“I know Winnie, and I love her. You think she’s a doll and a fool. She was. But I have made her into a woman of flesh and blood. She’s a real woman now and she loathes all the shams and the shallowness of Society.”
“She told you that, did she?” answered the Canon. “Upon my word, we Sprattes have a keen sense of humour.”
Bertram sprang to his feet and crossed over to the Canon.
“You think she cares for carriages and fine clothes. Her life was a mockery. She didn’t know what life was. She had no aspirations, no ideals. Of course she wasted herself on the frivolities of a foolish world. Thank God, she knows now how narrow this little circle is of idle, selfish people. She wants to work, she wants to labour with her fellow-men, shoulder to shoulder, fighting the good fight.”
“And do you think, my dear young man, that it would ever have occurred to Winnie that the world was hollow and foolish, if you had a wart on the tip of your nose, or a squint in your eye? Upon my soul, you’re very unsophisticated.”
“You believe that all people are bad.”
“On the contrary, I’m so charitable as to think them merely foolish,” said Canon Spratte, with an acid smile of amusement.
“Have you only sneers for the new life that fills your daughter’s eyes? She’s a different creature now. Oh, I believe in her, thank God, as she believes in me! She’s ready to take the journey with me only by her side. Ah, I know she loves me. You think I’m only a fortune-hunter; we don’t want your money, we shouldn’t know what to do with it.”
“And you’re quite content that for you she should sacrifice everything?”
“She flings away painted husks, dross, tinsel,” cried Bertram, vehemently. “She gains the whole world.”