"You are talking something like the rector; only he enlists my sympathy more by speaking less severely--and he is more just too. He does not talk as if it were wicked to be better off than your neighbour; he only makes you feel the responsibility of it."
"To speak plainly, he dresses it up a little--gives it the clerical dash of sentiment. Besides, what is the good of stirring one here and there to give out of his abundance something of which he will never feel the loss, with the comfortable sense left behind that he or she has done something very big indeed. What one would strive for, rather, is to stir up the nation to its duties, to rouse Government to redress some of these glaring social grievances."
"Oh, pray keep yourself in hand! level your intellect down to mine!" cried May, with a burst of laughter. "As far as I follow you, you wish to lower my dress allowance by act of parliament. I sincerely trust you will fail. By the way you may set your mind at rest about my dressmaker; her bill is paid, and all my other outstanding accounts too. With your rather eccentric views about property, it will annoy you considerably to hear that I have had a fortune left me; so that I may not be in debt again for some considerable time."
"To her that hath," said Paul, with a glance at the elegantly clad figure. "It really seems to me as if you could not want it, and I need it so much."
"You!" echoed May. "For real inconsistency commend me to yourself!"
"I scarcely require it for my personal wants, but money is sorely needed to carry out my wishes for this village. As landlord, I feel myself responsible for many things that cannot be set right without it."
"But--but--mother always told me that Major Lessing was rich; and you are his heir."
"I can only assure you that I am poor," said Paul, simply. "Now, I hope, I have proved satisfactorily to you that circumstances, tastes, and opinions differing so greatly between us, make anything like friendship impossible. Whenever we come across each other we quarrel; we can't help it."
May flushed to the roots of her hair. "Thank you," she said haughtily. "It is kind of you to put it so clearly. I simply tried to put things on a kinder footing, as we are your tenants and your neighbours, but I see I have made a mistake. It surprises me to find you so painfully prejudiced. Good-bye. I've kept you too long from your one friend."