Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/47

36 doubtful and embarrassed, and his tone was half appealing, half imperious.

"Well, there is one thing, I want more money."

"You always want money!"

There was a weary scorn in her words, the scorn of a proud woman forced into companionship with what has sunk too utterly in her eyes for any other feeling save that only of an almost compassionate contempt.

Phaulcon laughed; not because he was impervious to the contempt, but because the temper of the man was really lightly and idly insouciant, careless as any butterfly, except in hate. "Of course! who doesn't? Is there anything money won't buy, from a woman's love to a priest's absolution? Tell me that! A man without money is like a man born into the world without his eyes or his legs; he exists, he doesn't live: he hibernates miserably, he never knows what it is to enjoy! Who are the kings of the earth? The Hopes, the Pereires, the Rothschilds, the Barings. War could not be begun, imperial crowns would never come out of pawn, nations would collapse in bankruptcies, thrones would crash down to the dust, and nobles turn crossing-sweepers, without them. Who rule Europe, kings, ministers, cabinets, troops? Faugh!