“There is a song of Musset’s—­you know it, perhaps—­beginning ’Quand on perd, par triste occurrence’—­which he has set, to my mind, perfectly.  I want him to publish it.  If he does I must let you see it.”

Irene did not know the verses and made no remark.

“There are English men of business,” pursued Otway, “who would smile with pity at Moncharmont.  He is by no means their conception of the merchant.  Yet the world would be a vastly better place if its business were often in the hands of such men.  He will never make a large fortune, no; but he will never fall into poverty.  He sees commerce from the human point of view, not as the brutal pitiless struggle which justifies every form of ferocity and of low cunning.  I never knew him utter an ignoble thought about trade and money-making.  An English acquaintance asked me once, ’Is he a gentleman?’ I was obliged to laugh—­delicious contrast between what he meant by a gentleman and all I see in Moncharmont.”

“I picture him,” said Irene, smiling, “and I picture the person who made that inquiry.”

Piers flashed a look of gratitude.  He had, as yet, hardly glanced at her; he durst not; his ordeal was to be gone through as became a man.  Her voice, at moments, touched him to a sense of faintness; he saw her without turning his head; the wave of her dress beside him was like a perfume, was like music; part of him yielded, languished, part made splendid resistance.

“He is a lesson in civilisation.  If trade is not to put an end to human progress, it must be pursued in Moncharmont’s spirit.  It’s only returning to a better time; our man of business is a creation of our century, and as bad a thing as it has produced.  Commerce must be humanised once more.  We invented machinery, and it has enslaved us—­a rule of iron, the servile belief that money-making is an end in itself, to be attained by hard selfishness.”

He checked himself, laughed, and said something about the beauty of the lane along which they were walking.

“Don’t you think,” fell from Irene’s lips, “that Mr. John Jacks is a very human type of the man of business?”

“Indeed he is!” replied Piers, with spirit.  “An admirable type.”

“I have been told that he owed most of his success to his brothers, who are a different sort of men.”

“His wealth, perhaps.”

“Yes, there’s a difference,” said Irene, glancing at him.  “You may be successful without becoming wealthy; though not of course in the common opinion.  But what would have been the history of England these last fifty years, but for our men of iron selfishness?  Isn’t it a fact that only in this way could we have built up an Empire which ensures the civilisation of the world?”

Piers could not answer with his true thought, for he knew all that was implied in her suggestion of that view.  He bent his head and spoke very quietly.

“Some of our best men think so.”