Montague showed the expected amount of astonishment.
“Of course that gave the dreadful newspapers another chance to gossip,” said Mrs. Winnie, plaintively. “People found out what I had paid for it. One can’t have anything beautiful without that question being asked.”
And then followed a silence, while Mrs. Winnie waited for him to ask it. As he forebore to do so, she added, “It was fifty thousand dollars.”
They were moving towards the elevator, where a small boy in the wonderful livery of plush and scarlet stood at attention. “Sometimes,” she continued, “it seems to me that it is wicked to pay such prices for things. Have you ever thought about it?”
“Occasionally,” Montague replied.
“Of course,” said she, “it makes work for people; and I suppose they can’t be better employed than in making beautiful things. But sometimes, when I think of all the poverty there is, I get unhappy. We have a winter place down South—one of those huge country-houses that look like exposition buildings, and have rooms for a hundred guests; and sometimes I go driving by myself, down to the mill towns, and go through them and talk to the children. I came to know some of them quite well—poor little wretches.”
They stepped out of the elevator, and moved toward the art-gallery. “It used to make me so unhappy,” she went on. “I tried to talk to my husband about it, but he wouldn’t have it. ‘I don’t see why you can’t be like other people,’ he said—he’s always repeating that to me. And what could I say?”
“Why not suggest that other people might be like you?” said the man, laughing.
“I wasn’t clever enough,” said she, regretfully.—“It’s very hard for a woman, you know—with no one to understand. Once I went down to a settlement, to see what that was like. Do you know anything about settlements?”
“Nothing at all,” said Montague.