_He flashes into this exclamation of almost broken-hearted affection._ MR. VOYSEY _looks at his son for a moment and his lip quivers. Then he steels himself._ MR. VOYSEY. Thank you! I have saved myself quite satisfactorily for the last thirty years, and you must please believe that by this time I know my own business best. EDWARD. [_hopelessly._] Let the money come some other way. How is your own income regulated? MR. VOYSEY. I have a bank balance and a cheque book, haven't I? I spend what I think well to spend. What's the use of earmarking this or that as my own? You say none of it is my own. I might say it's all my own. I think I've earned it. EDWARD. [_anger coming on him._] That's what I can't forgive. If you'd lived poor . . if you'd really devoted your skill to your clients' good and not to your aggrandisement . . then, even though things were only as they are now, I could have been proud of you. But, Father, own the truth to me, at least . . that's my due from you, considering how I'm placed by all you've done. Didn't you simply seize this opportunity as a means to your own end, to your own enriching? MR. VOYSEY. [_with a sledge hammer irony._] Certainly. I sat that morning in my father's office, studying the helmet of the policeman in the street below, and thinking what a glorious path I had happened on to wealth and honour and renown. [_Then he begins to bully_ EDWARD _in the kindliest way._] My dear boy, you evidently haven't begun to grasp the A. B. C. of my position. What has carried me to victory? The confidence of my clients. What has earned that confidence? A decent life, my integrity, my brains? No, my reputation for wealth . . that, and nothing else. Business now-a-days is run on the lines of the confidence trick. What makes old George Booth so glad to trust me with every penny he possesses? Not affection . . he's never cared for anything in his life but his collection of prints. No; he imagines that I have as big a stake in the country, as he calls it, as he has and he's perfectly happy. EDWARD. [_stupefied, helpless._] So he's involved! MR. VOYSEY. Of course he's involved, and he's always after high interest too . . it's little one makes out of him. But there's a further question here, Edward. Should I have had confidence in myself, if I'd remained a poor man? No, I should not. You must either be the master of money or its servant. And if one is not opulent in one's daily life one loses that wonderful . . financier's touch. One must be confident oneself . . and I saw from the first that I must inspire confidence. My whole public and private life has tended to that. All my surroundings . . you and your brothers and sisters that I have brought into, and up, and put out in the world so worthily . . you in your turn inspire confidence. EDWARD. Not our worth, not our abilities, nor our virtues, but the fact that we travel first class and ride in hansoms.