And yet, somehow or other, he occasionally found himself indirectly soliciting the advice of this gentle, clear-eyed and clear-headed young person, more especially as regarded the difficulties surrounding Sheila; and sometimes a chance remark of hers, uttered in a timid or careless or even mocking fashion, would astonish him by the rapid light it threw on these dark troubles. On this evening--the last evening they were spending in London--it was his own affairs which he proposed to mention to Mrs. Lorraine, and he had no more hesitation in doing so than if she had been his oldest friend. He wanted to ask her what he should do about the money that Mrs. Lavender had left him; and he intended to be a good deal more frank with Mrs. Lorraine than with any of the others to whom he had spoken about the matter. For he was well aware that Mrs. Lavender had at first resolved that he should have at least a considerable portion of her wealth, or why should she have asked him how he would like to be a rich man?
"I do not think," said Mrs. Lorraine quietly, "that there is any use in your asking me what you should do, for I know what you will do, whether it accords with any one's opinion or no. And yet you would find a great advantage in having money."
"Oh, I know that," he said readily. "I should like to be rich beyond anything that ever happened in a drama; and I should take my chance of all the evil influences that money is supposed to exert. Do you know, I think you rich people are very unfairly treated."
"But we are not rich," said Mrs. Kavanagh, passing at the time. "Cecilia and I find ourselves very poor sometimes."
"But I quite agree with Mr. Ingram, mamma," said Cecilia--as if any one had had the courage to disagree with Mr. Ingram!--"rich people are shamefully ill-treated. If you go to a theatre, now, you find that all the virtues are on the side of the poor, and if there are a few vices, you get a thousand excuses for them. No one takes account of the temptations of the rich. You have people educated from their infancy to imagine that the whole world was made for them, every wish they have gratified, every day showing them people dependent on them and grateful for favors; and no allowance is made for such a temptation to become haughty, self-willed and overbearing. But of course it stands to reason that the rich never have justice done them in plays and stories, for the people who write are poor."