"There mightn't be," said Mary, "if--" and she broke into a peal of embarrassed laughter.
"I was thinking of that _dreadful_ picture."
"I often think of it," said Mr. Langham, "and of the first time I saw it."
"Of course it didn't influence you," she said.
"But it did. And that day I forgot to eat any lunch. I am looking forward," he said, "to warm weather--I enjoy a swim as much as anybody."
"Why is it," said Mary, "that a girl is ashamed when it is her money that attracts a man, and proud when it is her face? Both are equally fortuitous; both are assets in a way--but of the two, it is the money alone which is really useful."
"It sounds convincing to a girl," mused Mr. Langham, "when a man says to her: 'I love you because of your beautiful blue eyes!' But it wouldn't sound in the least convincing if he said: 'I love you because of your beautiful green money!' I don't attempt to explain this. I am merely stating what appears to me to be a fact. But, as you say, money is, or should be, an asset of attraction."
"I suppose beauty is held in greater esteem," said Mary, "because it is more democratically bestowed. Money seems to beget hatred because it isn't."
"The French people," said Langham, "hated the nobility because of their wealth and luxury. To-day a common mechanic has more real luxuries at his disposal than poor Louis XVI had, but he hates the rich people who have more than he has--and so it will go on to the end of time."
"Will there always be rich people and poor people?"
"There will always be rich people, but some time they will learn to spend their money more beneficently, and then there won't be any really poor people. If the attic of your house were infected with dirt and vermin you couldn't sleep until it had been cleaned and disinfected. So, some day, rich men will feel about their neighbors; cities about their slums; and nations about other nations. I can imagine a future Uncle Sam saying to a future John Bull"--and he sunk his voice to a comically confidential whisper: "'Say, old man, I hear you're pressed for ready cash; now't just so happens I'm well fixed at the moment, and--oh, just among friends! Bother the interest!' What a spectacle this world is--it's like the old English schools that Dickens wrote out of existence--just bullying and hazing all around! Why, if a country was run on the most elementary principles of honesty and efficiency, the citizens of that country would never have occasion to say: 'Our taxes are almost unbearable.' They would be nudging each other in the streets and saying: 'My, that was a big dividend we got!'"