I can
tell you you know." He drew her closer, kissed her again, held her as he
would have held a child in a paroxysm, soothing her silently till it
could abate. Her vehemence had brought with it tears; she dried them as
she disengaged herself. The next moment, however, she resumed, attacking
him again: "For a public man she'd be the perfect companion. She's made
for public life--she's made to shine, to be concerned in great things,
to occupy a high position and to help him on. She'd back you up in
everything as she has backed you in this. Together there's nothing you
couldn't do. You can have the first house in England--yes, the very
first! What freedom _is_ there in being poor? How can you do anything
without money, and what money can you make for yourself--what money will
ever come to you? That's the crime--to throw away such an instrument of
power, such a blessed instrument of good."

"It isn't everything to be rich, mother," said Nick, looking at the
floor with a particular patience--that is with a provisional docility
and his hands in his pockets. "And it isn't so fearful to be poor."

"It's vile--it's abject. Don't I know?"

"Are you in such acute want?" he smiled.

"Ah don't make me explain what you've only to look at to see!" his
mother returned as if with a richness of allusion to dark elements in
her fate.

"Besides," he easily went on, "there's other money in the world than
Julia's. I might come by some of that."

"Do you mean Mr. Carteret's?" The question made him laugh as her feeble
reference five minutes before to the House of Lords had done. But she
pursued, too full of her idea to take account of such a poor substitute
for an answer: "Let me tell you one thing, for I've known Charles
Carteret much longer than you and I understand him better. There's
nothing you could do that would do you more good with him than to marry
Julia. I know the way he looks at things and I know exactly how that
would strike him. It would please him, it would charm him; it would be
the thing that would most prove to him that you're in earnest. You need,
you know, to do something of that sort," she said as for plain speaking.

"Haven't I come in for Harsh?" asked Nick.

"Oh he's very canny. He likes to see people rich. _Then_ he believes in
them--then he's likely to believe more. He's kind to you because you're
your father's son; but I'm sure your being poor takes just so much off."

"He can remedy that so easily," sai