"I mean men like that Mr.
Wingrave, the American who has come to England to spend all his
millions. I have just been reading about him," she added, pointing to
an illustrated paper on the table. "They say that his income is too
vast to be put into figures which would sound reasonable; that he has
estates and shooting properties, and a yacht which he has never yet
even seen. And yet he will not give one penny away. He gives nothing
to the hospitals, nothing to the poor. He spends his money on himself,
and himself alone!"
Wingrave smiled grimly.
"I am not prepared to defend my namesake," he said; "but every man has
a right to do what he likes with his own, hasn't he? And as for
hospitals, Mr. Wingrave probably thinks, like a good many more, that
they should be state endowed. People could make use of them, then,
without loss of self respect."
She shook her head a little doubtfully.
"I can't argue about it yet," she said, "because I haven't thought
about it long enough. But I know if I had all the money this man has,
I couldn't be happy to spend thousands and thousands upon myself while
there were people almost starving in the same city."
"You are a sentimentalist, you see," he remarked, "and you have not
studied the laws on which society is based. Tell me, how does Mrs.
Tresfarwin like London?"
Juliet laughed merrily.
"Isn't it amusing?" she declared. "She loves it! She grumbles at the
milk, and we have the butter from Tredowen.
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