"Oh, but she is beautiful--she is wonderful."
And then, not heeding the connotation, he exclaimed, as Persis emerged from the eclipsing shrubbery:
"There's only one woman can ride like that."
Tait stared again, and now he made her out. Instantly, with the exultance one feels over a secret some one else lets slip, he cried: "Oho, my boy, that's the woman who keeps you here! Mrs. Neff hinted at it, but I wouldn't believe it till I had it from you." His gloating sank again to fatherly solicitude as he pleaded earnestly: "For God's sake, boy, don't love her! Of all women don't love Persis Cabot! She's the most heartless of them all."
Forbes was tempted to ask him how he could accept a reputation as a proof of character, but he was still calm enough to pay Tait's white hair the homage of silence. Tait, feeling the import of his silence, grew uneasy, and demanded:
"Harvey, it's not possible that you love her--actually love her?"
"No, but I've known her well. Do you know her?"
"Yes, and I knew her mother. Once I thought I loved her mother. But I had less money--when I proposed to her than I have now--Heaven be praised!"
"Yes, for she might have married me. Harvey, a certain part of the society here is like a big aquarium. The people are all fish--the men goldfish, the women catfish. Their blood is cold--Lord, how cold! Just look at their eyes! Hard eyes, hard hearts. They despise sincerity; they laugh at honest emotion."
"But Persis has soft eyes," Forbes broke in, "and a warm heart."
"Has she?" Tait sighed, feeling that the siren had already sung Forbes' wits away. "Well, maybe, in the moonlight. But she'll soon freeze. Now, if she had been born poor--"
"But, Senator, the rich can't all be bad," Forbes complained.
"The rich are no worse than anybody else as a class," said Tait. "My father and mother were rich, and they were as good and sweet and simple as any poor people that ever lived. They were like Romeo and Juliet. The Montagues and Capulets were both rich. But if young Mr. Montague had been poor we might have had a different story. Or, if you had only gone into finance."
"It's too late for me to dream of money. I'm a soldier."
"And it's too late for you to dream of Persis Cabot, not merely because she's wealthy. One class is as good as another; it's the set that counts. And she gallops with the rich runaways. Their life is one long stampede. There are rich women who toil like slaves for the poor, who lead lives of earnestness and purity, who respond to every appeal, and make organized charity possible. But there are others, rich and poor, that never think of anybody but themselves, never have real pity except for themselves, never toil or fret except for their own amusement. And those people gravitate together into colonies and cliques. Don't run with that pack, Harvey."