Part Two Wealth Chapter 5

"It's not so easy as that," Susan said.

"How do you mean that it's not easy? You can't care for him?"

"Care for him!" Susan's scornful voice was broken by tears. "Of course I don't care for him!" she said. "But--can't you see? If I displease them, if I refuse to do this, that they've all thought out evidently, and planned, I'll have to go back to my aunt's!"

Stephen Bocqueraz, his hands in his coat-pockets, stood silently watching her.

"And fancy what it would mean to Auntie," Susan said, beginning to pace the floor in agony of spirit. "Comfort for the rest of her life! And everything for the girls! I would do anything else in the world," she said distressfully, "for one tenth the money, for one twentieth of it! And I believe he would be kind to me, and he SAYS he is positively going to stop--and it isn't as if you and I--you and-I---" she stopped short, childishly.

"Of course you would be extremely rich," Stephen said quietly.

"Oh, rich--rich--rich!" Susan pressed her locked hands to her heart with a desperate gesture. "Sometimes I think we are all crazy, to make money so important!" she went on passionately. "What good did it ever bring anyone! Why aren't we taught when we're little that it doesn't count, that it's only a side-issue! I've seen more horrors in the past year-and-a-half than I ever did in my life before;-- disease and lying and cruelty, all covered up with a layer of flowers and rich food and handsome presents! Nobody enjoys anything; even wedding-presents are only a little more and a little better than the things a girl has had all her life; even children don't count; one can't get NEAR them! Stephen," Susan laid her hand upon his arm, "I've seen the horribly poor side of life,--the poverty that is worse than want, because it's hopeless,--and now I see the rich side, and I don't wonder any longer that sometimes people take violent means to get away from it!"