believe I have ever heard any one put forth such extraordinary theories before. May I ask if you are a socialist?”
“Bless you, no! I am a very ordinary human being, just; principally human.”
“Do you know who I am?”
For an instant Patsy looked at him without speaking; then she answered, slowly: “You have told me, haven’t you? You are the master of the place, and you look a mortal lonely one.”
“I—am.” The words seemed to slip from his lips without his being at all conscious of having spoken.
“And the money couldn’t keep it from you.” There was no mockery in her tone. “’Tis pitifully few comforts you can buy in life, when all’s said and done.”
“Comforts!” The sick man’s eyes grew sharp, attacking, with a force that had not been his for days. “You are talking now like a fool. Money is the only thing that can buy comforts. What comforts have the poor?”
“Are you meaning butlers and limousines, electric vibrators and mud-baths? Those are only cures for the bodily necessities and ills that money brings on a man: the over-feeding and the over-drinking and the—under-living. But what comforts would they bring to a troubled mind and a pinched heart? Tell me that!”
“So! You would prefer to be poor—more pastorally poetic?” Burgeman sneered.