“But don’t you hate the people that have them?” said Betty, again on her stool, chin in hand.

“No! it doesn’t seem to matter to me then what kind of people they are.  And I don’t so much want to take from them and give to the others.  I only want to be sure that the beauty, and the leisure, and the freshness are somewhere—­not lost out of the world.”

“How strange!—­in a life like yours—­that one should think so much of the ugliness of being poor—­more than of suffering or pain,” said Betty, musing.

“Well—­in some moods—­you do—­I do!” said Marcella; “and it is in those moods that I feel least resentful of wealth.  If I say to myself that the people who have all the beauty and the leisure are often selfish and cruel—­after all they die out of their houses and their parks, and their pictures, in time, like the shell-fish out of its shell.  The beauty and the grace which they created or inherited remain.  And why should one be envious of them personally?  They have had the best chances in the world and thrown them away—­are but poor animals at the end!  At any rate I can’t hate them—­they seem to have a function—­when I am moving about Drury Lane!” she added with a smile.

“But how can one help being ashamed?” said Lady Winterbourne, as her eyes wandered over her pretty room, and she felt herself driven somehow into playing devil’s advocate.

“No!  No!” said Marcella, eagerly, “don’t be ashamed!  As to the people who make beauty more beautiful—­who share it and give it—­I often feel as if I could say to them on my knees, Never, never be ashamed merely of being rich—­of living with beautiful things, and having time to enjoy them!  One might as well be ashamed of being strong rather than a cripple, or having two eyes rather than one!”

“Oh, but, my dear!” cried Lady Winterbourne, piteous and bewildered, “when one has all the beauty and the freedom—­and other people must die without any—­”

“Oh, I know, I know!” said Marcella, with a quick gesture of despair; “that’s what makes the world the world.  And one begins with thinking it can be changed—­that it must and shall be changed!—­that everybody could have wealth—­could have beauty and rest, and time to think, that is to say—­if things were different—­if one could get Socialism—­if one could beat down the capitalist—­if one could level down, and level up, till everybody had 200 l. a year.  One turns and fingers the puzzle all day long.  It seems so near coming right—­one guesses a hundred ways in which it might be done!  Then after a while one stumbles upon doubt—­one begins to see that it never will, never can come right—­not in any mechanical way of that sort—­that that isn’t what was meant!”