This is very crude and very cynical, but unfortunately
it is true.
We always cringe to money; which is humiliating.
And the sun always rises at an hour when sensible
people are abed and have not the least need for its
services; which is foolish. And what you and I,
my dear madam, are to do about rectifying either one
of these vexatious circumstances, I am sure I don’t
know.
We can, at least, be honest. Let us, then, console
ourselves at will with moral observations concerning
the number of pockets in a shroud and the difficulty
of a rich man’s entering into the kingdom of
Heaven; but with an humble and reverent heart, let
us admit that, in the world we know, money rules.
Its presence awes us. And if we are quite candid
we must concede that we very unfeignedly envy and admire
the rich; we must grant that money confers a certain
distinction on a man, be he the veriest ass that ever
heehawed a platitude, and that we cannot but treat
him accordingly, you and I.
You are friendly, of course, with your poor cousins;
you are delighted to have them drop in to dinner,
and liberal enough with the claret when they do; but
when the magnate comes, there is a magnum of champagne,
and an extra lamp in the drawing-room, and—I
blush to write it—a far more agreeable
hostess at the head of the table. Dives is such
good company, you see. And speaking for my own
sex, I defy any honest fellow to lay his hand upon
his waistcoat and swear that it doesn’t give
him a distinct thrill of pleasure to be seen in public
with a millionaire. Daily we truckle in the Eagle’s
shadow—the shadow that lay so heavily across
Selwoode. With the Eagle himself and with the
Eagle’s work in the world—the grim,
implacable, ruthless work that hourly he goes about—our
little comedy has naught to do; Schlemihl-like, we
deal but in shadows. Even the shadow of the Eagle
is a terrible thing—a shadow that, as Felix
Kennaston has told you, chills faith, and charity,
and independence, and kindliness, and truth, and—alas—even
common honesty.
But this is both cynical and digressive.
Dr. Jeal, better than his word, had Billy Woods out
of bed in five days. To Billy they were very
long and very dreary days, and to Margaret very long
and penitential ones. But Colonel Hugonin enjoyed
them thoroughly; for, as he feelingly and frequently
observed, it is an immense consolation to any man
to reflect that his home no longer contains “more
damn’ foolishness to the square inch than any
other house in the United States.”
On all sides they sought for Cock-eye Flinks.
But they never found him, and to this day they have
never found him. The Fates having played their
pawn, swept it from the board, and Cock-eye Flinks
disappeared in Clotho’s capacious pocket.
All this time the young people saw nothing of one
another. On this point Jeal was adamantean.
