“I can’t quite do that, yet at least,” said George. “Nobody but all of you has got further than acquaintance yet.” “But of course you are very particular about those acquaintances?” Decidedly Ella was in her most disagreeable mood to-night. “I do my best,” said he briefly. “And of course it’s all nonsense about the smoking-parties, and Captain Pascoe being there nearly every night.” George felt a shock. Mentioned in that manner, the evening calls of his friends, the admittance among the callers of a man whom he cordially disliked but whom he had no grounds strong enough for insulting, were heavy accusations. “I see my own friends as freely as I did when I was a bachelor, certainly,” said he, cold in his turn. “Nouna is too sensible to prevent that. As for Captain Pascoe, he has not been in our house more than three times at the outside.” Ella dared not say more on this subject, even if she had had more to say. She looked out at the swallows, flying low over the young trees of the plantation on the other side of the road, and asked musingly: “Do you like being rich?” “It’s not bad for a change,” answered George philosophically. “I hate it. I always feel with papa, so glad to shake off the big house and the footmen and the feeling that the great human world is surging round without touching you, and to get back to my tiny room where I can almost water the plants in my window without coming in at the door, and to the farm and my pensioners that I take tracts to. They never read them, but it is quite as much a matter of etiquette to leave them as it is to make calls in town, and they are dreadfully insulted if I forget.” “But you’ve always been well off?” “Yes, but that doesn’t make any difference. Money rolls together in such ugly fashions. Look at mamma’s. When her father made his millions, thousands of people were ruined. Well, you know, that’s horrible!” “They chose to speculate, remember. They must have known no lottery has all prizes.” “It’s hideous to think of, all the same. On the other hand, if your property descends to you by a long line of greedy land-scrapers, you know it has grown in value because other people’s has decreased, and that your tenants have to pinch themselves to make up your handsome rent-roll. And you haven’t even done the wretched work for it that the speculator has done to get his!” “It’s lucky all capitalists are not so soft-hearted, or there’d be an end to enterprise, which by the by is brother to your god Ambition.” “Oh, I’m not making preparations for re-organising the universe, only lifting up a little weak mew of discontent with my corner of it. And your wife’s money: is it the result of a robbery of recent date, like ours, or plunder that has been rolling down for generations, like Lord Florencecourt’s?”